Gartal and AGLA-NY to present "An Evening of Literary Pride"
June 20
Published: Wednesday June 10, 2009
Arthur Nersesian.
New York - "Pride," a loaded term for the Armenian and queer communities alike, is the theme of a June 20 literary evening sponsored by Gartal and the Armenian Gay and Lesbian Association of New York.
East Village novelist Arthur Nersesian (The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx ) will host the evening. Memoirist Nancy Agabian (Me as her again: True Stories of an Armenian Daughter ) will introduce writers and poets David Ciminello, Amy Ouzoonian, Aaron Poochigian, Margarita Shalina, and Hrag Vartanian.
The readings take place at the LGBT Community Services Center, room 410, at 208 W. 13th St. (between 7th and 8th Aves.) in New York City.
David Ciminello's fiction has appeared in the literary journal Lumina. His short story "PD XOX" appears in the forthcoming anthology Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City. His poetry has appeared in Poetry Northwest. His original screenplay Bruno (a finalist in the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting) was produced and occasionally appears on DVD as something vaguely resembling the original story. David has received his MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. He currently lives in New York City where he works as a writer and teaching artist.
Amy Ouzoonian is a writer, performance artist and editor. She is the author of Your Pill (Poems, Foothills Publishing), editor of In the Arms of Words: Poems for Disaster Relief (Poems, Sherman Asher Press). She is currently a graduate student at The New School and is working on a series of performance pieces that incorporates her work with music and dance called "Waiting Journey." She lives and creates in Queens.
Aaron Poochigian attended Moorhead State University from where he studied under the poets Dave Mason, Alan Sullivan, and Tim Murphy. After traveling and doing research in Greece on fellowship, he earned his Ph.D. in classics from the University of Minnesota. Forthcoming translations include Sappho's poems and fragments for Penguin Classics; Aeschylus, Aratus and Apollonius of Rhodes in the Norton Anthology of Greek Literature in Translation; and his edition of Aratus' astronomical poem, The Phaenomena, from Johns Hopkins University Press. His original poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Arion, The Dark Horse, Poetry Magazine and Smartish Pace. He now lives and writes in Brooklyn.
Margarita Shalina was born in Leningrad and raised on New York's Lower East Side. Her poetry has appeared in Poems for the Retired Nihilist V. 2 (Fortune Teller Press, UK, 2007), EvergreenReview.com, New York Nights, and as a broadside for Poetry Motel. She has written essays for ZEEK Magazine and Three Percent, the website that accompanies Open Letter Press. She was a contributing translator to Contemporary Russian Poetry (Dalkey Archive Press, 2007) and is the Independent Press Buyer for St. Marks Bookshop. She lives in New York.
Hrag Vartanian is an Armenian-Canadian writer, critic, and cultural worker. He lives in New York and his work has appeared in the Art21 blog, AGBU News, the Brooklyn Rail, NYFA's Current, Huffington Post, and Modern Painters. He contributes a street art column, "Re:Public", to ArtCat Zine. He serves on the board of the Ararat Quarterly and the Triangle Arts Association. He also blogs daily at hragvartanian.com. He is gayly married and hopes that one day his marriage will be legally recognized across America and around the world.
Since 2002, Gartal ("to read" in Armenian) has been an independent forum for both established and emerging writers of Armenian descent and/or writers dealing with Armenian themes to read their poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and dramatic texts to the public. Coordinated by Ms. Agabian, Gartal brings together, via the dual acts of reading and listening, diverse Armenian constituencies, from the progressive to the traditional. A particular effort is made to give voice to Armenian stories that haven't been widely heard, including those of mixed race, various religions, different economic backgrounds, and queer Armenians.
Since 1998, the purpose of AGLA NY has been to provide space for lesbian, gay, bi, and transgender Armenian-Americans, their partners, and their allies to come together, fostering visibility and strengthening ties between the queer and Armenian communities. The group meets monthly at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York.
connect:
armeniandrama.org/GARTAL.php
aglany.org
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