Video: May 6th WotD reading and journal launch

The launch of Write on the DOT: Vol. 1 was a huge success. All thanks go out to our incredible readers and to everyone who showed up to celebrate with us! It's been an incredible first year for our local reading series, and we're angling for it to be the first of many.

Check out these videos of all the fabulous readings at our May 6th event.

Welcome (Aaron Devine)

Special Veteran Readers Panel, part one (Anna Ross and Natty Forsythe)

Special Veteran Readers Panel, part two (Betsy Gomez/Fawzi Nicolas, Krysten Hill, and Virginia Magboo)

Eric Maxson

Willie Pleasants

Liam Day

Note: Due to technical difficulties, we lost our video of Alex Sladky's reading. You'll just have to check out this talented young fictioneer the next time she reads in town, or read her piece in Write on the DOT: Vol. 1!

Write on the DOT: Vol. 1 launches this Sunday

This Sunday, May 6th, Write on the DOT is launching our first collection of writing from Dorchester and UMass Boston. The journal - Write on the DOT: Vol. 1 - will be available for just $3 at the reading (which begins at 5:30PM with drink and appetizer specials at Savin Bar and Kitchen).

Vol. 1 features poetry, prose, and translation from U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo, Willie Pleasants, Karen Locascio, Natty Forsythe, Liam Day, Jon Papas, Sandra Kohler, Audrey Mardavich, Alexandra Sladky, Kurt Klopmeier, Aaron Devine, Mitch Manning, Andra Hibbert, Danielle Fontaine, Anna Ross, Molly McGuire, Rad Thie, and Zachary Bos.

Also with original artwork created by Dorchester teenagers under guidance from Dot Art.

Special thanks to our local sponsors whose generous support made this publication possible: Savin Bar & Kitchen, UMass Boston MFA program, Dorchester Arts Collaborative, Ashmont Cycles, Dot2Dot Cafe, Avenue Liquors, The Stitch House, and Dot Art.

Copies of the book will also be donated to Dorchester libraries and some public schools.

Join us for the reading this Sunday and get your copy of Write on the DOT: Vol. 1.

Special Reading Menu plus Reader Bios

Join us Sunday, May 6th at Savin Bar & Kitchen.

     Reception starts at 5:30PM with a special Write on the DOT menu:
          Author's Ales:           Narragansett (16oz cans)                                      $3
                                               Harpoon IPA                                                           $4
          Reader's Respite:      Twin Vines Vinho Verde                                      $5/glass
          "The Hemingway":   Bacardi Limon, Peach Shnapps, & lemonade   $6.50

          Plus $5 appetizer specials of Cajun Fried Dill Spears, Whiskey BBQ Pulled Pork Tostada, Buffalo Bleu Cheese Fries, & Margarita flatbread. (Thanks to Savin Bar & Kitchen for personalizing these specials for our attendees!)

     Reading starts at 6PM in the private downstairs space. 

          Featuring: Eric Maxson, Willie Pleasants, Alexandra Sladky, & Liam Day

          with Anna Ross, Krysten Hill, Sam Cha, Virginia Magboo, Natty Forsythe, & Fawzi Nicolas.

Come celebrate 1-year of Write on the DOT, the end of spring semester, 

and the (close enough) beginning of summer.

Reader Bios:

Eric Maxson works in the Creative Writing Program at UMass Boston. A former Savin Hill resident, he now lives in East Boston. His fiction has most recently appeared in the Black Warrior Review and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The details of the first story he wrote are vaguely remembered, a young man named Eric with a sleepwalking problem, but the title is clear—“I Came Down to Get Some Underwear.”

Willie Pleasants is an author, poet, and the producer and host of her own cable show "Willie's Web" at Boston Neighborhood Network. Born a southerner, she has lived in Dorchester for over 30 years. Her main goal is to use her books and poetry to inspire and encourage reading among all ages.

Alexandra Sladky is from Augusta, GA. She holds a BA in Latin from Mount Holyoke College and is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at UMass Boston. If she could drink with a couple of famous writers she would drink with Ovid and Catullus, very expensive red wine, paid for by someone else. She lives in Brighton.

Liam Day is a graduate of Harvard College and the Bread Loaf School of English. He spent a year playing professional basketball in Ireland, before returning to the States to begin a career teaching. He is currently the Director of Youth Development and Health Promotion at the Boston Public Health Commission and Director of the Boston Area Health Education Center. His poems have appeared in Slow Trains, Apt, and U.M.P.h. Prose. His op-eds have appeared in the Boston Globe and Herald, among numerous other publications. And his essays have appeared in The Shoestring Traveler, Annalemma, Stymie, and the Good Men Project, to which he is a regular contributor. He lives in Dorchester, on Jones Hill to be precise, with his wife Nicole.

 

Next Write on the DOT reading Sunday, May 6th

*SAVE THE DATE*

The next Write on the DOT reading will take place Sunday, May 6th starting at 6PM in Savin Bar & Kitchen's private downstairs space (Red Line to Savin Hill T station). We'll feature Dorchester writers Willie Pleasants and Liam Day alongside UMass Boston writers Alex Sladky and Eric Maxson.

The reading will mark one-year of Write on the DOT, as well as the end of the spring semester (and start of summer!). Come hear poetry and fiction read aloud by, and in the company of, your neighbors. More details to follow.

Video: January 29th WotD reading at Savin Bar and Kitchen

We had great attendance at our January reading, and a great set of readers as well! Check out their videos below the cut.

Sunday, January 29th, 7 pm

at Savin Bar & Kitchen, across the street from the Savin Hill T stop

Johnny Diaz is a staff writer for The Boston Globe's Business section, where he writes about local TV news, radio, and advertising (and whatever stories his editors throw his way). He's also the author of four gay-themed novels: Boston Boys Club, Miami Manhunt, Beantown Cubans and the newly published, Take The Lead. On his downtime, the Dorchester resident enjoys hiking in the Blue Hills, reading People magazine and walking around downtown Providence (the setting for his fifth book).

Karen Locascio is a first-year MFA student in Poetry (that's right, capital P) at UMass Boston. She recently moved from Allston to Dorchester where she lives directly above a pizza place. She can tell you pretty much anything you'd ever want to know about government mortgage pass-thrus and has work in the current issue of Amethyst Arsenic. Karen loves Boston but will always be a Jersey Girl at heart.

Audrey Mardavich lives in Clam Point, Dorchester after having spent the past year in Austin, TX. She is a poet and sometimes-blogger on feminist art and literature, rock and roll and reproductive rights. She works at the Public Radio Exchange where she helps make public radio more public.

Jon Papas is a poet from Rochester, NY. Some work of his has appeared in Everyday Genius, PANK, Willow Springs, and OCHO.

Kathleen McKenna is a 2011 graduate of the MFA program at UMass-Boston, on the fiction side. She's now writing feature-length obituaries for the Boston Globe, and each person whose remarkable life she is privileged to chronicle deserves a full-length book.

New Reading THIS Sunday 7pm at Savin Bar & Kitchen

Come kick off the new year & semester with your friends & neighbors as we host our first reading of 2012 in the private downstairs room of Savin Bar & Kitchen.

Fiction and poetry readings by UMass Boston MFA students/alumni and by Dorchester-area writers. Featuring Johnny Diaz, Karen Locascio, Audrey Mardavich, Kathleen McKenna, and Jonathan Papas.

Plus, food & drink specials exclusive to Write on the DOT!

(No NFL games scheduled for Sunday since it is the week before the Super Bowl.)

Savin Bar & Kitchen is directly across the street from the Savin Hill T station. Take any Ashmont-bound Red Line train. On-street parking available.

Hope to see you Sunday at Write on the DOT.

Writers get to know your neighbors. Neighbors get to know your writers.