Wednesday, April 16, 2008

UPCOMING READING: THE ENCLAVE XIII: THE FESTIVAL OF NEVER

FEATURING: CLAY McLEOD CHAPMAN, BRIAN FRANK & MATTHEW BURGESS

Saturday, April 26th 3:30 PM
Kenny's Castaways, 157 Bleecker Street, 212-979-9762
For updates and more info go to: www.myspace.com/enclavianmatter
Free and open to the public

“The dreamers dream from the neck up, their bodies securely strapped to the electric chair. To imagine a new world is to live it daily, each thought, each glance, each step, each gesture killing and recreating, death always a step in advance. To spit on the past is not enough. To proclaim the future is not enough. One must act as if the past were dead and the future unrealized. One must act as if the next step were the last, which it is. Each step forward is the last, and with it a world dies, one’s self included. We are here of the earth never to end, the past never ceasing, the future never beginning, the present never ending. The never-never world which we hold in our hands and see and yet is not ourselves. We are that which is never concluded, never shaped to be recognized, all there is and yet not the whole, the parts so much greater than the whole that only God the mathematician can figure out...” - ?????

Know where this quote comes from? Come to Kenny's on the 26th and find out. You’re invited in. Come. Be a part of the Enclave.

CLAY McLEOD CHAPMAN is the creator of the Pumpkin Pie Show, a rigorous storytelling session backed by its own live soundtrack. He is the author of rest area, a collection of short stories, and miss corpus, a novel. Chapman is currently working on the book for a new musical with Grammy award winning musician Bruce Hornsby, titled SCKBSTD – as well as HOSTAGE SONG, a new indie-rock musical with Obie-award winning musician Kyle Jarrow, that is currently being preformed at the Kraine Theater in the East Village.

BRIAN FRANK was born in 1973 in Detroit. As a teenager he was a skateboarder in Nashville. From ages 18 to 23 he lived as a Hare Krishna monk in India and abroad. He later attended Parsons School of Design. Taking inspiration from dressing the deities of Krishna Frank founded and designed for an award winning womens’ ready-to-wear company. He is writing his first book, a memoir that discusses the transition from a punk rock adolescence to monastic life returning to western culture as a fashion designer. Frank currently lives in New York City.

MATTHEW BURGESS veered from a career in musical theater in 1987 after a pitchy performance of the Scarecrow’s “If I Only Had a Brain” at Our Lady Queen of Angels school. He has studied at University of Virginia, Naropa University, and Brooklyn College, where he received a MacArthur Scholarship and an MFA in Poetry in 2001. His poems have appeared in various journals and magazines, including Lungfull!l, Hanging Loose, and Big City Lit, and he’s published three chapbooks: Liftoff (2002), Yeah You (2005), and most recently, a series of photographs and poems titled Day After Labor Day (2007). Matthew has taught creative writing and literature at Brooklyn College for over eight years, and he also works for Teachers & Writers Collaborative as a poet-in-residence in New York City public schools. He is currently pursuing his PhD in English at the CUNY Graduate Center, proving to himself that he has a brain after all. He sings when no one’s around.


Coordinated by The Enclave Writers Association

Friday, April 4, 2008

April Line-UP Announced!!

Hey folks, so our next reading will be held at Kenny's on Saturday April 26th @ 3:30 PM featuring Clay McLeod Chapman, Brian Frank, Matthew Burgess & others TBA. So save the date and take a look at some of the stellar bios below!

CLAY McLEOD CHAPMAN is the creator of the Pumpkin Pie Show, a rigorous storytelling session backed by its own live soundtrack. He is the author of rest area, a collection of short stories, and miss corpus, a novel. Chapman is currently working on the book for a new musical with Grammy award winning musician Bruce Hornsby, titled SCKBSTD – as well as HOSTAGE SONG, a new indie-rock musical with Obie-award winning musician Kyle Jarrow, that is currently being preformed at the Kraine Theater in the East Village.

BRIAN FRANK was born in 1973 in Detroit. As a teenager he was a skateboarder in Nashville. From ages 18 to 23 he lived as a Hare Krishna monk in India and abroad. He later attended Parsons School of Design. Taking inspiration from dressing the deities of Krishna Frank founded and designed for an award winning womens’ ready-to-wear company. He is writing his first book, a memoir that discusses the transition from a punk rock adolescence to monastic life returning to western culture as a fashion designer. Frank currently lives in New York City.

MATTHEW BURGESS received his MFA in poetry at Brooklyn College where he now teaches literature and creative writing. He is the author of a chapbook titled "Liftoff" (Blue Language Press, 2002) and another one on the way this spring titled "Yeah You." His poems have appeared in Hanging Loose, Lungfull, The Brooklyn Review and elsewhere.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Enclave co-founder James Freed on NPR this Saturday @ 1PM

Well NPR as in Neighborhood Public Radio, not National Public Radio.

So what exactly is the difference?

Neighborhood Public Radio is a traveling band of guerrilla broadcasters who bring the power of the airways to the people. Originating from pockets all over the country this spring the Whitney Museum of American Art has decided to put this artist collective up in a make shift pirate radio station housed in a former shoe store as part of the current Whitney Biennial.
This Saturday April 5 at 1 PM Jim will present a version of his short story A Melodrama Composed for my Father on the Occasion of his Birthday that he has edited into a radio play at the NPR studio located at 941 Madison Avenue.

The concept? Composed of arguing voices, the piece is about a writer and his attempt to compose a melodrama - aka the gun in the drawer story.

The renegade actors troupe Amalgamation Extreme will also participate, along with perhaps some musicians as well.

So if you’re around stop on by the studio and say hello. If you can’t make it but happen to be around Madison between 73rd and 76th, flip on your radio to 91.9 FM. Otherwise online goto www.neighborhoodpublicradio.org and pick up the live stream. Note, if you don’t have a live stream player on your computer you may need to download one for free. Go to: http://www.winamp.com

News Flash: Enclave Anniversary a HUGE success

With such a successful year behind us expectations were riding high on Saturday. But with a bill featuring four highly talented writers, all from the collective Cafe Nueva York, is it any wonder that the event was a blockbuster as usual?

Things got rolling Friday night with a visual collaboration on Kenny’s front windows featuring a painting by Magali Lara and a poem by Carmen Boullosa. The result was an energetic statement that both artists illuminated further following its creation in interviews. While due to an unforeseen window washing misunderstanding the mural was erased before the reading, a video of the artists composing and speaking about their work will be posted shortly.

On Saturday the Sangria was flowing freely at Kenny’s. Things got off to a great start with Bolivian poet Eduardo Mitre’s poems. Then Naief Yehya continued the momentum with a hilarious story examining the economical potential of death rights. After a short break Jose Prieto and his translator read a section of his novel Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire, a beautiful tale of love, and well smuggling. Then acclaimed Mexican novelist, poet and playwright Carmen Boullosa took the stage and enchanted the crowd with a lively reading of her ghost story exploring poetic flatulence.

Afterward the crowd stumbled and stared as The Hot Magic rocked out, droning through a set list of psychedelic jams to the packed house.

Pictures of the event are already up so take a look at what you missed. Audio clips of the performances will follow shortly.

The next Enclave will be held Saturday April 26th @ 3:30PM and feature writers Clay McLeod Chapman, Brian Frank, Matthew Burgess & others. More info to come shortly.