BRAINSTORM is a reading series organized by grad students from the Queens College MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation. Tonight, they present work by legendary (think Rashomon) Japanese writer Akutagawa in a new translation by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda and Allison Markin Powell. Joining them are William Pagdatoon and Leor Stylar, whose works are thoroughly unlike, and yet, aligned in risk-taking strategies.
PETE’S CANDY STORE 709 Lorimer Street The Williamsburg section of Brooklyn =>> G to Nassau or L/G to Metropolitan-Lorimer
If you enjoyed the Barbie movie, you’ll love this piece by our own Nicole Cooley about Dream Houses and miniatures that’s just come out in The Guardian!
We are so excited about the opening of the Louis Armstrong House Museum‘s new Louis Armstrong Center, which will house a 60,000-piece archive across the street from where Armstrong himself lived, in Corona, Queens.
We’re very familiar with this archive over at QC: We’ve been partnering with the LAHM for over a decade on a fellowship that allows our MFA in Creative Writing students to gain access to these materials so that they can create new writing projects based on their new insights into Armstrong’s life.
Ultimately, we’re so happy that everyone can see more of these items–homemade tape recordings, scrapbook photo collages, pages and pages of notes. Louis Armstrong is an American icon, and now the people can spend even more time with Louis!
We’re happy this Center is getting the national attention it deserves! If you want to read more (or listen) about this news, you can check out the story on NPR:
Eugene Lim is the author of the four novels Fog & Car(2008), The Strangers(2013), Dear Cyborgs (2017), Search History (2021) and the chapbook “The Basement Food Court of Forking Paths” (2020). His writings have appeared in such journals as The New Yorker, The Believer, Granta, Fence. Honors include a book award from the Association of Asian American Studies and Big Other’s 2021 Award for Fiction. He runs Ellipsis Press, known for publishing innovative fiction.
The Queens College MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation is opening again for applications in creative nonfiction between April 5th and May 5th.
Don Hamerman Photos
Located in the most culturally and linguistically diverse county in the nation, the Queens College MFA program attracts students dedicated to crossing boundaries in genre, craft, and language. Queens College offers tracks in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and literary translation. Students exercise a role in building their writing community through residencies at the Louis Armstrong House Museum and the program’s national literary journal, Armstrong Literary.
Queens College also partners with Cave Canem, Hanging Loose Press, Kundiman, and the college’s ESL program. Teaching opportunities and scholarships are available.
All students study multiple genres and work with award-winning faculty dedicated to their success. In addition to a curricular commitment to excellence in craft, the program emphasizes professional opportunities for students in publishing, arts organizations, and education.
The Queens College MFA Program is so happy to announce the upcoming reading by poet and memoirist Brian Turner, on April 19, 7pm, in the Godwin-Ternbach Museum. The reading will be followed by a conversation facilitated by MFA poetry alum Jasper Lo, as well as a reception and book signing.
Brian Turner is an award-winning writer and US Army veteran and his reading is timed to coincide with not only National Poetry Month but also the twentieth anniversary of the war in Iraq. It promises to be an amazing event!
We hope to see you there!
Please note: guests to QC will be required to show proof of vaccination and ID to enter campus
Brian Turner is a poet and memoirist who served seven years in the US Army. He is the author of two poetry collections—Phantom Noise and Here, Bullet—which won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award, the New York Times “Editor’s Choice” selection, the 2006 PEN Center USA “Best in the West” award, the 2007 Poets Prize, and others.
In addition to his poetry, he is the editor of the anthology The Kiss (2018), a diverse anthology of essays, stories, poems, and graphic memoirs. Turner’s work has been published in National Geographic, The New York Times, Poetry Daily, Harper’s Magazine, and other fine journals. Turner has been awarded a United States Artists Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, and more. His recent memoir, My Life as a Foreign Country, has been called “achingly, disturbingly, shockingly beautiful.”
Please join us for our first in-person event of the semester, as we celebrate MFA alum Ellis Ging winning the Loose Translations Prize from Hanging Loose Press! Rather than host a huge, formal reading, we wanted MFA students and members of literary community to be able to sit down with Ging and ask him about his work translating Alfonso Sastre’s Cells of Terror, so this event will take the form of an intimate salon, where Ellis will read and then engage us all in Translation Terror (and joy)!
Details about the book and the author are below. All guests from outside of the CUNY community will have to show ID and proof of vaccination at the main security gate on Kissena Blvd. before entering campus.
Hope to see you there!
————
The Cells of Terror, written by Alfonso Sastre and translated by Ellis Ging, consists of twenty-four stories, all very short, scientifically formulated about the cells that are the origin of terror—which is to say, about a few of the key situations that sow in the hearts of human beings the monstrous seed of terror. As told by a variety of narrators whose perspective is both unflinching and darkly humorous, these tales encompass the visceral, the metaphysical, and the political in horror.
Alfonso Sastre (1926–2021) was a Spanish author best known as a Generation of ’50 playwright, though he also wrote prose, poetry, essays, and screenplays. His work received numerous awards, including the Premio Nacional de Teatro (for La taberna fantástica) and the Premio Nacional de Literatura Dramática (for Jenofa Juncal). Sastre is also known for his leftist political activism: his opposition to the dictatorship of Francisco Franco and support of Basque independence.
Ellis Ging is a librarian and translator based in New York with a particular interest in the horror genre. He has an MFA in Literary Translation as well as an MLS from Queens College. He is winner of the 2022 Loose Translation Prize from Hanging Loose Books.
Our own Kimiko Hahn was featured yesterday in a segment for PBS NewsHour about the power of poetry! You can check it out here:
Kimiko Hahn on PBS NewsHour
This is exactly what QC MFA brings to the table!
Congratulations Kimiko!
Need help with the Commons?
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:
