tonight

March 20, 2008
5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Library, 3rd floor east



April is National Poetry Month and to kick-off the festivities, the Library's d.i.y. series (do indie yourself) Real Art. Real People. Real World.: Independent Artists Share Ideas for Creating and Sustaining Success debuts with a panel discussion from three emerging Chicago poets on their experiences fostering their work through a variety of time-tested DIY methods related to writing and building an audience, including publication, poetry groups and workshops, readings, literary journals, and independent presses. Looking for an answer to "What do I do now?"? Longing to put all your knowledge, ambition, and talent to use? This panel will give you some great ideas...

The panelists:

Jacob Saenz graduated from Columbia College Chicago in the winter of 2005 with a BA in Creative Writing - Poetry. His work has appeared in a handful of journals such as RHINO, Columbia Poetry Review, Inkstains and Poetry. In 2007 he was nominated for an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award.

Kristy Bowen graduated from Columbia College Chicago in 2007 with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing - Poetry. She is the author of the fever almanac (Ghost Road Press, 2006) and in the bird museum, (Dusie Press, 2008), as well as several small press and self-published chapbooks. Her work has appeared in Swink, Backwards City Review, DIAGRAM, Caffeine Destiny and others. She is the editor of the online litzine wicked alice, and publisher of dancing girl press, which has published over 30 chapbooks and book arts projects by emerging women writers. She recently moved the whole operation into a studio / reading / workshop in the Fine Arts Building down the street and off of her dining room table. Her third collection, girl show, is forthcoming from Ghost Road in late 2009.

Todd Heldt is a poet-librarian in Chicago, and his poems and short stories have appeared in dozens of print and electronic journals. He has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and helped judge the 2006 Poetry Superhighway poetry contest. His chapbook, The Science of Broken People, was published by Little Poem Press in 2003, and his first full-length collection, Card Tricks for the Starving, is to be published in 2009 by Ghost Road Press. In 2002 he toured coffee houses and bars in the South with a self-published book and CD of poetry, making enough money to replace the transmission when it dropped out of the car in Texas.

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