Literary Exploring

When my wife and I were in Alsace in 2001, Thomas E. Kennedy suggested that we spend a few days in Paris on our way back to the States. He would also stop there on his way back from a business trip to Malta and arrange a gathering of expatriate American and Canadian writers at the outdoor tables of a cafe on Place de la Contrescarpe. He assembled an impressive crowd of poets, story writers, and novelists. Photos were taken, many of them, and Tom soon afterwards wrote an essay about the experience. That was the start of what is now called The Literary Explorer on Web Del Sol, a combination of prose and pictures.
     The series was Tom's idea, and I had my doubts that I could keep up with him. For close to thirty years he has lived in Copenhagen and traveled widely for business and pleasure, always carrying a camera and gravitating to sites of literary interest. Although I became addicted to European travel during my first semester-long stay in England, my trips averaged one a year for a week or two. But I had my own photos and my memory conjured up experiences to write about.
     Writing about our travels we deliberately avoided the typical guidebook approaches, emphasizing our own engagements with the places and the legacy of the writers who had lived there, often telling about the offbeat and little noticed.
     The Del Sol Press book collects the first 26 essays, but since that publication, we've added many more to the website, finding that we still have a number of past trips to catch up on and seeking essay possibilities when we plan new ones. Fortunately for us, the world offers endless opportunities for literary explorations.

Nin Andrews (loves her dogs) - MIDLIFE CRISIS WITH DICK AND JANE

Nin Andrews is the author of several books including The Book of Orgasms, Why They Grow Wings, Any Kind of Excuse, and Sleeping with Houdini. Her next book, Southern Comfort, is forthcoming from CavanKerry Press, and her chapbook, Dear Professor, Do You Live in a Vacuum, will be out by Christmas this year. Midlife Crisis with Dick and Jane was published by Del Sol Press last year.

Nin's blog can be found here. More bio from her blog as follows: "I have two amazing kids who aren't kids anymore. One is in El Salvador in the Peace Corps. The other is working on his doctoral degree at Berkeley in CS and is also an artist and writer. And I have a cool husband and physicist and bass player, all wrapped into one. And my dogs are Sadie and Froda. I'm totally in love with my dogs. "

Julianne Buchsbaum - "A Little Night Comes"

Julianne Buchsbaum graduated from Beloit College with a BA in Philosophy and Classics. She then went on to earn an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was the recipient of a Paul Engle Fellowship from the Michener Foundation. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various journals, including Conduit, Verse, The Journal, Southwest Review, Delmar and Harvard Review and are anthologized in Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century.


Her work won the 1999 Randall Jarrell Poetry Prize and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Ms. Buchsbaum is the author of Slowly, Slowly, Horses (2001, Ausable Press), and her most recent book, A Little Night Comes, won the 2005 Del Sol Press Poetry Award and was published by Del Sol Press in December, 2005. Ms. Buchsbaum is currently pursuing her PhD at University of Missouri-Columbia as a G. Ellsworth Huggins Fellow. Her areas of interest include modern and contemporary British and American literature, the postmodern sublime, and creative writing.

David Blair - Ascension Days

"Ascension Days" was chosen by Thomas Lux for the 2007 Del Sol Poetry Prize. David Blair was born in 1970. His poems have appeared in Boston Review, Fence, The Greensboro Review, The Harvard Review, Ploughshares, Verse, and been featured in the anthologies Zoland Poetry and The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. He is an associate professor at The New England Institute of Art in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Upcoming Readings, Winter-Spring, 2008

Wednesday, February 20th, 8:00 p.m.
Mellon Room
Chatham University
Pittsburgh, PA
(http://www.chatham.edu/news/eventdetails.cfm?EventID=757&QDate=02/20/2008).

Monday, February 25th, 8:00 p.m.
with Peter Waldor
The Blacksmith House Poetry Series
Cambridge Center for Adult Education
56 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA
http://www.ccae.org/events/blacksmith.html

Saturday, March 1st, 7:45 p.m.
Poetribe
The East Bridgewater Public Library
The Community Room
(basement room around back)
32 Union Street
East Bridgewater, MA 0233
http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/bridgewaterslam/


Monday, March 24th, 5:00 p.m.
with Daniel Anderson
University Professors Program Poetry Reading Series
Boston University
Katzenberg Center, 3rd Floor
College of General Studies
871 Commonwealth Avenue
http://www.bu.edu/uni/programs/poetry.html


Tuesday, March 25th, 7:00 p.m.
with Tom Sleigh
McNally Robinson NYC
52 Prince Street
New York, NY 10012
http://www.mcnallyrobinsonnyc.com/upcoming-events/


Thursday, April 3rd, 8:00 p.m.
MFA Writing Program at UNC Greensboro
UNCG Center for Creative Writing in the Arts
Spring 2008 Writers Series
UNCG Faculty Center
http://www.uncg.edu/eng/mfa/mfa-series.html