Please see the following notice from Micol Ostow, whom I met a billion years ago in Hamilton Cain's creative writing class. Sadly, I am going to be at the NY Philharmonic that night, exploiting my new membership for the first time.

* * * * *

I thought I would take the opportunity to remind you of the upcoming reading I have scheduled at KGB Bar. The details:

Friday, 10/20
KGB (4th btw 2nd and 3rd Ave)
7pm

I will be reading from EMILY GOLDBERG LEARNS TO SALSA, and the lovely Judy Goldschmidt will be reading from one of the three installations of the RAISIN RODRIGUEZ series (if you want to know which one, you will have to ask her). Please join us. And feel free to forward along to any literary-minded friends and/or boozehounds.

* * * * *
Micol says there will be some giveaways!

VEGETARIAN DINNER PARTY
FUNDRAISER FOR BOOKS THROUGH BARS
Friday June 17 @ 8pm
at ABC No Rio
156 Rivington St (btw Clinton + Suffolk Sts)
Lower East Side, NYC

Three vegetarian courses
Plenty for vegans
Live folk and classical music
Cost: $5-$20 sliding scale

All proceeds used to send free donated books to people
in prison. more info at abcnorio.org/affiliated/btb.html

RSVPs or more info:
(212) 254-3697 xt 322 or btb@abcnorio.org

Books Through Bars presents yet another beer and movie night:

FEMINIST KUNG-FU MOVIE NIGHT
Friday, May 13th, 8 pm

Featuring:

*Wing Chun (with Michelle Yeoh of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame)

*Come Drink with Me (with a young Cheng Pei-Pei of Crouching Tiger fame)

*The Heroic Trio (Anita Mui! Michelle Yeoh! Maggie Cheung! Need we say more?)

$5 admission ($3 with paperback dictionary)

at ABC No Rio, 156 Rivington Street, Lower East Side
(between Clinton and Suffolk Streets)
212-254-3697, x. 322

J/M/Z trains to Essex or F train to Delancey Street

Proceeds go to Books Through Bars. For more
information on Books Through Bars, visit:
abcnorio.org/affiliated/btb.html

I'd seen Greg around school and at parties and heard his writing at the student readings, but I didn't really meet him until he came to our house for Lyle's going-away party. I was very charmed by his humor and friendliness and had a great time talking to him. I'm sorry I won't be able to attend the memorial service tomorrow, but am passing along the information for anybody who may not have gotten it yet. I'm also resposting the link to his blog that Katy found.

Here's the message from New School:

"With great sadness we report that our dear friend and colleague Greg Torso (class of 2003) passed away last week. As a person he was friendly, shy, self-effacing and kind to others. His fiction, like Greg himself, was deeply engaging and deeply felt. Every sentence he wrote was marked by a rapturous use of language and attention to detail. His stories found their subject in the permeable boundaries between sensitive characters negotiating their human appetites in a
world set against them. Greg contributed notes to an online writing project and, last year, Maisonneuve Magazine published his short piece about surviving the blackout of 2003 in New York, the city he adored.

Please join us at the New School to celebrate his life.
Friday, April 15th at 7 pm in Room 510, 66 West 12th Street."

Kids Creative Writing Workshop
Summer Program
Ages 6 - 10 (or child has completed min. 1st grade/ max. 4th grade)

Tuesdays, July 5 - August 16, 10am - Noon
(+ one additional class meeting for children to give a reading of their work for family & friends)

Kids will be exposed to three genres of creative writing: poetry, fiction and autobiography. In each lesson, they will hear a poem, short story or autobiographical piece. Games, collaborative writing exercises and individual writing prompts will lead your child to produce several pieces of writing in each of these genres. Through their writing, children will explore language, rhythm, images, character and plot. In the latter part of semester, the young writers will focus on editing and revision. Participants will also take photographs to go with their writing. At the end of the program, kids will bind their writing and illustrative photography into a book. Parents and friends will be invited to a reading in which children will read from the books they’ve made.

Location: Freebird Books & Goods, 123 Columbia Street (btw Kane & Degraw), Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn

Cost: $225, includes 16 hours of class time @ 12.50/hour + $25 materials fee to cover disposable cameras, photo processing, book binding, and additional craft projects.

Class Size: Strictly limited to 12 students.

Instructor: Sonya Collins holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Creative Writing from New School University and a Bachelors Degree in Creative Writing from the City University of New York. A writer of fiction, she has been teaching writing for ten years. She teaches at Hunter College and works with youth at camps, after-school programs, public libraries and other extra-curricular programs.

Please contact Sonya @ 917-548-7547 or writeonbrooklyn@att.net for more information.

Don't forget, spelling bee tonight at Freddy's! Yeah!

And check out the Bronson Pinchot fan page! Isn't he the dreamiest?

In honor of Valentine's Day....

A list of the chocolate companies that do and don't use child slave labor (Fair Trade is always good)

Top 10 Reasons Not to Buy a Diamond (see #7, child slave labor)

34 million metric tons of mine waste for your gold:

American caviar (preferably sustainably farmed) so you don't kill off the last Caspian sturgeon:

Who gets babies with birth defects from packaging your pesticide-laden roses?

And in keeping with the spirit, Gunnar sends in this Margaret Atwood gem:

"You Fit into Me"

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

Josh Reynolds' next spelling bee will take place on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 at 8:00 p.m. at Freddy's Bar & Backroom in Brooklyn (go to the back room to find bee; directions available at their web site). Entry fee is $1; winner takes all! Josh emcees a really fun bee. I hope all of you reading this in England, Japan, California, and Texas will, like, trek out for it.

Steal This Book!: The Sibley Guide to Birds, by David Allen Sibley. Interested in knowing what birds are hanging out by your window? Check out this beautifully illustrated and delightfully observant book (one dove is described as having a "bemused" expression). With its help, we have identified the following birds in our backyard: common snipe (it was not, after all, an American woodcock), Northern cardinal, blue jay (duh), feral rock doves (a.k.a. winged rats), house sparrows, and mourning dove (an extremely sweet-faced dove, and very friendly), and some kind of parakeet, though this was before we got the book so I can't narrow it down any further. At 544 pages, it is a little heavy for a field guide, but it was portable enough to take down to Coney Island on Sunday afternoon. Identifying gulls, according to Sibley, "represents one of the most challenging and subjective puzzles in birding and should be approached only with patient and methodical study." However, with his help, we fairly confidently identified an Iceland gull, a lesser black-backed gull, several hybrid gulls, plus two pairs of male and female Lesser Scaups. (Very exciting. "Is it a tern? Is it a duck? Is it a goose?" "No, they're not geese." "Maybe they're Northern Gannets." "Look for one with white wings. No, WHITE wings. Are you listening to me?" "Are they boobies?" "Do boobies have white wings? No." Alison was holding the book; she got very excited over all the bird names.) Also, as the D train was passing close by the roofs of several buildings, I identified a strange bird that was either 1. a tiny hawk, or 2. a parrot. It is not Sibley's fault that I didn't get any further; YOU try identifying a bird as you rush past on the D train.

Class announcement from Sonya:

Thanks to all of you who have helped spread the word, in less than 2 weeks, on February 1st, I'll be starting the 3rd semester of my kids creative writing workshop "Write On, Brooklyn!: Kids Creative Writing Workshop."

• Class size is limited to 10-12 students aged 6-10.
• Classes meet on Tuesdays from 3:30-5:00. Feb 1 – May 31.
No classes on public school holidays.
• Reading for an audience will be held on Tuesday 5/31 at 6:30 pm.
• Cost for full semester is $325
Includes 24 hours of class time at just $12.50/hr! + $25 materials fee for cameras, film processing and bookbinding.
(Parents may pay tuition by the month at a slightly increased rate.)
• Instructor is also available to run a customized workshop around your schedule in your home or hers for groups of four children or more.

Kids will be exposed to three genres of creative writing: poetry, fiction and autobiography. In each lesson, they will hear a poem, short story or autobiographical piece. Games, collaborative writing exercises and individual writing prompts will lead your child to produce several pieces of writing in each of these genres. Through their writing, children will explore language, rhythm, images, character and plot. In the latter part of semester, the young writers will focus on editing and revision. Participants will also take photographs to go with their writing. At the end of the program, kids will bind their writing and illustrative photography into a book. Parents and friends will be invited to a reading in which children will read from the books they’ve made.

Sonya Collins holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Creative Writing from New School University and a Bachelors Degree in Creative Writing from the City University of New York. A writer of fiction, she has been teaching writing for ten years. She teaches freshmen at Hunter College and she works with youth at camps, after-school programs, public libraries.

Contact Sonya today!
917-548-7547
Writeonbrooklyn@att.net
Registration open now!
Class size limited to 12!!!

Please join us for an evening of ultra-short, ultra-rich readings by the excellent students in Intensive Fiction Writing, my Brooklyn writing workshop. Hope to see you there! --Carmen Scheidel

The reading will be held on Thursday, December 9 at 7:00 pm at
Freebird Books & Goods
123 Columbia St.
Brooklyn, NY
718-643-8484
freebirdbooks.com for directions

Featured readers include:
Marie Davis-Williams
Michael Ferch
Stephanie Gannon
Brigitte Maier
Syreeta McFadden
Tracy Pesin
Sarah Petrie
Keely Savoie
Mary Sternbach
Alex Tilney
Dana Thompson
Beth Weinstein

Beer, wine, coffee, and tea will be available for purchase. Please also join us for drinks at nearby Alma after the reading.

Intensive Fiction Writing is a workshop program I started in 2003 that uses weekly exercises to inspire and inform longer works of fiction. For more information, contact me at capisco@verizon.net. The next session begins in January 2005.