June 20, 2014, Friday - Mentor Series: Christopher Castellani at The Loft

Time: 7:00pm

Location: The Loft at Open Book (Performance Hall), 1011 Washington Ave S

Mentor Series: Christopher Castellani

The 2013-2014 Loft Mentor Series in Poetry and Creative Prose presents fiction mentor Christopher Castellani reading along with program participants Cole Perry (fiction) and Isadora Gruye (poetry).

Christopher Castellani is the son of Italian immigrants and a native of Wilmington, Delaware. He resides in Boston, where he is the artistic director of Grub Street, one of the country’s leading non-profit creative writing centers. He is the author of three novels: A Kiss from Magdalena, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award in 2004; The Saint of Lost Things, a BookSense (IndieBound) Notable Book; and All This Talk of Love published in February 2013. In addition to Grub Street, Christopher is on the faculty of the Warren Wilson MFA program and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference.

Isadora Gruye is a writer and photographer living in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She gets less than 4 hours of sleep each night, except for weekends when she sleeps until her muscles ache from atrophy. Things that few people know about Isadora: she plays chess but is not very good at strategy. She believes in cartography and beekeepers but has little need for maps or honey. In her writing, Isadora goes for a gut reaction. She wants no reign over your brain or your heart, there are too many competing, fleeting factions there. Her poems are the girl at the bar who can hold an intellectual conversation while drinking your whiskey, then sucker punch you when the brawl starts. Her work has previously appeared at Katherine Press.

Cole Perry was raised in Bovey, MN, and spent nearly a decade in South and Central America, before returning to northern Minnesota. His writing has received awards from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Jerome Foundation. He is currently at work on a novel.