Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Best Year in Music: 1994
Tuesday, Nov 19, 2024 from 8-10pm
L.I.C. Bar (Carriage House) 45-58 Vernon Blvd, L.I.C., NYC 11101

Literature is coming back to LIC Bar, but with a twist: it’s a celebration of music alongside words.

MFA alum Catherina LaSota will will tinker on her Fender Mustang while hosting Emily Raboteau, Brian Gresko, & Nicole Haroutunian, who will offer their reflections on the music of 1994 (considered by many to be the greatest single year of music for all time) along with some brand-new writing.

I think the bigger question is whether this is a reunion of LaSota’s reading series, or just an encore from those days–founded in 2015, LIC Reading Series quickly became one of the literary standouts in the borough of Queens, along with the rise of Newtown Literary and some of the other reading series in Queens, such as Oh, Bernice! which was also run by QC MFA alums.

Queens may be more established now as a cultural destination in the hearts of New Yorkers, but we can always use the return of one of the best literary programs in the borough. (Just saying, Catherine, if you’re reading this!)

Catherine LaSota is just one of the amazing people who have come through the QC MFA Program. To hear about more, take a look at our Alumni Bookshelf:

Our Alumni

Fri, Nov 8, 2024
7:00 PM–8:30 PM
The Word is Change Bookstore
368 Tompkins Ave. (at Putnam), Brooklyn, NY 11216.
Free and open to all.

This Friday is the book launch of Anna Gréki’s Algeria, capital: Algiers. Translator Marine Cornuet (a QC MFA alum) will read alongside friends Radhika Singh (another QC MFA alum) who will read an excerpt of her science fiction manuscript that, like Gréki’s work, envisions liberated futures, and translator and poet David Iaconangelo (himself a current QC MFA student) who will read his translation of a poem by Miguel Hernández, one of Gréki’s inspirations. As Gréki puts it, “there will be joy / but we will forget nothing of what has happened.”

This is the kind of reading we here at the Queens College MFA Program are overjoyed to see because it shows how connected members of the QC MFA community can be. We find connections, and those connections make us better.

It’s not lost on us that the foreword is written by QC faculty member Ammiel Alcalay. This book is copublished by Lost & Found, CUNY’s innovative publishing initiative from the CUNY Graduate Center, which Ammiel edits. Algeria, capital: Algiers was written by Anna Gréki while in prison for her participation in the Algerian liberation struggle. This co-publication, shared between CUNY’s Lost & Found and worldwide with Pinsapo Press, makes this work available to English readers for the first time.

Working on cutting-edge and innovative translations with Lost & Found is just one of the many paths our students can take. To find out more of the options available to MFA students, please visit our Opportunities Page:

Opportunities

10 River Terrace New York, NY 10282 | Tuesday| October 29 | 7-9pm

In honor of our own Distinguished Professor Kimiko Hahn’s achievement as a poet, curator, and professor, Poet’s House will be holding a tribute reading at the end of the month featuring Tamiko Beyer, Mark Doty, and Roger Sedarat, and of course Kimiko Hahn herself.

Ever the innovator, Hahn’s latest book, The Ghost Forest (W.W. Norton, 2024), is not just a book of selected poems after a long and illustrious career, but a conversation–the book opens with forty-three new formally inventive poems and leading the reader back in time through selections from her ten previous volumes. This exchange between old and new work, between tradition and identity, transforms this book into a hybrid autobiography.

Hahn will read from the new poems in the collection, while guest poets will read selections of their favorite works by Hahn throughout the decades.

The reading will take place in Poets House’s Kray Hall, with a reception to follow.

As fans of poetry, we hope to see you there!

Queens College is committed to bringing writers and artists whose work speaks to the diverse community of our campus and our borough, which is why we are so proud to welcome cartoonist, writer, educator, and teaching artist Ivan Velez Jr. to campus on October 23rd.

Velez will be with us all day, visiting Professor Orchard’s contemporary Latinx Literature class and giving, not one, but two comics workshops for the QC community.

This event is co-sponsored by Writers at Queens, The English Department, The MFA in Creative Writing and Literary Translation, The MFA in Social Practice, and The Program in Latino Studies, and in celebration of Queens College Hispanic Heritage Month.

Bio:

Ivan Velez Jr. is a Latino American cartoonist, writer, educator, and teaching artist known for the creation of the groundbreaking comic book series Tales of the Closet, and for his pioneering work with Milestone Media, Marvel, and DC Comics. He’s currently an independent cartoonist, and a teaching artist in New York and forever toils on his Creative Capital Award-winning comics project The Ballad of Wham Kabam.

Schedule:

• 12:15-1:30pm “Monster of the Bronx: A Comics Workshop” (aimed at undergraduates), Klapper 672 (art classroom). Light refreshments served and books for sale.
• 1:30-2:30 Lunch
• 2:30-3:30 Break
• 3-4:30pm Visit Professor Bill Orchard’s class, English 360: A Queer Decade, Latinx Literature and Art Since 2015. King Hall 105.
• 4:30-5:00 Break
• 6:30-8pm “Drawing in Color: A Comics Workshop” (aimed at grad students in the MFA in writing, art, and MA program/several classes attending). Light refreshments and books for sale.