Interview with Amanda Earl : Volodymyr Bilyk, Zouch Magazine

Amanda Earl is interviewed by Volodymyr Bilyk for Zouch Magazine, in which she discusses interviews, creativity and the art of writing.

Read This, Then That: Amanda Earl's Kiki and Sarah Bernstein's Now Comes the Lightning

Amanda Earl's Kiki (2014) is recommended as a literary pairing by All Lit Up! See the original post here.









 

Read This, Then That: Ladies of Paris

 January 20, 2016 by Tan Light

Read This: Kiki by Amanda Earl (Chaudiere Books)

Then That: Now Comes the Lightning by Sarah Bernstein (Pedlar Press)

When I say 1930s French Cabaret, you probably think of Edith Piaf. But there were many women who came before Edith. In this edition of Read This, Then That, we’re looking at two poetry collections that provide a glimpse into life in Montmartre and Montparnasse, the nuclei of the major cultural and artistic revivals taking place in France at the time of the Great War.

Each collection takes as its subject a woman who lived in Paris circa the 1920s and 30s, who was central to a particular scene. In Kiki, we learn about the life and times of Alice Ernestine Prin, the Queen of Montparnasse. Kiki performed in cabarets, made art, posed nude, was incarcerated, starred in avant-garde silent films, modeled for her partner, Man Ray, and other artists.

Now Comes the Lightning is set in the streets of Montmartre, and tells the story of Marguerite Boulc'h, who later became known as Fréhel. Despite being one of Europe's most sought after performers, both as a singer and an actress, her destructive addictions led to her dropping out of sight for years at a time.

Both of these collections show how these women navigated a social and economic landscape that was not always friendly to single, independent women. Both had difficult family circumstances to overcome, and later, failed romantic relationships. Yet we also see a glimpse of the ways women worked together to support and safe guard each other in the world of cabarets and jazz clubs. We also get to see early 20th century Paris in detail. Sadly, both Kiki and Fréhel suffered from addiction and alcoholism, which ultimately lead each to their deaths in the early 1950s.

I recommend this pair of poetry collections to Francophiles and independent women from coast-to-coast.

Monty Reid w/ Vivian Vavassis + Sneha Madhavan-Reese at The Railroad Reading Series, February 7, 2016; Ottawa

fwd: Feb 12-13, 2016: WHERE NEXT?: Creative Writing, Narrative, Film and Contemporary Art‏ (Calgary)

February 12-13, 2016: TICKETS NOW AVAILABLE!

WHERE NEXT?: Creative Writing, Narrative, Film and Contemporary Art

Alberta College of Art + Design

https://acad.ca/where-next-creative-writing-narrative-film-and-contemporary-art

https://derekbeaulieu.wordpress.com/2015/12/24/where-next-creative-writing-narrative-film-and-contemporary-art/

A two day symposium discussing writing and text-art in a trans-media environment. Featuring discussions and performances by nationally and internationally renowned speakers on the role of creative writing, narrative and “story-telling” in visual and digital art & craft, performance, screen-writing and pedagogy.

Tickets are now available for $80 regular / $50 student (including all panels, keynotes and meals):
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2471324
(student discount available by entering the code ACADCreativeWriter)

"Where Next?” features nationally and internationally-recognized artists, Calgarian teachers and practicioners, ACAD staff and students — all focused on creative writing and radical pedagogy. Join us for two days of cutting-edge conversation and performance on the role of creative writing within an arts discourse and how writing overlaps teaching and learning.

Co-ordinated by Calgary’s 2014-2016 Poet Laureate, and ACAD Instructor, Derek Beaulieu.

Keynote Presentations
Jason Edward Lewis (Montreal, QC): (Montreal, QC): Concordia University Research Chair in Computational Media and the Indigenous Future Imaginary. Lewis is the director of the Initiative for Indigenous Futures and co-director of the Skins Workshops on Aboriginal Storytelling and Video Game Design, as well as the winner of the inaugural Robert Coover Award for Electronic Literature for The P.o.E.M.M. Cycle.

Francesca Capone (Portland, OR, USA) is a visual artist who works with interdisciplinary practices. She is currently exhibiting at LUMA/Westbau, The Last Brucennial, The Gelman Gallery at the RISD Museum, Publication Studio Hudson and The Granoff Center at Brown University. She is the author of Weaving Language: Writing in Threads.

Liz Worth (Toronto, ON): Worth’s first book was the first in-depth account of the history of Toronto’s punk music scene entitled Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond, which created a renewed interest in preserving the history of Canadian punk. Her most recent collection is No Work Finished Here: Rewriting Andy Warhol, a poetic response to Andy Warhol’s novel a: a novel. Worth is also the author of Amphetamine Heart and PostApoc.

Performance
Tamara Himmelspach

Panelists
Nick Sousanis
Ashok Mathur
Cheryl Foggo
Larissa Lai
Devyani Saltzman
Sarah Grodecki
Natali Rodrigues
Riley Rossmo
Silas Kaufman
Christian Bok
Joe Hospodarec
Victoria Braun
Natalie Lauchlan
Jen Mizuik
Wendy Hill-Tout
Heather Huston
Alex Link
Naoko Masuda
Andrew Wreggitt

For more information, contact:

derek beaulieu
derek@housepress.ca
www.derekbeaulieu.wordpress.com

rob mclennan's "publishing tips," The Malahat Review

rob mclennan has a new essay posted as part of The Malahat Review's "Publishing Tips" series.

chaudiere on the radio : N.W. Lea and Jennifer Londry

This week you can hear two different Chaudiere authors via two separate radio shows: N.W. Lea will be part of CKCU's Literary Landscape (Ottawa) today at 6:30pm, and Jennifer Londry's Kingston launch will air as part of "Finding A Voice" on CFRC (Kingston) on Friday, between 4-6pm.