News
Cristin to be Poet-in-Residence at the 2013 WordXWord Festival
Cristin is thrilled to be invited back to participate in the Fifth Annual WordXWord Festival, which will present an unprecedented array of poetry, spoken word, storytelling, workshops and word-related activities August 11 – 17, 2013 at locations throughout the Upstreet Cultural District of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The festival will be anchored by the week long residency of four dynamic, nationally acclaimed poet/spoken word artists: Jon Sands, Robbie Q Telfer, Omar Holman and Cristin. Sands and Telfer will share hosting/emceeing duties for the week-long festival, while Aptowicz and Holman will serve as resident personalities, popping up and chiming in throughout the week’s events. In addition, all four will present their own work as part of the Feature Night and Finale programs. The festival schedule includes poetry performances and readings by both local and national artists; the finale of the WordXWord Story Slam series; the popular WXW Poetry Slam; an iPhone Poetry festival-within-a-festival; the Amazing Poetry Race, pitting teams of two against each other as they unravel clues to move from location to location and face a variety of challenges involving words, mental and physical challenges; Feature Night, a gathering spotlighting some of the most significant poets and spoken word artists on the national scene including the four poets-in-residence; the Encyclopedia Show, a variety extravaganza in which artists and experts from multiple disciplines use their talents to present a verbal and musical encyclopedia entry, with the mission to “chafe against logic and proof and find meaning in obfuscation”; and the Grand Finale destined to top last year’s Poetry Olympics in spectacle. For more more information on how to be a part of this FREE poetry event, please click here.
Live in the Amy Clampitt House Series Continues
Cristin is continuing her LIVE AT THE AMY CLAMPITT HOUSE series on the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Podcast with a series of five shows focusing on local poets who are a part of the Word X Word Festival Family. This most recent batch of shows features poetry by Word X Word founder Jim Benson, Melissa Quirk, Seth Brown, Curtis Asch and James Burden (click their name to be taken to the show). The Word X Word Festival is an annual festival held in Pittsfield, Mass, though they have also begun holding year round events as well. For more information on Word X Word, please click here.
Cristin & Derrick Brown to Perform at Foxing Quarterly Summertime Lit Fest
Cristin is thrilled to be returning to Austin & representing Write Bloody Publishing at the Foxing Quarterly Summertime Lit Fest celebrating Austin’s growing literary community! Enjoy music and readings throughout the evening as Austin’s finest publishing houses, literary journals, and zines share and sell their work. Cristin and Write Bloody Publishing founder Derrick Brown will be representing Write Bloody, and will be performing at 10:30pm. The event is happening at the Scoot Inn on Saturday, June 29th with a $5 COVER. For more information, or RVSP and/or spread the word, please click the Facebook Event page here.
New Poetry by Cristin in Amethyst Arsenic
Cristin has a new poem in the latest issue of Amethyst Arsenic, alongside poets (and pals) as Lea Deschenes, Brian S. Ellis, Sophia Holtz and Daniel McGinn! To read the poem, click here.
Three New Poems by Cristin Published in Danse Macabre
Three very different poems by Cristin — “A Short History of the Bowery Poetry Club,” “In the Dark, He Whispered” and “Unemployment” — appear in the June 2013 issue of the lit journal Danse Macabre. To read the poems, click here.
Two of Cristin’s books including in TED Mega Summer Reading List
Cristin has TWO books on the 2013 TED mega summer reading list! Pal & poet Sarah Kay recommended Cristin’s poetry books Everything is Everything and Working Class Represent, writing, “Cristin was the first person to ever teach me that women poets could be funny and silly while still being smart and moving. I love the matter-of-fact style she uses, and the way she examines everyday life with humor and care.” To read the full list, click here.
Cristin is featured on Massachusetts NPR
Cristin’s residency at the Amy Clampitt House is the focus of a NPS segment produced by New England Public Radio’s own Jeremy Goodwin. “[Aptowicz's] mission is to confound the expectations of people who thought they didn’t like poetry,” Goodwin says in the piece, which includes brief interviews with local poet (and chef) James Beard and Berkshire Taconic Art Foundation’s Maeve O’Dea. Click here to listen to the whole piece.
New Poetry by Cristin in The Holler Box
Two poem by Cristin appears in the second issue of print & online lit journal, THE HOLLER BOX. To read Cristin’s poems click here and here. And if you want to check out all the poems which Cristin has published in literary journals which don’t currently appear in any of her books, don’t forget you can find them all here.
“Words in Your Face” mini-review in the Library Journal
Five years after its release, Cristin’s history of the poetry slam,Words In Your Face, received some really kind words from Library Journal Associate Editor Mahnaz Dar in the latest issue of the Library Journal. In a survey of the book which LJ staff are currently reading, Dar wrote: “Poetry, a venerable and established tradition, has seemed, well, not super relevant to my life. Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam has shattered that perception. It’s a fascinating look at the poetry-slam scene over the past two decades, and even though I’m only a couple of chapters in, it’s changed how I see poetry. Author Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, who was big on the scene herself, frames it as a vibrant (and even debauched), living thing: full of colorful characters and laced with an edgy, in-your-face tone. Basically, Aptowicz does for poetry what Please Kill Me did for punk rock.” Click here to read the whole piece.
New Poetry by Cristin in The New Magazine
A new poem by Cristin appears in the fantastic inaugural issue of THE NEW! Check out cover art & poetry by Anis Mojgani! And beautiful fresh verse by Khary Jackson, Michael Mlekoday, Ross Hickerson, Dawn Gabriel, Jason Bayani and more! To read the poem, click here.
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