blackbird online journal spring 2002 vol.1 no. 1

A joint venture of the Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University and New Virginia Review, Inc.

 

Subscribe to our
free newsletter for Blackbird news and updates.

FEATURES

A Reading by Aimee Bender    

On February 23, 2006, fiction writer Aimee Bender visited the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University as part of the Virginia Commonwealth University English Department's Visiting Writers Series. Bender read two stories from her short story collection Willful Creatures (Anchor, 2006).

 
A Reading by Rodney Jones    
On March 29, 2006, poet Rodney Jones read at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts as part of Poetic Principles. This series, sponsored by the Virginia Museum and New Virginia Review, Inc., brings to Richmond the best poets, writers, critics, and translators at work today. Jones read from his most recent collection, Salvation Blues: One Hundred Poems, 1985-2005 (Houghton Mifflin, 2006).

 
A Reading by Tony D’Souza    
On April 20, 2006, writer Tony D’Souza visited the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University where he read from his novel Whiteman (Harcourt, 2006), the story of a Peace Corp volunteer among the Worodougou people of Côte d’Ivoire in West Africa. D’Souza also answered questions from an audience that included graduate students studying The New Yorker. The reading was sponsored by the VCU English Department's Graduate Writers Association.

 
A Reading by Liam Callanan    
On April 19, 2006, novelist and writer Liam Callanan read at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts as part of Poetic Principles. This series, sponsored by the Virginia Museum and New Virginia Review, Inc., brings to Richmond the best poets, writers, critics, and translators at work today. Callanan read from his first novel, The Cloud Atlas (Delacorte, 2004) and from “Loving Lucy,” an article that appeared in the June 2005 issue of Good Housekeeping.

 
A Reading by Sheri Reynolds    
On May 5, 2006, writer Sheri Reynolds visited the Richmond Public Library in Richmond, Virginia, as part of the Friends of the Library Richmond Writes series. Reynolds read from her most recent novel, Firefly Cloak, and from her play Orabelle's Wheelbarrow, published in its entirety in the Gallery section of this issue of Blackbird.

 
A Reading by Natasha Trethewey    

In February of 2006, poet Natasha Trethewey read at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts as part of Poetic Principles. This series, sponsored by the Virginia Museum and New Virginia Review, Inc., brings to Richmond the best poets, writers, critics, and translators at work today. Trethewey read from her most recent collection, Native Guard (Houghton Mifflin, 2006).

 
Red Guitar    
“Red Guitar,” a regular column by poet and critic Ron Smith, returns with “Larkin’s Eggs,” a discussion beginning with the “that beautiful, horrific September morning more than five years ago” and leading to “effectively the last line of [Philip] Larkin’s last poem.” Smith, a frequent Blackbird contributor, is the author of the poetry collections Running Again in Hollywood Cemetery (University of Florida Presses, 1988) and Moon Road (forthcoming from Louisiana State University Press).

 
Introductions: A Reading Loop      
Blackbird introduces a group of younger, highly talented writers, and one visual artist, whom you may be encountering for the first time, although several of them have already made their way to other lists and anthologies introducing their remarkable work. You will be glad to hear of them again, and no doubt will.    

New features are published at least once a month. If you would like to be notified by email when new features are published, please click the Subscribe button to your left. Please note that subscription to our email notification is free, and your email address will never be sold or shared.