Summer Poetry Salon Features Sandra Beasley and Kevin Vaughn, Plus Music by the Pam Ortiz Band

Sandra Beasley, poet and author of
Don't Kill the Birthday Girl.

CHESTERTOWN, MD—The Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College invites the public to a “Summer Poetry Salon” Tuesday, July 24 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. with poets Sandra Beasley and Kevin Vaughn and music by the Pam Ortiz Band. The free event will take place Tuesday, July 24, from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at  the Literary House, 407 Washington Avenue.

Sandra Beasley is the author of two poetry collections —Theories of Falling (New Issues, 2008) and I Was the Jukebox (W.W. Norton, 2010) — and a memoir about coping with extensive food allergies, Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl (Crown, 2011). In addition, her work has been included in The Best American Poetry 2010 and other anthologies, and in journals such as Poetry, Blackbird, Gulf Coast, and Black Warrior Review.

Kevin Vaughn, the Cave Canem poet in residence at the Literary House for the month of July, has received numerous awards and fellowships and been published in a variety of journals and anthologies including WheelHouse Magazine, Naugatuck River Review, Mississippi Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume V and Cave Canem XII.

Singer-songwriter Pam Cardullo Ortiz once performed in packed coffeehouses in D.C. and Baltimore and recorded three albums with the group Terra Nova. Now she performs with husband Bob Ortiz on percussion, Ford Schumann on guitar and Nevin Dawson on fiddle.

For more information about the event, visit http://lithouse.washcoll.edu/

or call 410-778-7899.

Lit House Welcomes Cave Canem Fellow Kevin Vaughn for Month of July

CHESTERTOWN, MD—The Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College welcomes poet Kevin Vaughn as its second Cave Canem Fellow. Vaughn will be in residence in Chestertown through July and will offer a free public reading from his work as part of a “Summer Poetry Salon” with fellow poet Sandra Beasley and the Pam Ortiz Band on Tuesday, July 24.

Literary House director Jehanne Dubrow, who selected Vaughn for this summer’s fellowship, says she is thrilled to have him on campus. “Kevin's work is informed by subjects as diverse as early Star Trek episodes, the challenges of translation, and Eastern European poetics,” she says.  “He brings a global perspective to the literary conversation taking place here at the Rose O'Neill Literary House.”

The well-traveled Vaughn, who lives in Paris, speaks four languages and was a J. William Fulbright Fellow at Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland. Earlier, he studied in Prague, Czech Republic, and in Athens, Greece. The recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, he has been published in a variety of journals and anthologies including WheelHouse Magazine, Naugatuck River Review, Mississippi Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume V and Cave Canem XII.

Established in 1997 to cultivate the artistic and professional growth of African American poets, Cave Canem offers book prizes, workshops, readings and other events. The month-long Cave Canem residency at the Rose O’Neill Literary House was introduced in July 2011. The first poet to visit Chestertown under the program, Arisa White, used her fellowship to work on a book of poems titled Hurrah’s Nest. Published in February by Virtual Artists Collective, the collection earned top honors for poetry in the 2012 San Francisco Book Festival’s best-books competition.

For more information about the event, visit http://lithouse.washcoll.edu/

or call 410-778-7899.