January Castalia

Join us for the first Castalia of 2011! Featuring Maya Sonenberg, Sierra Nelson, Ben Wirth, Peter Moench, and Valerie Marie Arvidson.

WHEN: January 4, 8 pm
WHERE: Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122

Co-sponsored with the Richard Hugo House.
FREE and open to the public!

As always the Hugo House Cafe offers a variety of drinks to keep you well hydrated throughout the evening. We'll continue to have books for sale by current and former featured readers—so bring some cash!


More info on our readers below:

Maya Sonenberg's first collection of stories, Cartographies, received the Drue Heinz Prize. Her second, Voices from the Blue Hotel, was published by Chiasmus Press in 2007. More recent fiction and nonfiction is appearing in Fairy Tale Review, Web Conjunctions, New Ohio Review, and Hotel Amerika. She teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Washington.

Sierra Nelson earned her MFA from U.W. in 2002 and her poems can be found in Crazyhorse, Poetry Northwest, Fairy Tale Review, Forklift, Thermos, and other locations. Co-founder of the Vis-à-Vis Society and The Typing Explosion, her collaborative graph installations can be found in Cal Anderson Park, and the new Vis-à-Vis Society statistical musical will debut at the NW Film Forum this May. Sierra’s chapbook with artist Loren Erdrich, I Take Back the Sponge Cake, recently won NYU’s Collaboration Award. She hearts typewriters, Icelandic sagas, and cephalopods.

Ben Wirth is a second-year MFA candidate at the University of Washington. He was the recipient of the Joyce Waddell Fund for Talented Writers and runner-up for the Loren D. Milliman Scholarship. His work has received rave reviews from his peers, including: "If Ben's story is the future of fiction, I'm going to cry" and "I feel as though this story hates me." As the Castalia photographer, it has been his honor to shoot so many great readers in our community, and is proud to be invited to read along with them.

Peter Moench was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Ithaca of the upper Midwest. Like many young men of his generation, his childhood was spent exploring the wooded banks and bluffs of the Mississippi River. He fished for its bounty of catfish, chased the light bulb sun across the birch infested sky, sang with the crickets and mosquitoes. When night fell and he slept at last, the woods blanketed him in oak leaves and wreathed him in holly, while the northern lights bathed his dreams in their Christmas police siren glow. From the whitetail deer he learned to sniff trouble on the wind, the sense to flee at the first sign of anything. The snow taught him its quiet wisdom, the unstirred grace of yogurt. Then, at age six, his father packed the family’s trunks and moved them south in search of their fortunes. There, in the suburbs, Peter learned of books, driveways with their own basketball hoops, and CD-ROMS, but the wilderness of the city always stayed in his heart.

Valerie Marie Arvidson is originally from Massachusetts. She writes fiction, creative non-fiction, and "mixed-fiction"/blurred genres. She is also a print-maker and visual-artist. Her personal essay about childhood and family, titled “Birds Have Eyes”, was the winner of the 2009 Hunger Mountain Creative Non-Fiction Writing Contest, judged by author Robin Hemley. Valerie is currently teaching writing composition and earning her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Washington. Fun fact: she's getting married in 2011!

December Castalia Audio

What a fabulous holiday treat to sit in cozy Hugo House, nursing (or chugging) a glass of wine or a bottle of beer, and enjoying some fine poetry and prose. First year poet Erika Wilder kicked off the night with an abundance of intriguing imagery and wordplay; second year prose writer Lisa Nicholas Ritscher’s essay was accompanied by her own fabulous clarinet music; second year poet Talia Shalev began her performance with a mention of Apollo and then followed it with a few more “geek out, Greek out,” poems; UW alumna and poet Chelsea Jennings taught us about Fado, the weather, and the “old Castalia,” including costumes and Box Wine,among other things; and UW professor and fiction writer Shawn Wong shared an excerpt from his new novel.

December Castalia

Join us for our December reading! This month we're delighted to present UW professor Shawn Wong, author of the novel American Knees which has been made into the film Americanese, distributed by IFC Films, as well as Homebase which won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, as well as the Governor’s Writers Day Award of Washington; alumna Chelsea Jennings whose poems have appeared in Madison Review, Sycamore Review, Poet Lore, Best New Poets 2007, and Black Warrior Review, and who is a recipient of the 2010 Discovery/Boston Review Award; 2nd year MFA fiction writer Lisa Nicholas-Ritscher; 2nd year MFA poet Talia Shalev; and 1st year MFA poet Erika Wilder, whose poems have been published in the online reading series Back Room Live.

WHEN: December 7, 8 pm
WHERE: Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122

Co-sponsored with the Richard Hugo House.
FREE and open to the public!

November Castalia

This month's Castalia fell on Election Day. Luckily, we weren't forced to cast a vote for the best one since they were all so great. First-year prose writer Kristen Millares Young shared the prologue and first few pages of her novel; first-year poet Kori Linn read some old work as well as pieces she's been working on this year; second-year prose writer Rebecca Ainsley read a short fiction piece about one woman's love of deep sea diving; UW alumna Elissa Washuta shared an excerpt from the book she is working on, about her identity as a Cowlitz Indian; and UW poetry professor Andrew Feld read a few pieces from his forthcoming book, centered around the unifying theme of falconry. Happy listening!

October Castalia

How nice it is to have Castalia back in our lives! The 2010-2011 season opened with five great readings. First-year prose writer Nick VandenBos reminded us that once you learn how to ride a bike, you will never forget; first-year poet Kate Lebo left mouths watering with pumpkin pie poetry; second-year prose writer Tara Ebrahimi lamented over music festivals and hippies; UW alum Rebecca Hoogs traveled from a mythic land to the bottom of the ocean, then off to Rome; and UW professor Linda Bierds made us rethink our whole understanding of mirrors.

Next Reading: November 2

Can't get enough Castalia? Fear not! The next reading is next week, November 2. This month's line up features: UW Professor Andrew Feld, author of Citizen (HarperCollins 2004), a 2003 National Poetry Series selection chosen by Ellen Bryant Voigt, and whose poems have appeared in The Canary, The Iowa Review, Poetry, Tikkun, Triquarterly and many other journals; alumna Elissa Washuta; second year fiction writer Rebecca Ainsley; first year poet Kori Linn; and first year fiction writer Kristen Millares Young.

WHEN: Tuesday, November 2, 8 pm
WHERE: Hugo House, 1634 Eleventh Avenue East
Co-sponsored with the Richard Hugo House.
FREE

Castalia Kick Off

Come to the first Castalia of the 2010-2011 year! Featuring UW Professor Linda Bierds, four-time recipient of the Pushcart Prize and author of numerous books of poetry, including FLIGHT: New & Selected Poems, First Hand, and The Seconds, and whose poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and Poetry; alum Rebecca Hoogs, recipient of the 2010 Southeast Review poetry prize for her poem “Miss Scarlett,” author of the chapbook Grenade, and curator of the Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Poetry Series, whose poems have appeared in Crazy Horse, Poetry, and other journals; 1st year MFA poet Kate Lebo, whose poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Crab Creek Review, and other journals, and is a poetry editor for Filter; 2nd year MFA fiction writer Tara Ebrahimi, recipient of the 2010 Mary Rouvelas Prize for Fiction; and 1st year MFA fiction writer Nick VandenBos.

WHEN: Tuesday, October 19, 8 pm.
WHERE: Richard Hugo House, 1634 Eleventh Avenue
Free and open to the public!