Book Markers 03.28.13
Talkin’ ’Bout Your Generation
Poets, dunk your quills. The Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill will hold a Sub 30 poetry slam to mark National Poetry Month next month. The competition is for short poetry by writers between the ages of 21 and 29 whose work will be judged by the audience at the April 12 slam. Original poems on the subject of “your generation” should be sent to Amanda Stein at [email protected] by Friday, April 5. Twelve poets will be picked to compete in the slam, and the winner will get a hundred bucks and the appellation Sub 30 Champion.
The New Review Honors David Rakoff
The late David Rakoff, a writer of autobiographical humor and essays and a regular voice on the public radio program “This American Life,” is front and center in the spring edition of The Southampton Review, from the Stony Brook Southampton M.F.A. program in creative writing and literature. The journal’s release will be celebrated on Monday at 6 p.m. at Stony Brook Manhattan, on the third floor at 101-113 East 27th Street.
Mr. Rakoff, who taught at Stony Brook Southampton starting in 2005, died of cancer in August. Robert Reeves, associate provost at the college, writes in the new edition of the plans for a David Rakoff Studio Theatre in Chancellors Hall, and he is remembered by Lou Ann Walker, the Review’s editor in chief, Patricia Marx, who writes for The New Yorker, and colleagues including Roger Rosenblatt and Daniel Menaker. The issue features a number of pieces by Mr. Rakoff, from essays to a poem to an adapted screenplay.
Cartoons by Gahan Wilson and Jules Feiffer return, as does the traditional balance of photography and artwork, of fiction and nonfiction by new and veteran writers, one highlight being the pianist Konstantin Soukhovetski’s “Thoroughly Modern Wagner” in the Memoir and Essay section.
A Bookish Sunday Gab Fest
Coffee, bagels, books, and Sunday mornings: an obvious fit. So why not gather where the books are, for a chat about this or that new release? BookHampton in East Hampton is starting up an in-store book group, Books We’re Talking About, on April 7 at 11 a.m. The first title is “The Dinner,” a suspenseful novel by Herman Koch about two couples in Amsterdam whose conversation one evening slowly turns to their children’s implication in a horrific crime. On April 14 it’ll be Ruth Ozeki’s “A Tale for the Time Being.” As it says in a release, “read the book in advance or just listen in and get intrigued.”
Chronicling Your Life
Eileen Obser is bringing her nearly 20 years of experience as a writing coach to the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton for a five-session workshop that starts on Tuesday and wraps up on April 30. Called Share Your Life and focusing on memoir and personal essay writing, the course aims to help participants “chronicle the times” of their lives — for themselves, for their families, for history. Writers will discover their own styles “through reading and group discussion. Research techniques, excerpts from well-known memoirs and journals, writing exercises, and marketing information are included.”
Writers of all skill levels will meet from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. The cost is $65, and sign-up is with the library. Ms. Obser, who lives in East Hampton, has taught at Southampton College and Suffolk Community College. She has a memoir, “Only You,” coming out in the fall.