Cedric Tillman's Blog - Posts Tagged "washington-dc"
American University Alumni Reading with Abdul Ali & Jenny Molberg
Forgot to plug it here, but on March 2 I had the great pleasure of coming back to my alma mater and participating in a reading with two fellow AU MFA/Creative Writing alums, Abdul Ali & Jenny Molberg.
Abdul is the author of Trouble Sleeping, winner the 2014 New Issues Poetry Prize, judged by Fanny Howe. He’s a two-time recipient of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ Literature fellowship. He's taught English at The Bryn Mawr School and Towson University (http://abdulali.net/).
Jenny won the 2014 Berkshire Prize for her debut collection of poems, Marvels of the Invisible (forthcoming, Tupelo Press). She received her PhD from the University of North Texas and teaches at the University of Central Missouri (http://www.jennymolberg.com/).
It was wonderful seeing the members of my thesis committee (chair Myra Sklarew & Dr. Keith Leonard) as well as old classmates Venus Thrash, Sandra Beasley, fellow Charlottean Derrick Weston Brown & Natalie Ilium- really cool to see them come out for me/us after all these years. The evening was hosted by Prof. Kyle Dargan, who I saw at AU as a student when he came as a visiting writer. I feel I've come full circle w/these recent readings at UNCCharlotte and at AU, places so vital to who I am as a person and a writer.
Google all these people I just named dropped and buy a book.
Abdul is the author of Trouble Sleeping, winner the 2014 New Issues Poetry Prize, judged by Fanny Howe. He’s a two-time recipient of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ Literature fellowship. He's taught English at The Bryn Mawr School and Towson University (http://abdulali.net/).
Jenny won the 2014 Berkshire Prize for her debut collection of poems, Marvels of the Invisible (forthcoming, Tupelo Press). She received her PhD from the University of North Texas and teaches at the University of Central Missouri (http://www.jennymolberg.com/).
It was wonderful seeing the members of my thesis committee (chair Myra Sklarew & Dr. Keith Leonard) as well as old classmates Venus Thrash, Sandra Beasley, fellow Charlottean Derrick Weston Brown & Natalie Ilium- really cool to see them come out for me/us after all these years. The evening was hosted by Prof. Kyle Dargan, who I saw at AU as a student when he came as a visiting writer. I feel I've come full circle w/these recent readings at UNCCharlotte and at AU, places so vital to who I am as a person and a writer.
Google all these people I just named dropped and buy a book.
The Literary Cypher (Nov. 17 reading)
Many thanks to LP Kersey of the Literary Cypher, a DMV area reading series, for reaching out to me and giving me a chance to fellowship with other DMV writers (if only through Facebook). She usually have 8 readers go for about 8 minutes and though we didn't know each other for the most part, it was like family in the room. I was thrilled to be able to read with my American University classmate and "susta" Venus Thrash, and got to hear the work of Dr. Michele Simms-Burton, someone I'd gotten acquainted with via Facebook without having had the pleasure of hearing her creative output. Other readers included novelist Heather Elizabeth King, poetry duo Wilnona & Jade, poets Janique Muckelvene and Destiny Hemphill, and writer/journalist Lottie Joiner.
