Thursday, October 25, 2007
Vibe Coffee House
Cedar Falls
Featured Reader
Loree Rackstraw
Thursday, November 29: Scott Cawelti
Drawing by Kurt Vonnegut
|
FINAL THURSDAY READING SERIES |
|
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Featured Reader Thursday, November 29: Scott Cawelti |
|
|
Welcome to lucky year seven of the Final Thursday Reading Series! Signup for the open mic begins @ 7 p.m. on a first come, first served basis. Limited slots are available, so readers are encouraged to sign up early to read your best five minutes of poetry, fiction, or creative non-fiction. Singer-songwriters are also welcome. The open mic begins at 7:30 p.m. The featured reader takes the stage between 8:00 and 8:30 (depending on how many open mic readers there are). After the reading, there will be a brief question and answer session. Loree Rackstraw taught fiction writing, literature, mythology and humanities at UNI for 30 years, and also served as fiction editor and reviewer for the North American Review. Since retiring she has been working on a number of writing projects, including a memoir based on her long friendship with Kurt Vonnegut. She studied with Vonnegut at the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa prior to joining the UNI faculty. Her published work includes critical reviews and essays dealing with literature, environmental concerns, and the relationship between the humanities and the sciences. You can read a sample of herwork below. |
|
|
|
Read Work by Past Featured Readers
Poetry by Bill Chene
Also Available from
Poetry by Pierre-Damien Mvuyekure
Poetry by Jonathan Stull
Poetry by Vince Gotera ***Winner of the 2004 Global Filipino Literary Award for Poetry***
Poetry by Ahkos
Microfiction by Jim O'Loughlin |
Memoir sample Meanwhile, Slaughterhouse needed only final touches following Kurt’s return from his enormously important Guggenheim trip to Dresden and Eastern Europe in October. In a (10/29/67) letter he said “Dresden, which was known as ‘The Florence of the Elbe’ before it was bombed flat, now looks like Cedar Rapids in 1936 – the buildings, the clothes, the music. All of it.” Traveling with his old war buddy, Bernard V. O’Hare, he said they had been “thrown out of every iron curtain country within twenty-four hours. We didn’t do anything wrong, but everybody was offended by two middle-aged Americans in business suits going here and there for pleasure. They knew damn well we were C.I.A.” He was obviously pumped and ready to end work on his hard wrought war book.
Upcoming Final Thursday featured readers include Vince Gotera and Aaron McNally. Watch this site for more details.
|
| updated Oct. 16, 2007 by Jim O'Loughlin |
Vibe
is located at 909 W. 23rd St. in Cedar Falls on the second floor of
Bought again Books.
