New Writing Series Fall 2013

Pierre Joris has moved between the US, Great Britain, North Africa, France & Luxembourg for 50 years, publishing over 50 books of poetry, translations, anthologies, & essays. Forthcoming in 2013 is a translation & essay on the late poetry of Paul Celan (Farrar,Straus & Giroux). Recent publications include:  Diwan Iffrikya: An Anthology of North African Writings from Prehistory to Today, co-edited with Habib Tengour (University of California Press); & Meditations on the Stations of Mansur al-Hallaj (Chax Press). With Jerome Rothenberg he edited Poems for the Millennium, vol. 1 & 2: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry. He lives in Brooklyn, NY & teaches poetry & poetics at the State University of New York, Albany. More info at:www.pierrejoris.com.

Nicole Peyrafitte is a Gasco-Rican pluridisciplinary artist born & raised in the Gascon-French Pyrenees. Her texts, voice-work, paintings, videos, & cooking were featured in Ninon; The Bi-Continental Chowder/La Garbure Transcontinentale; Whisk don’t Churn. Her latest projects are: “Basil King: MIRAGE,” a film she co-directed with Miles Joris-Peyrafitte & “Bi-Valve: Vulvic Space / Vulvic Knowledge” a series paintings, bi-lingual texts & performance (Stockport Flats). She has performed in such venues as The Metropolitan Museum, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, The University of Bordeaux, Birbeck College London, CCA Glasgow, University of Edinburgh, Poets House NYC, The Poetry Project NYC, Festival Occitania in Toulouse, Estivada de Rodez. More info at: www.nicolepeyrafitte.com 

Paul Naylor’s fourth full-length book of poetry, Book of Changes, was published by Shearsman Books in 2012. Earlier books include Playing Well With Others (Singing Horse Press, 2004), Arranging Nature (Chax Press, 2006), and Jammed Transmission (Tinfish Press, 2009). He is also the author of Poetic Investigations: Singing the Holes in History (1999), a study of five contemporary poets—Susan Howe, Nathaniel Mackey, Lyn Hejinian, Kamau Brathwaite, and M. Nourbese Philip. He lives in San Diego, where he directs Singing Horse Press.

Hank Lazer has published seventeen books of poetry, including Portions (Lavender Ink, 2009), The New Spirit (Singing Horse, 2005), Elegies & Vacations (Salt, 2004), and Days (Lavender Ink, 2002).   Lazer’s seventeenth book of poetry N18 (complete), a handwritten book, is available from Singing Horse Press. Lazer is Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor of English at the University of Alabama, where he is Executive Director for Creative Campus and edits the Modern and Contemporary Poetics Series for the University of Alabama Press.  Over the past fifteen years, Lazer has collaborated with various jazz musicians, filmmakers, choreographers, and visual artists in seeking new ways to present poetry.  In 2008, Lyric & Spirit: Selected Essays, 1996-2008 was published by Omnidawn. 

Considered Slovenia's greatest living poet, Tomaž Šalamun has been dubbed "Nobelisable" (a candidate who could perfectly well win the Nobel Prize) by several major European newspapers (The Guardian, El Mundo, FAZ) and "One of Europe's great philosophical wonders" by Jorie Graham. He was born in Zagreb in 1941, and is one of the foremost figures of the Eastern European poetical avant-garde. He is revered by many American poets for his unique surrealistic style. His books have been translated into twenty-one languages, and nine of his thirty-seven books of poetry have been published in English. His first collection, Poker, was published when he was only twenty-five. His most recent collections are There's the Hand and There's the Arid Chair (Counterpath Press, 2009, translated by Thomas Kane and others); The Blue Tower (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, translated by Michael Biggins); The Book for My Brother (Harcourt, 2006, translated by Christopher Merrill and others); Poker (Ugly Duckling Press, 2003, 2008, translated by Joshua Beckman); Row (ARCpublications, 2006, translated by Joshua Beckman); Woods and Chalices (Harcourt, 2008, translated by Brian Henry), and On the Tracks of Wild Game (2012).

Johannes Göransson is the author of 5 books (most recently Haute Surveillance) and the translator of several books of Swedish poetry, including books by Aase Berg and Johan Jönson. He edits Action Books, blogs at Montevidayo.com and teaches at the University of Notre Dame.

Alli Warren's first book, Here Come the Warm Jets, is just out from City Lights. Previous chapbooks include Grindin’ (Lew Gallery), Acting Out (Editions Louis Wain), Well-Meaning White Girl (Mitzvah Chaps), and Cousins (Lame House Press). She formerly co-curated The (New) Reading Series at 21 Grand, and presently co-edits the Poetic Labor Project. Alli lives in Oakland.

Feliz Lucia Molina was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. She is the author of Undercastle, a first collection of poems and prose. Her poems and writing can be found at UbuWeb, Gauss PDF, Electronic Literature Organization Vol. 2, and recently in P-Queue, So & So, The Volta, and elsewhere. Her interviews with poets and filmmakers appear in Bomb, Continent,, and The Conversant. She has been in residence at The MacDowell Colony and various places in different parts of the world. She is contributing editor at Continent. and chapbook editor for Museum of Expensive Things. She lives in Los Angeles in the same neighborhood her parents lived in the 70s. Find her at stripmallheaven.tumblr.com and houseofdrawingstoo@tumblr.com.

Matias Viegener is a writer, artist and critic who works solo and collaboratively in the fields of writing, visual art, and social practice. His work has been exhibited at LACMA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Ars Electronica, ARCO Madrid, the Whitney, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Machine Project, MOCA Los Angeles, MOCA San Diego, and internationally in Mexico, Colombia, Germany, and Austria. He’s published fiction and criticism in Afterimage, American Book Review, Artforum, Art Issues, ArtUS, Artweek, Black Clock, Bomb, Critical Quarterly, Fiction International, Framework, The Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, Mirage, Paragraph, Suspect Thoughts, and X-tra. His work has been written about in The New Yorker, salon.com, The New York Times, Art in America, Frieze, Art:21, The Los Angeles Times,, Cabinet, and The Huffington Post. He is a co-founder of Fallen Fruit, and the author of the new book, 2500 Random Things About Me Too. He teaches at CalArts and is a 2013 Creative Capital awardee.

Christine Wertheim is author of +|'me'S-pace, editor of the anthology Feminaissance, and with Matias Viegener co-editor of Séance and The n/Oulipean Analects. From 2004-2009 she and Viegener organized an annual series of writing conferences at RECAT in downtown LA, with a grant from The Annenberg Foundation: Séance (2004), Noulipo (2005), Impunities (2006), Feminaissance (2007), Untitled (2008), Untitled NY (2009). Her poetry appears in numerous anthologies, including Against Expression, The & Now Awards: The Best Innovative Writing, I’ll Drown My Book, and The LA Telephone Book. With her sister Margaret, she co-directs the Institute For Figuring, for which the sisters received the 2011 Theo Westenberger Grant for Outstanding Female Artists. Her new book mUtter-bAbel is forthcoming from Countertpath Press. She teaches at the California Institute of the Arts.