Maryland State Arts Council Announces Launch of Literary Arts Week

The Maryland State Arts Council, in partnership with the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance and the CityLit Project, announces the launch of Literary Arts Week in Baltimore this October. This weeklong celebration of the many literary arts activities and artists in the city is a part of Free Fall Baltimore, an initiative of the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts.

The literary arts community will offer 13 free, public events—including poetry readings, writing workshops, spoken word performances, and author appearances—during the week of October 15-22, 2011.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 Maryland State Arts COUNCIL ANNOUNCES LAUNCH OF LITERARY ARTS WEEK
 Free Literary Arts Opportunities October 15-22

The Maryland State Arts Council, in partnership with the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance and the CityLit Project, announces the launch of Literary Arts Week in Baltimore this October. This weeklong celebration of the many literary arts activities and artists in the city is a part of Free Fall Baltimore, an initiative of the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts.

The literary arts community will offer 13 free, public events—including poetry readings, writing workshops, spoken word performances, and author appearances—during the week of October 15-22, 2011.

For questions about the Literary Arts Week, contact J. Buck Jabaily of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance at bjabaily@baltimoreculture.org. For more information about the Maryland State Arts Council’s Literary Arts programs visit www.msac.org or email Program Director Chris Stewart at cstewart@msac.org. See the full schedule for Free Fall Baltimore at http://www.freefallbaltimore.com/.

Literary Arts Week events  

The BaltiVORE Plays
Host organization: Playwrights Group of Baltimore
Date: Wednesday, October 19 at 8:00 PM
Location: Andre White Student Center, Loyola University of Maryland, 4501 N. Charles Street
Media Contact: Rich Espey at richespey@gmail.com
The Playwrights Group of Baltimore presents readings of seven new ten-minute plays, each of which has something to do with Baltimore foods. Come hear how Old Bay, Berger’s cookies and Utz chips have inspired some of Baltimore’s most creative dramatists!

Literary Mount Vernon Walking Tours
Host organization: Maryland Humanities Council
Date: Tuesday, October 18 and Saturday, October 22 | 10:00-11:30 AM
Location: Meet at Old St. Paul’s Rectory garden, 24 W. Saratoga Street
Media Contact: Michele Baylin at mbaylin@mdhc.org
Website: http://mdhc.org
Take this 90 minute walking tour with the Maryland Humanities Council past Mount Vernon’s elegant mansions and majestic cultural institutions and follow in the footsteps of the many famous authors, poets, and editors who sojourned in Baltimore cultural hub.

Lost and Found: Opening Day Talk by Curator Will Noel
Host organization: Walters Art Museum
Date: Sunday, October 16 | 2:00-3:30 PM
Location: Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles Street
Media Contact: Amy Mannarino at amannarino@thewalters.org
Website: http://thewalters.org
Exhibition curator Will Noel shares the story of The Archimedes Palimpsest. Preceding Noel’s talk is a brief overview of Archimedes’ most important achievements by Mario Livio, astrophysicist and author of Is God a Mathematician?

Persona Workshop
Host organization: The Baltimore Review
Date: Saturday, October 15 | 1:00-3:30 PM
Location: Minas Gallery, 815 W. 36^th Street
Media Contact: Barbara Westwood Diehl at editor@baltimorereview.org
Website: http://baltimorereview.org
This Free Fall, feel free to be—anyone else. Join Baltimore Review editors and friends for an afternoon of tips, tricks, improvisation, writing exercises, and performance. The Persona Workshop is about incorporating the art of the dramatic monologue into your fiction and poems.

Dramatic Reading and Discussion of Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Host organization: Maryland Humanities Council
Date: Wednesday, October 19 | 7:00 PM
Location: Strand Theatre, 1823 N. Charles Street
Media Contact: Michele Baylin at mbaylin@mdhc.org
Website: http://mdhc.org
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is the pick for One Maryland One Book 2011.  Come to this dramatic reading of brief excerpts from Alexie’s laugh-out-loud funny, yet bittersweet account read by actors from the Strand Theatre.  Find out why everybody’s talking about this powerful book.  Be part of the dialogue and share your thoughts about True Diary.  Want to read the book first?  Check out a copy from your local branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

Kathleen Koch—Rising from Katrina: How My Mississippi Hometown Lost It All and Found What Mattered
Host organization: Enoch Pratt Free Library
Date: Saturday, October 15 | 2:00 PM
Location: Roland Park Branch, 5108 Roland Avenue
Media Contact: Roswell Encina at rencina@prattlibrary.org
Website: http://prattlibrary.org
Kathleen Koch talks about her book, Rising From Katrina: How My Mississippi Hometown Lost It All and Found What Mattered.  Rising from Katrina won the gold medal for best nonfiction in the Southeast region in the 2011 Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Lenora “Peachy” Dixon—A Peachy Life
Host organization: Enoch Pratt Free Library
Date: Saturday, October 15 | 1:00 PM
Location: Southeast Anchor Library, 3601 Eastern Avenue
Media Contact: Roswell Encina at rencina@prattlibrary.org
Website: http://prattlibrary.org
Leonora “Peachy” Dixon tells the story of growing up in a tight-knit Baltimore neighborhood and how she escaped a horrible marriage to bring up her daughters by herself.  Lenora looks back in her book, A Peachy Life.

Greg Myre & Jennifer Griffin—This Burning Land: Lessons from the Front Lines of the Transformed Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Host organization: Enoch Pratt Free Library
Date: Sunday, October 16| 2:30 PM
Location: Poe Room, Central Library, 400 Cathedral Street
Media Contact: Roswell Encina at rencina@prattlibrary.org
Website: http://prattlibrary.org
Greg Myre and Jennifer Griffin, both journalists, discuss their take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in their book, This Burning Land: Lessons from the Front Lines of the Transformed Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Nathaniel Philbrick—Why Read Moby Dick?
Host organization: Enoch Pratt Free Library
Date: Tuesday, October 18 | 6:30 PM
Location: Poe Room, Central Library, 400 Cathedral Street
Media Contact: Roswell Encina at rencina@prattlibrary.org
Website: http://prattlibrary.org
Nathaniel Philbrick, winner of the National Book Award and a finalist for the Pulizer Prize, has written a book for those intimidated by the thought of reading Herman Melville’s classic, Moby Dick.  In Why Read Moby Dick, Philbrick illuminates the classic’s humor and finds threads that bind Ishmael and Ahab to our own time and to all time.

Dorothy Bailey—In a Different Light: Reflections and Beauty of Wise Women of Color
Host organization: Enoch Pratt Free Library
Date: Wednesday, October 19 | 7:00 PM
Location: Wheeler Auditorium, Central Library, 400 Cathedral Street
Media Contact: Roswell Encina at rencina@prattlibrary.org
Website: http://prattlibrary.org
In her new book, In a Different Light: Reflections and Beauty of Wise Women of Color, Dorothy Bailey examines the lives of 90 women of color who either live in Maryland or have strong ties to Maryland.  These “wise women” offer insight on living full lives.

Life Rolls On, One Day at a Time —Jesse Billauer
Host organization: Enoch Pratt Free Library
Date: Thursday, October 20 | 6:30 PM
Location: Southeast Anchor Library, 3601 Eastern Avenue
Media Contact: Roswell Encina at rencina@prattlibrary.org
Website: http://prattlibrary.org
Life Rolls On, One Day at a Time, features surfer and motivational speaker, Jesse Billauer, a professional surfer who was permanently injured in a surfing accident.  He talks about his experiences as an athlete and the founder of the Life Rolls On Foundation.

Breaking the Barriers: Helping Black Males Achieve Academic Success —Dr. Ivory Toldson
Host organization: Enoch Pratt Free Library
Date: Thursday, October 20 | 7:00 PM
Location: Wheeler Auditorium, Central Library, 400 Cathedral Street
Media Contact: Roswell Encina at rencina@prattlibrary.org
Website: http://prattlibrary.org
With Breaking the Barriers: Helping Black Males Achieve Academic Success, part of the Talking About Race series presented in partnership with Open Society Institute-Baltimore, the Enoch Pratt Library presents Dr. Ivory A. Toldson who will speak on what educators can do to ensure that young black males succeed. 

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