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.

Writers at Queens is proud to present a reading by Alaya Dawn Johnson. Johnson is this year’s visiting faculty at the Queens College MFA Program and, fresh off her win of Ursula K. Le Guin Award, will be reading from her impressive body of work.

After the reading, Johnson will join in a conversation with the QC community led by MFA alum Megan Pindling, which will be followed by a reception with refreshments and books for sale.

We hope you take the chance to meet and greet this award-winning author! Admission is free to all, and will also be streamed over Zoom, via the URL below. We hope to see you there!

September 30th at 7PM
Queens College
Choral Room 264, Aaron Copland School of Music
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81060471449?pwd=nkqiiFe3dlrDeuU4KBYz1ERqo53aBR.1

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BIO:

Alaya Dawn Johnson is an award-winning author of speculative fiction for adults and young adults. Her most recent adult novel, Trouble the Saints, was the recipient of the World Fantasy Award for best novel. Her short story collection, Reconstruction, was published by Small Beer Press in January 2021. Her latest YA novel, The Library of Broken Worlds, is a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin award. She is current a Visiting Professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation at CUNY Queens College.

When: August 17, 2024
Where: 316 Ten Eyck St, Brooklyn, NY

Small Press Flea (SPF) is back—and at a new location. Join us at Amant’s campus for BOMB’s fair featuring your favorite local publishers and magazines.

BOMB’s Small Press Flea is a day celebrating independent publishers and the small press community.

Rain or shine, unless it’s pouring, 10AM–4PM. We’ll see you there.

Participating publishers:

3 Hole Press, 53rd State Press, 8-Ball, A Public Space, Anarchist Review of Books, Archipelago Books, Autonomedia, The Baffler, Belladonna*, Birds, LLC, Black Sun Lit / Vestiges, Common Notions, Daba, The Feminist Press, Hanging Loose, Inpatient Press, McPherson & Company, n+1, Nightboat, OR Books, Pioneer Works, Poets & Traitors Press, Radix Media, Secret Riso Club, Seven Stories Press, Song Cave, Ugly Duckling Presse, Verso Books, Wendy’s Subway, Winter Editions, Wonder, World Poetry, Zone Books
 

RSVP

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!

The first Powerhouse Arts Community Day will feature hands-on workshops, demonstrations, screenings, and conversations with PHA Print, Ceramics, and Public Art shops, as well as partner organizations, artists, and educators. Textile Arts Center, Reel Works, Beam Center, Center For Urban Pedagogy, Makeville Studio, UrbanGlass, ESPO’s Art World, The Alpha Workshops, NYC Resistor, Craftspring, Street Lab, MGC Community Print Studio, and The People’s Creative Institute will all be on site.

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!