Becca

In Conversation: Leah Umansky & Melissa Fite Johnson

We welcomed poets Leah Umansky & Melissa Fite Johnson to The Notebooks Collective to celebrate their new books on May 14, 2024. They talked about their love of pop culture, forms, how they cultivate their writing practice, and more.

About Of Tyrant

“What does it mean to live in a country at war with itself–historically, spiritually, politically? Where does this sickness originate? In poems both personal and sweeping in scope, Umansky opens the door to all the possible answers, pointing outward but also in, to the twists and turns of our collective psyche.”

About Midlife Abecedarian

“Midlife Abecedarian is a nostalgic collection that takes the reader on a journey through time. It provides a template for a life well-lived, even if you’re only halfway through. Conjuring memories and a sense of satisfaction and comfort, Midlife Abecedarian is a map to things remembered and things best left forgotten.”

Watch the event below!

The Notebooks Reading: Video

On April 16, 2024, the Notebooks Collective held its first collective reading. We did so in honor of National Poetry Month and to celebrate the collective impact we can have when we work together. This reading will allow us to share the brilliant words of our collective while raising money for direct aid to Gaza. With the help of guests and readers, we raised $600 dollars to donate across three fundraisers. As the situation worsens, new ways to help are being added to the Operation Olive Branch spreadsheet. Please consider giving time or money to this urgent need.

Featuring!

The reading features the work of Quintin Collins, Sara Moore Wagner, Lisa Allen, Claire Schwartz, Sarah Ghazal Ali, Kathi Aguero, Jessica Johnson, Suzanne Frank, Anne-Marie Oomen, Meg Kearney, jason b crawford, M. Soledad Caballero, Marcia Karp, Eileen Cleary, Rebecca Kirk Connors, Karen Rigby & Jessica Cuello.

Good News: January

Sarah Ghazal Ali’s first poetry collection Theophanies is out January 16th, 2024, and signed pre-orders can be purchased from Pegasus Books here! You can hear her read poems from this forthcoming collection.

Jessica E. Johnson will publish her first memoir, Mettlework, this May. The book delves into her unusual upbringing during the 1970s and ’80s, interwoven with the story of her transition to parenthood in post-recession Portland, Oregon.

Pauletta Hansel‘s 10th collection, Will There Also Be Singing? will be out in April 2024 from Shadelandhouse Modern Press. Poet and teacher Jeremy Paden writes, “Pauletta Hansel’s Will There Also Be Singing? could be subtitled, Found Poems, Centos, and Other Songs Woven from the World Around Us. In this collection of poems, the Former (and First) Poet Laureate of Cincinnati writes a poetry of witness that is also a masterclass on how to work with collage. Much like the Kentucky artist Robert Morgan, whose sculptures are made from an accretion of found objects, Hansel takes news clippings and historical essays, poems and social media posts, and places them next to each other and layers them on top of each other until a poem emerges.” Two poems from this collection published in Rattle can be read online here.

Amy Hoffman spent the past year working on a collection of writings by the late LGBTQ activist Urvashi Vaid, together with her sister Jyotsna Vaid. In addition to being a well-known and important figure in the gay rights movement, Urvashi was a very dear friend for 40 years, & the book, a labor of love, is due out in spring 2025. In addition, she helped organize a series of 3 panels with Boston’s LGBTQ History Project in honor of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Boston weekly Gay Community News, where she was an editor from 1978-1982+. Amy moderated the 2nd panel, on GCN’s content & controversies.

Jennifer Martelli’s book (which she reads from here), The Queen of Queens, won the Italian American Studies Association Book Award and was also named a “Must Read” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.

The Library of Michigan (LM) announced Anne-Marie Oomen as the recipient of the 2023-2024 Michigan Author Award.

Jennifer (JP) Perrine‘s poem, “Spell to Leave Behind a Life,” was included in the Zines + Things anthology, Journeys: What We Carry, What We Leave Behind. The Maine Review published their flash essay, “You-Are-Not-Mad Lib” and their essay, “Portrait of My Mother in Mint Green,” was published in Oregon Humanities’ Winter 2024 issue.

신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin and the poet and novelist Vi Khi Nao have co-written a book of poetry THE SIX TONES OF WATER, that will be published by Ricochet Press in fall 2024. 

In Conversation: Trish Bogle & Shu Tu

From the Introduction:

This is new for us at The Notebooks Collective. We’ve never hosted an artist before. We’re doing so tonight because Shu and Trish have collaborated on an exhibit that’s currently on display at the Hamilton Grange Library in New York City. Titled In a Garden of Small Dreams, Art + Poetry in Conversation, the exhibit is a study in collaboration, concision, and compromise in the best possible way.

It’s also about the blossoming of a friendship that started with a shared love of, well, gardens. And art. And words and the worlds we can enter when we speak to each other through art, through poetry, through the beauty and shine of life, the fear and underbelly of the darkness we all sometimes feel.

As individual creatives, Trish and Shu are accomplished, focused, fiercely loyal to their respective crafts. As collaborators, they learned to speak yet another language, one in which they learned to listen to and see each other not just as friends, but as artists with something to say. Together, they said those things in a way they may not have have, had they not accepted an invitation from Isaac Sorell at Hamilton Grange Library to display their work as an ekphrastic exhibit. 

And this is why they’re here tonight: to talk about the genesis of this collaboration, how they worked together, what they learned from one another and how their friendship changed–or didn’t–through the process. 

Anniversary Post!

Official Year Two

About two years ago, Lisa & I discussed what it would be like to create a space where we could do community events, readings, classes, lectures, and create community while we were all struggling with the pandemic.

When we first launched the Notebooks Collective on February 11, 2021, we asked our guests to read a poem they wrote and a poem they love. Our guests, Eileen Cleary, Ellen Austin-Li, and Ashley Monet Johnson then chatted with Lisa & me about what they look for in a love poem. It was our intention to open our space with love of the written word. We collected those poems in a little anthology you can read here (pdf).

  • Our first event in 2021.
  • The first In Conversation
  • Randall reads at his launch on 3/1/22
  • Randall, Ashley and guests in conversations
  • Soledad and Becca chat about I Was A Bell
  • Daneil B. Summerhill, Jose Angel Araguz, and Quintin Collins
  • Marcia Karp and George Kalogeris
  • Becca, Jan Beatty, Lisa Allen, and Jess Cuello
  • The launch of Anne-Marie Oomen’s memoir
  • Claire Schwartz, Sarah Ghazal Ali, Lisa and Becca
  • Nicholas Goodly, jason b. crawford, Malcolm Tariq, lisa, becca

Looking forward, we are exploring events with fiction writers, more poets, and creators of other spaces. Classes (short sessions and longer workshops) are on the horizon too.

Lisa & I have full time jobs, do our own writing, take care of our families, as well as deal with the unexpected emergencies — and sometimes we can’t make this as much as the priority we want it to be. Yet, the Notebooks Collective is our balm. It’s our heart and we’re so happy to go into official year two with you.

We so appreciate the writers we have met through this and who have shared their precious time with us. We are indebted to those folks who email us and say, “I have this idea for an event…” And we are grateful to all of you who support our work with your donations.

Please remember that you can purchase books from all of our visiting guests at our bookshop. We’d especially love to know what you’re adding to your TBR pile for 2023; tweet us and tag the poet!

With gratitude,
Becca & Lisa

Three Poets in January

We were so excited to host jason b. crawford, Nicholas Goodly, and Malcom Tariq for an evening of poetry and conversation. They discussed safe spaces, the South, language and more.

The Event