April 28, 2012

Improved Lighting Reading Series
presents

poetry readings by

Tom Andes

Traci Brimhall
Corrie Williamson
Chris Wong

plus music by
The Rhubarbs

Saturday, April 28, 7pm
LalaLand
@ The Art Experience
641 MLK Blvd.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
$1-5 suggested donation

Improved Lighting Reading Series hosts monthly readings, mostly poetry and mostly Saturdays, with occasional musical acts, at Nightbird Books. Free admission.  Curated by Roger Barrett, Kaveh Bassiri, and Matthew Henriksen.

Visit us at improvedlighting.blogspot.com.

Contact improvedlighting@gmail.com.

Author Bios and Links

Tom Andes’ poetry, fiction, and criticism have appeared or will be forthcoming in News from the Republic of Letters, Santa Clara Review, Mantis, Bateau, Everyday Genius, 3:AM Magazine, elimae, Pif, and the Rumpus, among other publications. A hand-sewn chapbook, Life Before the Storm and Other Stories, appeared in a limited run from Cannibal Books in 2010. His story “The Hit,” which first appeared in Xavier Review, will appear in Best American Mystery Stories 2012. He lives in Oakland, California.

Traci Brimhall is the author of Our Lady of the Ruins (forthcoming from W.W. Norton), selected by Carolyn Forché for the 2011 Barnard Women Poets Prize, and Rookery (Southern Illinois University Press, 2010), winner of the 2009 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award and finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year Award. Her poems have appeared in New England Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Slate, The Missouri Review, Kenyon Review, FIELD, Indiana Review and Southern Review. She is a former Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, a current Emerging Writer Fellow at The Writer’s Center, and the 2012 Summer Poet in Residence at the University of Mississippi. She has also received scholarships and fellowships to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Disquiet International Literary Program.  She holds degrees from Florida State University and Sarah Lawrence College. Currently, she teaches creative writing at Western Michigan University where she is a doctoral candidate and a King/​Chávez/​Parks Fellow. She also serves as Editor at Large for Loaded Bicycle.

A native of Virginia, Corrie Williamson is completing her third year in the MFA Program at the University of Arkansas, where she has taught and served as director of the Writers in the Schools Program. She received the 2011 Walton Fellowship in Poetry, and recently her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Fourteen Hills, The Southeast Review, cream city review, 32 Poems, and elsewhere.

Chris Wong is the author of “Songs for Margaret Cravens.” His work has appeared in a number of journals, including Art Amiss, Caffeine Destiny and the Shadyside Review. He currently lives in Fayetteville, AR where he teaches English at the University of Arkansas.

The Rhubarbs is the musical project of Sam King, Katy Henriksen, and C. Violet Eaton. They cover Richard Pryor-approved songs on guitar, banjo, and voice.

April 22, 2012

Improved Lighting Reading Series ANNEX 
presents poetry readings by 

Anne Boyer
Cody-Rose Clevidence
CAConrad
Magdalena Zurawski

Sunday, April 22, 4 pm
La La Land
@ The Art Experience
641 MLK Blvd.
Fayetteville, Arkansas
$1-5 suggested donation

Improved Lighting ANNEX hosts irregular poetry readings in unpredictable locations in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Our regular reading series occurs monthly on Saturdays at Nightbird Books.  Contact improvedlighting@gmail.com.

Author Bios and Links 
Anne Boyer is the author of The Romance of Happy Workers (Coffeehouse Press, 2008) and the forthcoming novel, Joan (Bloof Books). She lives in Kansas and teaches at the Kansas City Art Institute.

Read Anne Boyer’s My Common Heart from Spooky Girlfriend Press.

Cody-Rose Clevidence is the author of Everything That is Beautiful is Edible (Flowers & Cream Press, 2012) and lives in the Arkansas Ozarks.

Read two poems by Cody-Rose Clevidence in Diagram.

CA Conrad is the author of A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon (Wave Books, 2012), The Book of Frank (Wave Books, 2010), Advanced Elvis Course (Soft Skull Press, 2009), Deviant Propulsion (Soft Skull Press, 2006), and a collaboration with Frank Sherlock, The City Real & Imagined (Factory School Press, 2010). He lives in Philadelphia and writes with his friends at PhillySound, and he is a co-foudner of PACE: Poet-Activist Community Extension.

Visit CAConrad's author page at Wave Books.

Magdalena Zurawski was born in Newark, NJ in 1972 to Polish immigrants. Her first novel, The Bruise (Fiction Collective 2, 2008), won the Lambda Award for Lesbian Debut Fiction. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Read an excerpt from The Bruise by Magdelena Zurawsi from Fiction Collective 2.

March 10, 2012

Improved Lighting Reading Series

presents

poetry readings by

Martin Bemberg

Geoffrey Brock

Wayne Miller

Sara Nicholson

plus music by

Brian Kupillas

Saturday, March 10, 7pm

Nightbird Books

205 West Dickson Street

Fayetteville, Arkansas

FREE!

Improved Lighting Reading Series hosts monthly readings, mostly poetry and mostly Saturdays, with occasional musical acts, at Nightbird Books. Free admission. Authors books available for purchase through the bookstore. Curated by Roger Barrett, Kaveh Bassiri, and Matthew Henriksen. Visit us at improvedlighting.blogspot.com. Contact improvedlighting@gmail.com.

Author Bios and Links

Martin Bemberg is the editor of PlumBum Verse singer/songwriter of Memphis Pencils.

“Istanbul in July” by Martin Bemberg in The Idle Class Magazine

Geoffrey Brock is the author of Weighing Light, the editor of The FSG Book of 20th-Century Italian Poetry, and the translator of several books from Italian, including Cesare Pavese's Disaffections. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas.

“An Opening” by Geoffrey Brock on The Poetry Foundation

Brian Kupillas plays music in of Swimming, Where's Lawrence, and The Wandering.

Wayne Miller is the author of three poetry collections: The City, Our City (Milkweed, 2011), The Book of Props (2009), and Only the Senses Sleep (New Issues, 2006). He also translated Moikom Zeqo’s I Don't Believe in Ghosts (BOA, 2007) and co-edited both New European Poets (Graywolf, 2008). The recipient of 6 Poetry Society of America Awards, the Bess Hokin Prize and a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, Wayne lives in Kansas City and teaches as the University of Central Missouri, where he edits Pleiades and Pleiades Press.

“Street Fight” by Wayne Miller on Verse Daily.

Sara Nicholson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a PhD student at the University of Arkansas.  Her poems can be found in The Quarterly Review, transition, ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTALLION, The Jargon Society, Bitch Tits, and Ouch!: A Journal of Light Verse.

Six poems by Sara Nicholson in Propeller.

December 10, 2011

Improved Lighting Reading Series

presents

An Evening with Birds, LLC

poetry readings by

Justin Marks

Emily Pettit

Sampson Starkweather

Paige Taggart

Chris Tonelli

plus music by

Zack Wait

Saturday, December 10, 7pm

Nightbird Books

205 West Dickson Street

Fayetteville, Arkansas

FREE!

Improved Lighting Reading Series hosts monthly readings, mostly poetry and mostly Saturdays, with occasional musical acts, at Nightbird Books.  Free admission.  Authors books available for purchase through the bookstore.  Curated by Roger Barrett, Kaveh Bassiri, and Matthew Henriksen.  Visit us at improvedlighting.blogspot.com.  Contact improvedlighting@gmail.com.

Justin Marks’ first full-length book is A Million in Prizes (New Issues, 2009). He is also the author of several chapbooks, the most recent being On Happier Lawns (Poor Claudia, 2011). A founding editor of Birds, LLC, he lives in Queens, NY with his wife and their twin son and daughter. 

Emily Pettit is the author of two chapbooks How (Octopus Books) and What Happened to Limbo (Pilot Books). GOAT IN THE SNOW (Birds LLC) is her first full-length book. She is an editor for notnostrums and Factory Hollow Press and jubilat. She teaches poetry at Flying Object.

Sampson Starkweather is the author of Self Help Poems, The Heart is Green from So Much Waiting, City of Moths and The Photograph. He played professional soccer in New Zealand and was an editor of physics and chemistry books, currently he is the Publications Coordinator at the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center, you can read recent work here. He lives in Brooklyn, NY and he be a Bird. 

Paige Taggart was born and lived in Northern California for 25 years, she’s been living in Brooklyn the past 5 years. Her chapbook DIGITAL MACRAMÉ was released by Poor Claudia (Feb 2011), and Polaroid Parade from Greying Ghost Press (July 2011). The Ice Poems are forthcoming with DoubleCross Press. She was a 2009 recipient of the New York Foundation of the Art's grant. Be on the lookout for her poems forthcoming in Jubilat, Sentence, No Dear and Spinning Jenny. Check out her jewelry wares: mactaggartjewelry.blogspot.com

Chris Tonelli is one of the founding editors of Birds, LLC, an independent poetry press. He also founded and curates the So and So Series and edits the So and So Magazine. He is the author of four chapbooks, most recently No Theater (Brave Men Press) and For People Who Like Gravity and Other People (Rope-A-Dope Press), and his first full-length collection is The Trees Around. New work can be found in the upcoming issues of The Laurel Review and Fou. He teaches at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where he lives with his wife Allison and their son Miles. 

Zack Wait sings and plays guitar in Fayetteville rock bands Fauxnz, Egyptr, and Wthr Wpns. He’ll be performing a small selection of new and old covers; Trrrsm Singers accompanying.

November 12, 2011

Improved Lighting Reading Series

presents

poetry readings by

Chris Martin

Mary Austin Speaker

& four poets from Bloof Books,  Shanna Compton, Peter Davis, Sandra Simonds & Maureen Thorson

plus music by

Brian Abel

Saturday, November 12, 7:30 pm

Nightbird Books (in the BHK Kafe)

205 West Dickson Street

Fayetteville, Arkansas

FREE!

We no longer operate on hipster time, so expect the reading to start exactly at 7:30.

Improved Lighting Reading Series hosts monthly readings, mostly poetry and mostly Saturdays, with occasional musical acts, at Nightbird Books in the BHK Kafe.  Free admission.  Full coffee/wine/beer bar and food available in the café and authors’ books available for purchase through the bookstore.  Curated by Roger Barrett, Kaveh Bassiri, and Matthew Henriksen.  Visit us at improvedlighting.blogspot.com.  Contact improvedlighting@gmail.com.

Shanna Compton’s books include Down Spooky(Winnow, 2005), For Girls & Others (Bloof, 2008), andGamers (Soft Skull, 2004), and the chapbooks Rare Vagrants (Dusie, 2010), Scurrilous Toy (Dusie, 2007), and others. Her poems and essays have appeared in Best American Poetry, Verse, McSweeney’s, The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel, the Poetry Foundation’s website, and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a new poetry collection called The Blank Verge, forthcoming from Bloof Books in Spring 2012, with excerpts appearing in the Awl, Court Green, Women's Studies Quarterly, Eoagh, and other journals. She lives on the internet at shannacompton.com.

Peter Davis writes, draws, and makes music in Muncie, Indiana, with his sweet kids and sweet wife. His first book of poetry is Hitler’s Mustache (2007), and he edited Poet’s Bookshelf: Contemporary Poets on Books That Shaped Their Art (2005) and coedited Poet’s Bookshelf II (2008) with Tom Koontz, all from Barnwood Press. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry series and recent work may be found in Lamination Colony, Everyday Genius, Jacket, No Tell Motel, and elsewhere. He teaches English at Ball State University. More, including his music project, Short Hand, at artisnecessary.com. His third poetry collection, Tina, is forthcoming from Bloof Books.

Chris Martin is the author of Becoming Weather (Coffee House 2011) and American Music (Copper Canyon 2007).  He is also the author of several chapbooks, including How to Write a Mistake-ist Poem (Brave Men 2011) and the forthcoming Enough (Ugly Duckling 2012).  He is an editor at Futurepoem books and curates the response blog Futurepost from the oldest house in Iowa City.

Sandra Simonds grew up in Los Angeles, California. She earned a B.A. in Psychology and Creative Writing at U.C.L.A and an M.F.A. from the University of Montana, where she received a poetry fellowship. In 2010, she earned a PhD in Literature with an emphasis in Creative Writing from Florida State University. Her second full-length collection of poems, Mother was a Tragic Girl, will be published by Cleveland State University Poetry Center in 2012. She is the author of Warsaw Bikini (Bloof Books, 2008), which was a finalist for numerous prizes including the National Poetry Series; she is also the author of several chapbooks including Used White Wife (Grey Book Press, 2009), and The Humble Travelogues of Mr. Ian Worthington, Written from Land & Sea (Cy Gist, 2006). Her poems have been published in many  journals such asPoetry, the Believer, the Colorado Review, Fence, theColumbia Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Volt, the New Orleans Review, and Lana Turner. Her Creative Nonfiction has been published in Post Road and other literary journals. She currently lives in Tallahassee, Florida and is an Assistant Professor of English at Thomas University in beautiful, rural Southern Georgia.

Mary Austin Speaker is the author of the chapbooks The Bridge (Push Press), In the End There Were Thousands of Cowboys, and Abandoning the Firmament (Menagerie Editions). New work will appear in Mrs. Maybe and Boog City Reader, and has recently appeared in Pleiades, Big Bell, Boston Review, 20012, Iowa Review, New Orleans Review and elsewhere. She teaches writing and works as a freelance book designer in Iowa City, IA, where she lives with her husband, poet Chris Martin.

Maureen Thorson is a poet, publisher, and book designer living in Washington, D.C. She is the author of the new book Applies to Oranges (Ugly Duckling, 2010), and a number of chapbooks, including Twenty Questions for the Drunken Sailor (2009), Mayport (2006), which won the Poetry Society of America's National Chapbook Fellowship, and Novelty Act (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2004). Her poems can be found in many anthologies and journals, including the forthcoming Yale Anthology of Younger American Poets, Exquisite Corpse, Hotel Amerika, LIT, The Hat, and6×6. Maureen is the publisher and editor of Big Game Books, a small press dedicated to emerging poets. She is also the co-curator of the In Your Ear reading series at the DC Arts Center and the founder of NaPoWriMo, an annual project in which poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

October 22, 2011

Improved Lighting Reading Series

presents

poetry readings by

Amanda Auchter

Sandy Longhorn

Tony Presley

Mark Spitzer

& music by

Real Live Tigers

Saturday, October 22, 7:30 pm

Nightbird Books (in the BHK Kafe)

205 West Dickson Street

Fayetteville, Arkansas

FREE!

PLEASE NOTE OUR EARLIER START TIME!

Improved Lighting Reading Series hosts monthly readings, mostly poetry and mostly Saturdays, with occasional musical acts, at Nightbird Books in the BHK Kafe.  Free admission.  Full coffee/wine/beer bar and food available in the café and authors’ books available for purchase through the bookstore.  Curated by Roger Barrett, Kaveh Bassiri, and Matthew Henriksen.  Contact improvedlighting@gmail.com.

Amanda Auchter is the founding editor of Pebble Lake Review and the author of The Glass Crib, winner of the 2010 Zone 3 Press First Book Award judged by Rigoberto González.  Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, Indiana Review, Rattle, Poetry Daily, and others. She holds an MFA from Bennington College and teaches creative writing and literature at Lone Star College, where she serves as Co-Chair of the Faculty Creative Writing Committee.

Sandy Longhorn is the author of Blood Almanac (Anhinga Press, 2006). New poems are forthcoming or have appeared recently in Lake Effect, New Madrid, Redivider, Spillway, and elsewhere. She lives in Little Rock, is an Arkansas Arts Council fellow, and blogs at http://sandylonghorn.blogspot.com.

Tony Presley has written, performed, and recorded music as Real Live Tigers since 2005.  His new record Spirit Animal was recorded in Fayetteville, Arkansas with a full band.  Real Live Tigers have played hundred of shows across the US and Europe, and the music has grown and alternated from folk to soul, from country to post punk.  Tony’s fiction and poetry have appeared in zines you will not find, and the Art Amiss Chapbook that you might already have.  Right now, Tony is working on a novel(s), new music, and one day plans to cover Paul Simon’s Graceland in its entirety.  Tony lives in Austin, Portland, and Fayetteville depending on the weather.

Mark Spitzer is a professor of creative writing in the Department of Writing at the University of Central Arkansas. Spitzer’s memoirs include His poetry collections include Age of the Demon Tools (Ahadada Books) and The Pigs Drink from Infinity (Spuyten Duyvil). Memoirs include After the Orange Glow (Monkey Puzzle Press) and Writer in Residence (UNO Press). He has translated books by Jean Genet (The Genet Translations, Polemic Press), Louis-Ferdinand Céline (The Church, Green Integer), Arthur Rimbaud (From Absinthe to Abyssinia, Creative Arts), Georges Bataille (The Collected Poems of Georges Bataille, Dufour Editions; Divine Filth, Creation Books) and Blaise Cendrars (Films without Images, Green Integer). Spitzer’s novels include Chum (Zoland Books), CHODE! (Six Gallery Press), and Bottom Feeder (Creative Arts). He has also published the following nonfiction collections: Season of the Gar (U of AR Press), Riding the Unitand Proze Attack (both by Six Gallery Press). Spitzer has been featured on Animal Planet’s River Monsters as an expert on the alligator gar is the Editor in Chief of UCA’s cutting-edge literary annual, the Toad Suck Review.

September 10, 2011

Improved Lighting Reading Series

presents

poetry readings by

C. Violet Eaton

Whit Griffin

Katie Nichol

Sabine Schmidt

& music by

The Rhubarbs

Saturday, September 10, 8pm

Nightbird Books (in the BHK Kafe)

205 West Dickson Street

Fayetteville, Arkansas

Improved Lighting Reading Series hosts monthly readings, mostly poetry and mostly Saturdays, with occasional musical acts, at Nightbird Books in the BHK Kafe.  Free admission.  Full coffee/wine/beer bar and food available in the café and authors’ books available for purchase through the bookstore.  Curated by Roger Barrett, Kaveh Bassiri, and Matthew Henriksen.  Contact improvedlighting@gmail.com.

C. Violet Eaton holds an MA from the Poetics Program at the University of Buffalo and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. In addition to writing poetry, he releases small editions of “hill drone” recordings under the name Dowser.  He moved to Fayetteville in August and is currently teaching at University of Arkansas—Fort Smith.

Whit Griffin studied at Bennington College and Brooklyn College, respectively, and was a former intern for the Jargon Society. He is the author of Pentateuch: The First Five Books (Skysill Press, 2010). Chaplets include Wanhope (Longhouse, 2008), Fugitive Cant (Country Valley, 2010) and Cathedral Ring (Longhouse, 2011). Recent poems have appeared in Sixth Finch, Cannibal, Jellyroll, The Equalizer, With + Stand, H_NGM_N, Poetry Salzburg Review, and Forklift, Ohio. He currently resides in western Tennessee.

Katie Nichol grew up in central Minnesota. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and is currently a third year student in the University of Arkansas MFA program. She is the recipient of the University of Arkansas Lily Peter Prize and has been published by Spout Press.

The Rhubarbs is the musical project of Sam King and Katy Henriksen. They cover swoon-worthy songs on guitar and voice.

Sabine Schmidt is the literary director for Art Amiss and translates Bertolt Brecht.