TalkingImageConnection Reading Friday July 17th 8pm at the Soap Factory

In conjunction with the frontier preachers show at the soap factory, a couple of writers (and taiko drummers) will do some preaching of their own, riffing off of the pieces in the show.

Fables from the New Frontier: A TalkingImageConnection Reading at the Soap Factory, 
Friday, July 17th at 8pm.  
The Soap Factory, 518 2nd St. SE Minneapolis.  Free Admission.
 
 
 
TalkingImageConnection presents “Fables from the New Frontier,” an evening of poetry and stories in response to “Frontier Preachers,” installations by visual artists from New Orleans exploring the history of “great good and great error” on both ends of the Mississippi River.  With writers Shelia Bland, Lightsey Darst, Steve Healey, Katie Leo in collaboration with Taiko drummer Jennifer Weir, Jay Orff and Kao Kalia Yang. 

 
 
contact:  yackmor@talkimage.org; The Soap Factory: 612.623-9176
 
 
 
About the writers:
A native of New Orleans, Shelia Bland is a writer, director and actor who has taught at universities around the country and was formerly director of the Artsworks program at COMPAS.

Lightsey Darst is a poet, dance writer, teacher, and host of the writing salon “The Works” at the Bryant-Lake Bowl. She has been awarded a 2007 NEA Fellowship and two Minnesota State Arts Board grants. Her chapbook Ginnungagap is available from Red Dragonfly Press and her first full length manuscript will be published by Coffee House Press in 2010.

Steve Healey is the author of Earthling, a book of poetry published by Coffee House Press; his second book will be published by that same press in 2010. He has published poems in various magazines, including American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Fence, jubilat, and Open City, and in anthologies, including Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century.
 
Katie Leo is a writer, actor, and educator.  Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Asian American Poetry and Writing and Water~Stone Review, among others.  Her chapbook, Attempts at Location, is available through Finishing Line Press.  Her awards include The James Wright Prize, two Many Voices residencies, and a MN State Arts Board Cultural Collaboration Grant. This year she will receive an MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota, where she was the 2008-09 Scribe for Human Rights. 
 
 
Working as a travel writer who refuses to leave his home, Jay Orff has created the Big Circle Touring Guide, a fanciful remembrance of places never visited. Pieces from the guide have appeared in Watchword, Spout, Reed, Chain, and Harper’s. Jay Orff lives and does most of his traveling in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
 
 
 
Kao Kalia Yang is the author of The Latehomecomer:  A Hmong Family Memoir (Coffee House Press, 2008).  The book is the 2009 MN Book Award recipient in Memoir/Creative Nonfiction and the Reader’s Choice Book of the Year.  It is her first book. 
 
 
 
Jennifer Weir has been performing, composing and teaching taiko with Mu Daiko for over a decade. Jennifer is an artistic core member of Mu Performing Arts and has been a recipient of the Jerome Travel and Study Grant, MN Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, MRAC Collaboration Grant, American Composers Subito Grant and Artist International Grant.
 
 

About TalkingImageConnection:

TalkingImageConnection (TIC) connects writers, contemporary visual art and new audiences.  Check out TIC’s website: www.talkimage.org <http://www.talkimage.org>