Gothic Funk

Please join us for the next reading on Tuesday, August 4th:

WILLIAM ALLEGREZZA edits the e-zine Moria and the press Cracked Slab Books. He has published five books, In the Weaver’s Valley, Ladders in July, Fragile Replacements, Collective Instant, and Covering Over; one anthology, The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century; seven chapbooks, including Sonoluminescence (co-written with Simone Muench) and Filament Sense (Ypolita Press); and many poetry reviews, articles, and poems. He curates series A, a reading series in Chicago dedicated to experimental writing. In addition, he occasionally posts his thoughts at http://allegrezza.blogspot.com.

JOTHAM BURRELLO is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College Chicago where he directs the publishing lab, a resource for emerging writers. His writing has appeared in Eleven Eleven, Drunken Boat, Oyez Review, Pennsylvania English, the Christian Science Monitor and elsewhere. He recently completed his novel, Fall River. He’s a former editor of the journal Sport Literate. His multimedia company, Elephant Rock Productions published the anthology All Hands On, The 2nd Hand Reader, and produced instructional DVDs for writers featuring Janet Burroway, Robert Olen Butler, Joe Meno, Rosellen Brown and others. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two little boys.

Recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award and the Margaret Walker Short Story Award, PARNESHIA JONES is published in several anthologies including The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South and America! What’s My Name? The Other Poets Unfurl the Flag. She has been featured on Chicago Public Radio – Chicago Amplified and has performed her work all over the United States including the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City and the Art Institute in Chicago. Jones was commissioned by Art for Humanity, and the city of Chicago, to write poetry, for an exhibition, that will be unveiled in Durban, South Africa during the 2010 World Cup.
Parneshia is a member of the Affrilachian Poets, a collective of voices that bridge Africa and Appalachia, and is on the board of the Guild Complex and Uni-Verse of Poetry: A United Nations of Poetry. She is the head of sales and international rights for Northwestern University Press, holds a M.F.A from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, and has completed her first collection of poems, Waiting for Hurricanes, and is currently working on a trilogy collection of persona poetry.

Please join us for the next reading on Tuesday, June 2nd:

KRISTIN FITZSIMMONS received her MA from the University of Chicago in 2008. She is currently an Americorps member at the Hull House Association in Uptown where she teaches English as a Second Language and attempts to learn Spanish as a fourth language in addition to French and Dutch. Some of her recent poems are published in the March/April 2009 edition of The Boston Review.

CATHY GILBERT grew up in Central Illinois, and after receiving her MA in the Humanities from the University of Chicago, she returned to that area to become an Instructor of English at Heartland Community College in Normal, IL. She teaches many levels of composition and is excited to teach some creative writing classes in the fall. When she is not frantically planning, teaching, or grading, Cathy turns to poetry to calm her nerves. Her poems have appeared in the Madison Review, Main Channel Voices, and Pank, and can most recently be found in an online journal called r.kv.r.y. Cathy is very grateful for the opportunity to read her poems tonight, here in the great city of Chicago. She’s been looking forward to the promised cupcake for over a month.

PARNESHIA JONES