February 28, 2013, Thursday - Poetry, Women, and Publishing: A Reading and Discussion by Minnesota Women Poets at The Loft

Tme: 7:00pm

Location: The Loft, Performance Hall, 1011 Washington Avenue South

Poetry, Women, and Publishing: A Reading and Discussion by Minnesota Women Poets
 
Six Minnesota women poets at different stages in their careers will share their poetry in a short reading, followed by a panel discussion on gender’s influence on their poetry, paths to publication and performance, and overcoming barriers to writing and publishing.  Featuring poets Cary Waterman, Leslie Adrienne Miller, Kathryn Kysar, Heid Erdrich, Sierra DeMulder, and Kris Bigalk.

About the Poets:

Kris Bigalk is the author of the poetry collection Repeat the Flesh in Numbers (NYQ Books, 2012); her poetry has also recently appeared in the anthologies Poetry City, USA, Volume 2, and Open to Interpretation: Water’s Edge. She has received two Individual Artist Grants in Poetry from the Minnesota State Arts Board, and served as Writer-in-Residence at Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts. She serves as Director of Creative Writing at Normandale Community College, and lives in Minnetonka with her husband and children. Kris Bigalk is a fiscal year 2012 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible in part by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Sierra DeMulder earned “Best Female Poet” at the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational in 2009. Less than two months later, she was awarded a coveted publishing deal from Write Bloody Publishing, which led to her first full-length book, The Bones Below, published in January 2010.  Her second book, New Shoes on a Dead Horse, was published in January 2012 by Write Bloody Publishing. Sierra has featured in hundreds of venues across the country, performing her poetry and facilitating writing workshops in high schools, colleges, homeless shelters, prisons, churches, farmers’ markets, and people’s basements. When not doing poetry, she enjoys playing ukulele, making full use of public transportation, and waxing on about feminism.

Heid E. Erdrich is author of four poetry collections, most recently Cell Traffic: New and Selected Poems from University of Arizona Press. A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibway, Heid Erdrich grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota. She earned degrees from Dartmouth College and The Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. A recipient of Minnesota State Arts Board fellowships, awards from The Loft Literary Center, the Archibald Bush Foundation and elsewhere, Heid Erdrich has four times been nominated for the Minnesota Book Award which she won in 2009 for her book National Monuments from Michigan State University Press.

Kathryn Kysar is the author of Pretend the World (Holy Cow! Press, 2011), Dark Lake (Loonfeather, 2002), and the editor of a collection of essays, Riding Shotgun: Women Writing about Their Mothers (Borealis, 2008). Her poems have been heard on A Writer's Almanac and published in many literary magazines including Great River Review, Midland Review, Mizna, and Painted Bride Quarterly. Kysar has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. She has served as an individual representative on the board of directors for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.

Leslie Adrienne Miller’s sixth collection of poems is Y (Graywolf Press, 2012). Her previous collections include The Resurrection Trade (Graywolf, 2007), Eat Quite Everything You See (Graywolf, 2002), Yesterday Had a Man In It (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1998), Ungodliness (CMU, 1994) and Staying Up For Love (CMU, 1990). Professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, since 1991, she holds degrees in creative writing and English from Stephens College, the University of Missouri, the Iowa Writers Workshop, and the University of Houston.

Katrina Vandenberg is the author of two books of poems, The Alphabet Not Unlike the World and Atlas. Her essays and poems have appeared in The American Scholar, Blackbird, The Southern Review, Orion, The Sun, on MPR’s All Things Considered, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright, Bush, and Loft-McKnight Foundations, and residencies from the Amy Clampitt Fund, the Poetry Center of Chicago, and the MacDowell Colony. She teaches creative writing at Hamline University and lives in Saint Paul with her husband, novelist John Reimringer, and their daughter.

Cary Waterman is a poet and creative nonfiction writer. Her published poetry books include The Salamander Migration (University of Pittsburgh Press), When I Looked Back You Were Gone (finalist for the Minnesota Book Award), and, most recently, Book of Fire (finalist for the Midwest Book Award). Her essay, “Horizon,” was recently published in the online journal, r.kv.r.y.  Her work appears in many anthologies including A Geography of Poets, Poets Against the War, The Logan House Anthology of 21st Century American Poetry and 150 Years of Minnesota Poetry. She has won awards from the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She teaches creative writing at Augsburg College in the undergraduate and the MFA programs.