Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series of the Academy of American Poets featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. torrin a. greathouse is the guest editor of July.
This is fresh off the heels of Liv being selected as the Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day back at the end of June, so you know that Liv’s upcoming book, Fire in the Waiting Room (Game Over Books, 2025) is going to be much acclaimed.
MFA alum Jonathan Kravetz is having his book launch for his debut novel, How We Were Before, tomorrow night as part of the Half King Reading Series at Revision Lounge and Gallery tomorrow night!
If you’re free, head down to Avenue B tomorrow night!
Powerhouse Arts (PHA) is a not-for-profit organization committed to creative expression. Our purpose-built facility hosts an extended network of art and fabrication professionals and educators who work together to co-create and share artistic practices vital to the wellbeing of artists and the communities to which they belong.
This family friendly, all-ages event, taking place across three floors in our purpose-built art-making facility, will also include performances in our beautiful, light-filled Loft and Brooklyn College’s M.F.A. Students Thesis Exhibition in our Lobby. The event runs 1–5pm (doors close at 4:30pm) and is free with RSVP:
Walk away with a screenprint; bring your own shirt for an ESPO original; design a zine; make a button; paint with clay; learn soldering, glassblowing, marbling, community weaving, blockprinting; and much more!
McSweeney’s Publishing is a non-profit publishing house based in San Francisco, California, founded by author Dave Eggers in 1998. In addition to their daily humor website, McSweeney’s also publishes approximately ten titles a year, as well as the quarterly literary journal Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The bimonthly magazine The Believer, Illustoria (an art and storytelling magazine for six to 11-year olds), and, formerly, the legendary food journal Lucky Peach.
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency is considered one of the most preeminent publications for literary satire and humor, so a big congratulations to John is in order!
Go check it out now, and think about it every time you are near a 7-Eleven:
We just got some excellent news today: MFA student Richard Prins has been selected for The Best American Essays 2024. Richard, fresh off the heels of winning an NEA Fellowship, had his essay “Because: An Etiology” selected by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and acclaimed New York Times critic Wesley Morris.
The Best American series selects twenty essays out of thousands of nominations from literary journals which represent the best examples of the form published the previous year. Each year an established writer is brought in to act as judge for this prestigious anthology, but is presided over by series editor Kim Dana Kupperman at HarperCollins.
Students from our MFA Program in Creative Writing met up and held a reading in the thesis show for the QC MFA in Studio Art this past weekend, at Art Cake Gallery.
Our MFA candidates read in front of visual art installations and were treated to a sound installation by our graduating MFA student Julie Goodale.
Each year, the Queens College MFA Program partners with the Louis Armstrong House Museum to create a residency for two of our students. During this time, each writer conducts research on any aspect of the materials in the archives that relate to or revolve around Louis Armstrong’s larger-than-life story and magnificent musical career, with the intention of developing their own creative work. This reading, in Louis’ own garden, is the culmination of their work.
This year’s fellows Nina DalleyHood and Danielle Gutkovich will read from the creative works they developed in conjunction with their time in the archives. Afterward, a small reception will take place, featuring tours of Louis Armstrong’s actual house.
The Louis Armstrong House Museum (LAHM) sustains and promotes the cultural, historical, and humanitarian legacy of Louis Armstrong by preserving and interpreting Armstrong’s house and grounds, collecting and sharing archival materials that document Armstrong’s life and legacy, developing programs for the public that educate and inspire, and engaging with contemporary artists to create performances and new works.
Our very own Queens Review is having a launch party to celebrate its inaugural issue on Saturday, May 18th at 7PM in Kew & Willow Books. The launch will feature surprise guest readings by contributors and copies of the beautiful print edition (published simultaneously with the web edition) will be for sale, care of Kew & Willow Books.
Queens Review is a renewal of our program’s literary journal; it replaces our long-standing journal Armstrong Literary with a new vision to engage the multiplicity of culture and language, which is the essence of Queens, and connect those stories with the larger literary world. This issue is already yielding big results, with contributions by Cynthia Cruz, Diane Seuss, Stevie Edwards, and Rajiv Mohabir.
The Queens Reviewis a journal based in Queens: a borough with a multiplicity of cultures, languages, and experiences. Rather than present a single unified voice, we aim to express the varied landscapes around us as well as our own internal terrain. Founded by students and faculty of the Queens College MFA in Creative Writing and Literary Translation, The Queens Review is interested in work that pushes boundaries –– on an emotional level as well as a linguistic one –– poems, stories, translations, and fragments that scatter, ground, croon, and devastate.
Submissions for Issue 2 should open in the fall, but you can read the first issue on the QR website:
Our own Nicole Cooley’s new book of poems, Mother Water Ash, will be coming out this summer from LSU Press.
Mother Water Ash explores the personal grief of a mother’s sudden death alongside the environmental crises of the storms, fires, and floods that now dominate our world. Examining the landscapes of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, these poems ponder what it means to mourn in the face of ecological catastrophe, and traipse the terrains left by loss.
Sunday, May 5th, 2024 12pm – 5pm @ Oyate Group 276 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY 10451
MFA alum Nadir Misir will be taking part in an exhibition of Indo-Caribbean visual artists and writers, called Indian Arrival | Indentured Survival, at the Oyate Group headquarters in The Bronx. The exhibit, opening on May 5th, will feature art and literature by the descendants of indentured Indo-Caribbean peoples in celebration of Indian Arrival Month.
Oyate Group (derived from the Dakota language, meaning “people”) is a New York City-based nonprofit organization with the mission to alleviate poverty. The exhibition, curated by Indo-Guyanese artist Raqeebah Zaman, seeks to alleviate poverty through education and information.
Email us at commonshelpsite@gmail.com so we can respond to your questions and requests. Please email from your CUNY email address if possible. Or visit our help site for more information:
