Gordon Square Review Launch Party
Tues. 5/15, 6:30-9pTerrestrial Brewing Company, 7524 Father Frascati, Cleve OH 44102
$: 10 suggested donation; FREE for issue contributors, contest winners & contest finalists |
Join Lit Cleveland to celebrate the launch of Issue 2 of Gordon Square Review, a new online literary magazine that showcases emerging writers nationwide, awards editing mentorships, and provides a venue to spotlight Northeast Ohio writers. We’ll gather at Terrestrial Brewing Company to mingle, announce the winners of GSR’s inaugural contest, and hear readings from contributors. All proceeds go to support GSR. We’ll also be selling Lit Cleveland swag and holding a raffle for some cool prizes.
Poetry contributors include Sara Ryan, Amy Williamson, Emily Ellison, Jalynn Harris, Amanda Stovicek, Donna Gary, Roger Camp, and Ijeoma Umebinyuo. Prose contributors include Alysandra Dutton, Josie Turner, Stacie Williams, Yasmina Floyer, Steven Carey-Walton, Rose Driscoll, and Tara Isabel Zambrano. Free Stamp Flash Contest winner is Melissa N. Warren. Contest finalists are Kelly Griffiths, Mary Biddinger, and Amanda Stovicek. Learn more about Gordon Square Review at www.gordonsquarereview.org. Issue contributors and contest winners TBA - stay tuned! |
A LIT Summer Night (SOLD OUT!)
Fri. 6/1, 6-10pBop Stop at the Music Settlement, 2920 Detroit Ave, Cleve OH 44113
$: 45 / 75 for two / Tables available |
Cleveland's hottest party for writers and readers! Mix and mingle with other book lovers, help support Lit Cleveland's mission of creating and nurturing a more vibrant literary arts community in Northeast Ohio, and enjoy great performances by local authors and musicians.
Featuring:
Contributions are tax-deductible and go towards supporting Lit Cleveland’s educational programs, including Cleveland Inkubator, Northeast Ohio's largest free annual festival for writers and readers (Tues. 7/30-Sat. 8/4/18). |
Lit Cleveland at Pride in the CLE Festival
Sat. 6/2, 12-6pPublic Square, West Superior Ave & Ontario St, Cleve, OH 44113
$: FREE |
Join Lit Cleveland and countless other organizations at Pride in the CLE, a celebration of Cleveland's rich and diverse LGBTQ+ community! The day-long festival will feature a series of fun and inclusive events in Public Square.
Hosted by the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland and Cleveland Pride, Inc. Click here for more on the event. |
Lit Cleveland at the AHA! Book Festival
Thurs. 6/7, 11a-8pPlayhouse Square Key Bank State Theatre Lobby, 1519 Euclid Ave, Cleve OH 44115
$: FREE |
Come join us on June 7 for a daylong Book Festival in the KeyBank State Theatre lobby! All ages will be welcomed, entertained and delighted by storytelling, readings, author signings and performances on the Book Festival stage. Readings by Gordon Square Review contributors Alys Dutton, Stacie Williams and Shannon Ready moderated by editor-in-chief Laura Maylene Walter on the bookstore stage from 12-1p. Free admission and free parking available.
Part of this year's Arts and Humanities Alive (AHA!) festival: click here for a full schedule of events. |
Staging Your Story
Weds. 6/20,
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Between the Lines is a reading series where award-winning local authors discuss the craft of writing. In June, what better way to learn the craft of storytelling than by studying its birthplace: the theater. Playwright Les Hunter and Director Terrence Spivey will discuss how to cast characters, construct sets, direct action, and keep the audience engaged—no matter what you're writing. Relevant for prose writers, playwrights, screen writers, and storytellers of all kinds. The discussion will be moderated by playwright Christopher Johnston. In partnership with Playwrights Local. Q & A to follow.
Les Hunter's new play, Down by Contact (Dir. Dale Heinen), about the downfall of a former professional quarterback due to repetitive brain trauma, will receive a site-specific co-production from Playwrights Local and Dobama Theatre in the Tudor House of the Gilmour Academy in August of 2018. His previous plays have been produced or developed by theaters including: Playwrights Local, Theater 167, Dobama Theatre, Cleveland Public Theater, Bates College, St. Joseph’s College, Manhattan Theatre Source, Artistic New Directions, and America-in-Play. His plays are published by Playscripts, Indie Theatre, and Brooklyn Publishers. His play To the Orchard was a Jewish Plays Project 2016 international Jewish Playwriting Contest Finalist. Dr. Hunter is Ohio Regional Representative for the Dramatists Guild of America, and was previously Curator of New Plays at LaGuardia Performing Arts Complex in Queens, NY, and co-founder and Artistic Director of Brooklyn Playwrights Collective. He is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Baldwin Wallace University. Terrence Spivey is Founding Director of Powerful Long Ladder in collaboration with Holy Trinity Cultural Arts Center where his theatre company is in residence in Cleveland. Spivey was artistic director of Karamu House for over twelve years (2003-2016). During his artistic administration, Spivey programmed over seventy plus main stage productions and directed over twenty five, winning numerous awards for the historical institution. He also oversaw the Karamu Youth Theatre and Theatre Outreach Performance Series. He served as Director in Residence for Kent State Pan African Studies during the 2013-2014 season. Since his departure from Karamu in 2016, he directed one of Plain Dealer's 2016 Top 10 plays, Robert O' Hara's Bootycandy at convergence-continuum and award winning, nationally acclaimed Objectively/Reasonably: A Community Response to the Shooting of Tamir Rice, 11/22/14 at Playwrights Local, among many others. Spivey has appeared in Cleveland Magazine, Black Mask, Back Stage, Ebony, Artist and Influences and American Theatre. He recently founded TamiReach, a youth arts program that will be based in the Tamir Rice Afrocentric Center set to open in 2019. Spivey was selected as Cleveland Scene Best Director for 2017. Christopher Johnston is a playwright, director and freelance journalist. His plays have appeared at Cleveland Public Theatre (Sexually Explicit Material, The Mind Field, Theories of Relativity, The Mad Mask Maker of Maigh Eo), Dobama (Murder in Mind, Loud Americans: A Punk Saga, My Body is Blue or 20 Cantos from My Stupid Life), convergence-continuum theatre (APORKALYPSE!, Spawn of the Petrosexuals, Selfies at the Clown Motel, The Chaste Genius and His Death Ray Gun) and Talespinner Children’s Theatre (Finn McCool, The Rainbow Serpent). He completed his playwriting internship at the Cleveland Play House, and he occasionally teaches playwriting and creative nonfiction workshops at CSU. His play Black Mongoose and the Lil Purple Butterfly will premiere at convergence-continuum theatre on September 27, 2018, and his documentary play about human trafficking, Live Bodies for Sale, directed by Terrence Spivey, will premiere at Playwrights Local Theatre in November 2019. His book, Shattering Silences: Strategies to Prevent Sexual Assault, Heal Survivors, and Bring Assailants to Justice (Skyhorse) was published in May. |
Lit Cleveland Open Mic & Book Swap
Tues. 7/31,
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Join Lit Cleveland for our 3rd-annual book swap party! For every book you bring, you'll receive a raffle ticket that will allow you to exchange it for another book. This is a great chance to re-gift some books you no longer want and pick up some new-to-you summer reads. Market Garden is generously donating a dollar from every beer purchased, so drink up! Magazines in good condition welcome, too. Leftover reading material will be donated to Seeds of Literacy and Cleveland Books 2 Prisoners. Looking to read a recent poem, short story, or other written piece? You're in luck! We'll host an open mic throughout the night as well.
Part of our week-long Cleveland Inkubator literary arts festival, taking place Tues. 7/31 - Sat. 8/4. More on Inkubator TBA. |
OutLoud Cleveland
Tues. 7/31,
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OutLoud Cleveland is a reading and storytelling event that brings together writers of fiction, poetry, and storytellers from the LGBTQ+ community in Northeastern Ohio. The event will have two featured readers, poet Penelope Jeanne Girlblood (other reader TBA), and will be MC'd by writer Alex DiFrancesco. Three more slots will be open to submissions through July 1st, to greater represent the diversity and talents of the larger Northeast Ohio LGTBQ+ community. The talents of our community are far-ranging and diverse, and we're thrilled to showcase them on August 1st at Happy Dog.
To submit your work for consideration, send it to Literary Cleveland at info@litcleveland.org with the subject line “OutLoud Cleveland submission.” Part of our week-long Cleveland Inkubator literary arts festival, taking place Tues. 7/31 - Sat. 8/4. More on Inkubator TBA. BIOS: Penelope Jeanne Girlblood is a trans lesbian, a mother, and a a poet. She has had her work published in Zoomoozophone Review and Voicemail Poems. She is in the second year of her MFA at Cleveland State and she helps run the Lighthouse Reading Series through the CSU Poetry Center. In her free time she enjoys riding trains and browsing Craigslist. Alex DiFrancesco is a writer of fiction, creative nonfiction, and journalism who has published work in Tin House, The Washington Post, Pacific Standard, and more. Their first novel, an acid western, was published in 2015, and their essay collection Psychopomps (Civil Coping Mechanisms Press) and their second novel All City (Seven Stories Press) are forthcoming in Spring of 2019. They can be found @DiFantastico on Twitter, or, more often, snuggling their cat, Sylvia. |
