Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts

Saturday, May 7, 2016

National Mental Health Awareness Month! (Sunday, May 8, 2016 to Saturday, May 14, 2016)

Happy Mental Health Awareness Month! 


Originally, I had planned on doing one blog post to showcase the areas not to miss events, however, there are SO MANY exciting events that I had to break them down by week! So here's the second weeks events for this month! I need two clones so I can attend all three events on Friday the 13th! 





NH MEDIA MAKERS – 8th Anniversary Meet-up for Creative Movers & Shakers


Sunday, May 8, 2016, from 10 a.m. to noon at Crackskulls
86 Main Street, Newmarket, NH 03857 https://nhmediamakers.wordpress.com/
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

The next NH Media Makers meet-up is very special. It's our 8th anniversary of monthly meet-ups. Join us for an inspiring meet-up as individuals, organizations, and businesses share their creative corners of the world. Plus door prizes! If you have something you want to contribute to the list of prizes, then bring it along! Share, connect, and get inspired! All are welcome. Hosted by John Herman of JohnHerman.org


Stories of Addiction


Sunday, May 8, 2016, from 7-9 p.m. at Seacoast Rep
125 Bow Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801  
www.seacoastrep.org
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

Stories of Addiction is co-produced by the Seacoast Rep and Jackie Burke in an attempt to help raise awareness about the heroin epidemic affecting the Seacoast. This event is free and open to the public. Donations will be collected during the event and all proceeds will benefit Ambers Place - a specialty recovery respite for those suffering from substance use disorder.

For the last few months, people from around the state have been submitting their personal stories of addiction. On Sunday May 8th, these people will either read their stories or have it read on their behalf.


Authors Night in Hampton Falls



Tuesday May 10, 2016, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Hampton Falls Free Library
7 Drinkwater Road, Hampton Falls, NH 03844  www.hamptonfallslibrary.org/
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

Panel of authors including Amy Ray, Shelby June, Rebecca Matthews, Marilynn Carter and more!

Adam Haslett Imagine Me Gone 




Tuesday, May 10, 2016 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. at RiverRun Bookstore
142 Fleet Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801 (603) 431-2100


About Imagine Me Gone:


"This touching chronicle of love and pain traces half a century in a family of five from the parents' engagement in 1963 through a father's and son's psychological torments and a final crisis. Something has happened to Michael in the opening pages, which are told in the voice of his brother, Alec. The next chapter is narrated by Margaret, the mother of Michael, 12, Celia, 10, and Alec, 7, and the wife of John, as they prepare for a vacation in Maine. Soon, a flashback reveals that shortly before John and Margaret were to wed, she learned of his periodic mental illness, a "sort of hibernation" in which "the mind closes down." She marries him anyway and comes to worry about the recurrence of his hibernations--which exacerbate their constant money problems--only to witness Michael bearing the awful legacy. Each chapter is told by one of the family's five voices, shifting the point of view on shared troubles, showing how they grow away from one another without losing touch, how they cope with the loss of John and the challenge of Michael. Haslett ( Union Atlantic, 2009, etc.) shapes these characters with such sympathy, detail, and skill that reading about them is akin to living among them. The portrait of Michael stands out: a clever, winning youth who becomes a kind of scholar of contemporary music with an empathy for black history and a wretched dependence on Klonopin and many other drugs to keep his anxiety at bay, to glimpse a "world unfettered by dread." As vivid and moving as the novel is, it's not because Haslett strives to surprise but because he's so mindful and expressive of how much precious life there is in both normalcy and anguish."  
-Kirkus Reviews 


"Imagine Me Gone is a beautiful, elegant, harrowing story of the dissonant music of family, a poignant book that makes you eager, once more, for the complications of the world."
-- Colum McCann, "National Book Award winner for "Let the Great World Spin" 



About Adam Haslett:


Adam Haslett is the author of the short story collection  You Are Not a Stranger Here, which was a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, and the novel  Union Atlantic, winner of the Lambda Literary Award and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize. His books have been translated into eighteen languages, and he has received the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, the PEN/Malamud Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations. He lives in New York City. 



Kid Lit Author to Author: Paul Durham



Wednesday May 11, 2016, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at The Portsmouth Public Library
175 Parrott Ave, Portsmouth, NH 03801 (603) 427-1540 www.cityofportsmouth.com/library
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

Learn from professionals as you navigate the jungle of book publishing in today’s market. It doesn’t matter where you are in your career, whether you’re in the thinking stage or already have been published, come share and learn! The free sessions for adults will begin with a presentation in the Levenson Room, followed by a question and answer period. A book signing, open to all ages, will be held in the lobby of the library immediately after.


Paul Durham is an award-winning author who specializes in writing books for young readers. His debut middle grade fantasy trilogy, The Luck Uglies (HarperCollins), has been published in the United States and abroad, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Norway, and Turkey. The Luck Uglies was named a 2015 ALA Notable Children's Book, the winner of the 2014 Cybils Award for Speculative Fiction, a New York Public Library Best Book for Reading and Sharing, an ALA Booklist Top Ten First Novel for Youth, and a Great Stone Face Nominee here in New Hampshire. His next series of middle grade novels will be published by Crown Books for Young Readers (Random House) beginning in 2018. Paul lives in Exeter, New Hampshire, where he writes in an abandoned chicken coop at the edge of a swamp. When he isn't writing, Paul regularly speaks at schools and book festivals around the country. Visit him on the web at pauldurhambooks.com.


Susan Strecker: NoWhere Girl




Thursday, May 12, 2016 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. at RiverRun Bookstore
142 Fleet Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801 (603) 431-2100
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

Please join Susan Strecker at RIVERRUN BOOKSTORE to celebrate the release of her second novel, NOWHERE GIRL. She will read an excerpt, answer questions & sign copies. Books will be available for puurchase.

Click below to read the first chapter and a summary of NOWHERE GIRL:

Click below to read Kirkus's review of NOWHERE GIRL:


Authors at the Inn



Friday, May 13, 2016, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at The Portsmouth Public Library
175 Parrott Ave, Portsmouth, NH 03801 (603) 427-1540 www.cityofportsmouth.com/library
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

Spend Friday the 13th with a night of History, Mystery, Legends & Lore from 6 - 9 pm. Readings, Raffle, Cash Bar, Appetizers, and book signings. Attending authors include: Amy Ray, K.D. Mason, Roxie Zwicker, Matthew Thomas, Cheryl Lassiter, Karen Raynes, Marcia Buber, Elly Becotte, Betty Moore, Elizabeth Akyroyd, Rev. Deborah Knowlton and Tom & Rosemarie Claire.


Banned in D.C. Talk & Slideshow



Friday, May 13, 2016, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Wrong Brain HQ Suite #459Washington Mills, Dover, NH 03820
$3-6 DOOR - NO ONE TURNED AWAY FOR LACK OF FUNDS

Concluding will be a book signing and copies of the new edition of Banned in DC will be for sale. ($25)”

“Cynthia Connolly will present a live slide show and talk on the Banned in DC book this April and May! Celebrate the 7th edition of legendary punk photo book with Cynthia Connolly, the book's publisher and one of its authors. There will be a talk and signing of the new edition of the book (with a new 8-page afterword). For the talk, Connolly will take you on a fast paced ride through her story of how and why she made "Banned in DC," illustrated by even more images of ephemera and photos that could not fit in the new afterword. Book signing will follow. Bring cash for your copy of "Banned in DC"!($25)


Station Note Reading Series



Friday, May 13, 2016, at 7:30 p.m. at 3S Artspace
319 Vaughan Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801  
www.3sarts.org
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

Come join us for the 4th installation of the Station Note Readings!

Same time Same place = 7:30 @ the gallery space of 3S Artspace

Besides the poets that we feel should see the light of your day, and vice-versa, for this particular month we'll be featuring a singer-songwriter that is something of a cult classic to the area, Guy Capecelatro III.

We hope that you'll join us for a night of supreme lyrics.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Emilia Phillips is the author of two poetry collections from the University of Akron Press, Groundspeed (2016) and Signaletics (2013), and three chapbooks. Her poems and lyric essays appear in Agni, Boston Review, Gulf Coast, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, Ninth Letter, Poetry, Ploughshares,StoryQuarterly, and elsewhere. She is the Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Centenary College of New Jersey.

“The insightful poems of Emilia Phillips’ Groundspeed juxtapose the frail and sensuous human body with the detached, projected image: television show, airplane entertainment system, YouTube, hospital monitor. “This is America,” she observes, “where no one witnesses and everyone watches.” When more and more of the horrors of contemporary life seem to reach us through electronic screens, Phillips examines how what we see and how we’re seeing it is redefining what it means to be human. That she does so with wit, compassion, and the eye of an exquisite cinematographer is a great gift to her readers. This is a timely and indispensable book.”

—Nicky Beer, author of The Octopus Game

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Duncan D. Campbell’s poems have recently appeared in The Crab Creek Review, Dukool, El Aleph Magazine, Tinderbox, and West Branch, and his work has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. Duncan's first chapbook, "Farmstead, Fire, Field" is available from ELJ Publications and a second, "Joysong Demarcation" is forthcoming from Tree Light Books. He lives in Vermont and makes his living as a youth programmer. In addition to all of this, he co-edits poetry for the multi-genre print journal Paper Nautilus.

Bucolic and brutal, Farmstead, Fire, Field moves us through landscapes of farmland and longing. These poems explore the complexity of the rural with keen observation and gorgeous images: sugar maples trickling “in unison / from metal taps, sap boiling / off as honeyed vapor,” the barns and houses all painted the same “cheap red, / because, of all things, it is rust / and blood that are plentiful.” Campbell’s collection moves beyond these quiet fields and into the tough honesty of universal human feeling, where sometimes the most tender act is not so straightforward, as in “Juvenilia,” with a speaker who is fearful of crayfish, and a girl who “maimed one crayfish / just so I could hold it.” —Lisa Mangini

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Guy picked up the guitar when he was 10 years old, allegedly “never getting any better at it” after 20-something years of playing. Growing up in Mamaroneck, New York, high school memories are “driving to the Bronx at lunch time for bags of crappy pot sprayed with hairspray to make it seem more bud-like.” He left that all behind in order to study philosophy at Plymouth State College. Quitting after two years, he traveled around the U.S., hitting 42 of the 50 states. He moved into Portsmouth in 1987, resuming his studies at UNH while enjoying public transportation (though he had a car) as it “provided a lot of fodder for stories because freaky people take the bus,” and graduated with his philosophy degree in 1989.

Between 1988 and the birth of his record label Two Ton Santa, Guy was in the bands Fancy Pants, Toast, Size of Guam, The Driveways, Up-a-Tree, Beekeeper, The Pants, Bob & Guy, and The Crotch Wax Menace, “and probably some others I’m forgetting as well,” he guesses.

Sometimes, it was a one- or two-gig existence for the band, sometimes not. Sometimes, it was just a matter of trading musicians in and out of bands because everyone was connected to the same people and places. He played with the country band The Buckets, now based out of San Francisco, and comprised of Ray Halliday, Mary Lou Lord and Carrie Bradley. He headed up Two Ton Santa (the band, not the label), a two bass, drums and guitar ensemble with one singer. Guy’s band Milk of Magnesia, “a psychedelic band, almost,” opened their first show at The Rat with a faux imbibing of magnesia milk, inspiring audience members to volunteer their own drinking efforts, only they swallowed the real thing, which Guy seems to think they enjoyed quite a bit.

Between all that, running Two Ton Santa Records, and cameos at The Friendly Toast, he continues to write his mostly abbreviated songs, which he lovingly describes as “little story vehicles” – “like a paper boat. Sliding into the ocean. On fire.”

Sunday, April 3, 2016

National Poetry Month


Happy National Poetry Month!

There are so many marvelous poetry events going on this month in Portsmouth and Kittery this month!

Here are my recommendations for events you don't want to miss:


The Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program Annual Gala Poetry Hoot


Wednesday, April 6, 2016, from 7:00-9:00 p.m. at Café Espresso
738 Islington Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

Former Laureate John Michael Albert started it; the annual Gala Poetry Hoot celebrates National Poetry Month by featuring works from all our previous Poets Laureates.

Portsmouth’s first two Laureates, Esther Buffler and Robert Dunn, are no longer with us, therefore, Joann Duncanson will read for Esther. Katie Towler will read for Robert.

Reading their own poetry are Maren Tirabassi, John Perrault, Mimi White, Elizabeth Knies, Mark DeCarteret, Mike Albert, and Kimberly Cloutier Green.

Our present Poet Laureate, Kate Leigh will kick off second hour’s open mic.  Bring a poem to share, and come an hour early to have dinner and get a seat!




Mangion Memorial Poetry Talk and Reading


Saturday, April 9, 2016, at the Kittery Art Association
8 Coleman Avenue, Kittery Point, ME 03905  (207) 439-9385  information@kitteryartassociation.orga

The suggested donation is $25 for both events or $15 for individual events.

Poet Stuart Kestenbaum will star in the Mangion Memorial Poetry Talk and Reading at the Kittery Art Association.

Stuart Kestenbaum is the author of four collections of poems, Pilgrimage (Coyote Love Press), House of Thanksgiving (Deerbrook Editions), Prayers and Run-on Sentences (Deerbrook Editions) and Only Now (Deerbrook Editions). He has also written The View from Here (Brynmorgen Press), a book of brief essays on craft and community.

Enjoy an interview and craft talk with the poet from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.  

The reading, reception, and book signing begins at 6:30 p.m.

The interview and craft talk is open to all those interested in reading and writing poetry. Mr. Kestenbaum will be interviewed by former Portsmouth Poet Laureate Kimberly Cloutier Green, who will serve as the emcee for both the afternoon and evening events.




RiverRun Bookstore After Hours Poetry Hoot


Wednesday, April 13, 2016 from 7:00-9:00 p.m. at RiverRun Bookstore
142 Fleet Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801 (603) 431-2100
website: http://www.riverrunbookstore.com
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

Featured Readers Mark Palos and Ryan McLellan will entertain and inspire you at this special event. Local poet, Tamara J. Collins, will kick off the second hour’s open mic. Bring a poem to share! 

Mark Palos has been the host and slammaster of the Slam Free or Die reading since 2005. He performed at the National Poetry Slam with the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2013 NH teams and has been coaching the team every year since 2008. In 2013, Slam Free or Die was voted ‘The Best Performance Poetry Venue In The World’ in an online reader’s poll conducted by Write Bloody Publishing and less than a month later, for the first time ever, Slam Free or Die made the semi-finals at the National Poetry Slam, finishing 14th overall. Mark released his first book "What's In The Box?" in 2008 and released a collaborative album, combining poetry and music, with Ryan McLellan as part of their Northeastern poetry tour in 2009/2010. In 2010, he received an honorary mention (finishing behind Robert Frost and Donald Hall) in the ‘Best Poet’ category in The Hippo Press’ annual Best of NH poll. His work has appeared in ‘Multiverse’(2014), an anthology of superhero poetry, released on Write Bloody Publishing and 'Again I Wait For This To Pull Apart' (2016) a FreezeRay Press anthology. In the midst of all this, he continues to host the weekly Slam Free or Die reading every Thursday night at Milly's Tavern in Manchester. Mark has lived in NH all his life and supports his poetry habit by slaving away for an evil corporation but dreams of some day roaming the wasteland of a post-apocalyptic future in a modified Mustang on an endless search for gasoline...


Check out this piece NH Chronicle did on Slam Free or Die in 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbhZifOCxmI

More information on Slam Free or Die can be found here: http://facebook.com/slamfreeordie



Ryan McLellan is a teacher, poet, and singer/songwriter originally from Waltham, Massachusetts. A three-time recipient of the Esther Buffler Poetry-in-Schools Fellowship, he is the author of six chapbooks, a full-length collection, "Plenty of Blood to Spare" (Sargent Press), and two spoken word albums. His poems have appeared in a few handfuls of journals over the years, most recently in Boston Poetry Magazine, Lower East Side Review, The Subterranean Quarterly, and a forthcoming publication in Buck Off Magazine. He lives in Maine with his fiance, their two cats, and their new dog, and teaches writing and literature at Bridgton Academy.






Katherine Towler: The Penny Poet of Portsmouth


Monday, April 18, 2016, from 7:00-8:00 p.m. at The Portsmouth Public Library
175 Parrott Ave, Portsmouth, NH 03801 (603) 427-1540 www.cityofportsmouth.com/library
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

If you missed the release party for Katie's book, you can see her at the Portsmouth Public Library. RiverRun Bookstore will be on hand to sell books!

“Around town, it was said that he lived on air, though he really lived on coffee and cigarettes. He was a union of unlikely opposites – one of the strangest and loveliest of people, one of the poorest and richest, one of the most sardonic and serious. He could be brilliant and intentionally obtuse, or quietly contained and defiant, all in the same moment.”

The Penny Poet of Portsmouth is a memoir of the author’s friendship with Robert Dunn, a brilliant poet who spent most of his life off the grid in downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire, renting a room in a house without owning a phone, car, computer, or television. The book is as well an elegy for a time and place – the New England seaport city of the early 1990s that has been lost to development and gentrification, capturing the life Robert was able to make in a place rougher around the edges than it is today. It is a meditation on what writing asks of those who practice it and on the nature of solitude in a culture filled with noise and clutter. And it is, finally, the story of a rare individual who charted an entirely unorthodox life that challenged the status quo in every way.


The Penny Poet of Portsmouth, bracing in its intimacy and elegance, is so much more than a memoir, or a biography, or even an elegy. It is the fable of a shared journey and a portrait of an abiding friendship — a fitting tribute to the Penny Poet of Portsmouth.




RiverRun Bookstore After Hours Poetry Hoot

Wednesday, April 20, 2016, from 7:00-9:00 p.m. at RiverRun Bookstore
142 Fleet Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801 (603) 431-2100ebsite: http://www.riverrunbookstore.com
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

Featured Readers Heidi Therrien and Lauren WB Vermette will move you and touch your heart at this special event. Local poet, Tamara J. Collins, will kick off the second hour’s open mic. Bring a poem to share!



Heidi Jean Therrien is a writer living in Manchester, New Hampshire. In 2013, she competed on the winning team at the inaugural NorthBEAST Underground Team Slam and was Slam Free Or Die’s 2012 Grand Slam Champion. She has spoken, sung, or read poems at Jazzmouth Poetry Festival, on the radio, and in various dives and rooms around the country. Her poems have appeared in Centripetal, Melusine, Dark Lady Press, and Angelic Dynamo, among others. In 2014, she released two chapbooks—All This Tinder and Arsenic Pearl. Influences include Brody Dalle, Janis Joplin, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dow Mossman. When not writing, she can be found serenading open mics with her ukulele, spending time with her cat (Winston Furchill), and having heart-to-hearts. Her words are in love with you.




Lauren WB Vermette began writing poetry at the age of 10 under the guidance of Portsmouth’s first Poet Laureate, Esther Buffler. At age 13, she earned an honorable mention in a national poetry contest, and in 1998 she was the inaugural winner of the Jane Andres Poetry Prize at Berwick Academy. During college, Lauren had the privilege of studying poetry with Mekeel McBride at UNH and was named the “Most Promising Poet of 2013” by Farmington’s Goodwin Library.

A fixture at most of the local open mic poetry scenes, Lauren has been a featured reader for Rochester Writer’s Night, Rochester Library’s National Poetry Month Celebration, the First Friday Coffeehouse in Exeter, Portsmouth Community Radio’s “Writers in the Round” series, and Beat Night at The Press Room.

Preferring to be known as a “painter with words”, Lauren writes poems that are audible works of art drawn from the heart, with images that linger long after the last line has faded from her lips.






Flash Typewriter Poetry Contest



Sunday, April 24, 2016, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at RiverRun Bookstore
142 Fleet Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801 (603) 421-2100
Participants: $10 entry fee limited to 12 people RSVP ASAP to reserve your spot.
Spectators: FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

Contestants are given a manual typewriter, a topic, and 30 minutes to type out an original poem on that topic. There will be prizes, good prizes, and beer.

The $10 entrance fee is donated to the Seacoast Family Food Pantry. 




Celebrate Poetry in the Granite State

Tuesday, April 26, 2016, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at RiverRun Bookstore
142 Fleet Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801 (603) 421-2100
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC

This quintessential anthology includes 117 New Hampshire poets originally featured in the online Poet Showcase curated by New Hampshire Poets Laureate Patricia Fargnoli and W. E. Butts.

Visiting us on April 26 will be John-Michael Albert, Bill Burtis, Maggie Dietz, Todd Hearon, Elizabeth Knies, Grace Mattern, Katherine Morgan, Pat Parnell, John Perrault, Kyle Potvin, Maren Tirabassi and Mimi White. Needless to say, this event is going to be an incredible celebration of poetry in the granite state.