Literary

Dust off your bowler hat, lace up your high-heeled boots and join us for the first ever Tall Timber Ball. On Oct. 9 from 6-10 pm you can style it steampunk or go grunge and join us under the timber beams of Valhalla’s Grand Hall while the DJ spins from the massive stone fireplace. Cool prizes will go to the most interesting looks of the night. This event kicks off the inaugural Tahoe WordWave festival and will benefit art and culture in South Lake Tahoe.

Carson City Library’s Summer Reading Program is getting help this morning from the Carson City Fire Department with a kickoff Breakfast for Books launch in the parking lot of the library. The breakfast runs until 10 a.m. Tickets are $3 and gets you a plate of pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs and juice.

This year’s program, Every Hero has a Story, will be hosted online, with participants signing up and tracking hours read at the carsoncitylibrary.com website. Each participant will be assigned an avatar. As that avatar progresses with minutes read and logged, prizes are unlocked for literary games, author videos and other rewards.

Carson City Library’s Summer Reading Program will kick off with the Breakfast for Books at 8-10 a.m. Saturday.
“It’s important kids keep reading in the summer so they start off strong in the fall,” said Heather Butler, youth services librarian. “This bridges the gap at the end of the school year.”

Writers, readers and performers from all around the country will appear at South Lake Tahoe Oct. 9-11, 2015 for WordWave, a three-day festival held on the grounds of Valhalla at the Tallac Historic Site. This literary mash-up will feature oral storytelling, theater performances and free readings, panels on craft, yoga, and a novel writing camp for kids. Highlights include a one-act playwriting contest, a Maker’s Station demo with bookbinding, letterpress, drum making, and found poetry and art. Ticketed events include a steampunk ball, workshops, and even a hike.

Poetry lovers are in for a treat on Thursday, May 7, at Western Nevada College in Carson City. Published poets Laura Wetherington and Jared Stanley are scheduled to read starting at 4 p.m. in WNC’s Main Gallery.

“I don't know how long it's been since WNC had poets read here who have actually published books, but it's been quite a while,” said Douglas Barrett, Ph.D., an English instructor at WNC, is coordinating the event.

Barrett said that Wetherington and Stanley, who teach at Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village, bring a contemporary style to poetry.

“These soldiers were all children once…they stood in that first pair of shoes, released supports, leaned into the wind of unknowing, wobbled that first step toward war” (from “Listen” by Teresa Breeden).

Literary work by Breeden and other Nevada writers accompany photographs of the nearly 7,000 U.S military Iraq and Afghanistan war dead since Sept.11, 2001, part of the nationally touring arts and humanities exhibition “Always Lost: A Meditation on War.”

In 2009, Carson City poet Teresa Breeden wrote: “Listen. These soldiers were all children once…they stood in that first pair of shoes, released supports, leaned into the wind of unknowing, wobbled that first step toward war.” Literary work by Breeden and other Nevada writers accompany photographs of the nearly 7,000 U.S military Iraq and Afghanistan war dead since Sept.11, 2001, all part of the nationally touring arts and humanities exhibition “Always Lost: A Meditation on War.”

The Capital City Arts Initiative announces its exhibition, The Driest State: Nevada Watersheds, by artist Nolan Preece at the CCAI Courthouse Gallery now through May 28, 2015. The Courthouse is located at 885 E Musser Street, Carson City. The exhibition is free and the public is cordially invited. The gallery is open to the public Monday – Friday, 8am – 5pm.

Scheduled to speak at the opening are ​Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson, Assembly Speaker John Hambrick, Nevada Military and Veterans Policy Director Caleb Cage and Carson City Mayor Robert Crowell.

The words of great poets come to life on stage across the state as more than 3,100 high school-aged students compete to represent their county at the 10th Annual Nevada Poetry Out Loud State Finals at the Siena Hotel in Reno on March 14, 2015 from noon to 3 p.m.

Capital City Arts Initiative Courthouse Gallery in Carson City and St. Mary's Art and Retreat Center in Virginia City are among 10 "unmissable" Nevada spots for art lovers, according to the website TheCultureTrip.com.

In announcing its list the website notes Nevada is dotted with many places for art lovers to explore, including traditional galleries to more unique spaces. From Reno to Elko the state boasts a wide range of art from a host of talented individuals, including locals and international artists.

The proclamation notes 2014 is the “Year of the Veteran” in Nevada as it entered the Union during the Civil War and henceforth is called “Battle Born.”

The 27th Annual Nevada Writers Hall of Fame reception and ceremony will be held Thursday, Nov. 13 in the Milt Glick Ballroom on the 4th floor of the Joe Crowley Student Union on the University of Nevada, Reno campus.

The reception and silent auction begin at 6 p.m. followed by the program at 7 p.m. Tickets are available for $40 per person. Complimentary parking will be available in the metered parking lot at the corner of Virginia and 15th streets.

For more information or to make reservations, contact Breanne Standingwater at bstandingwater@unr.edu or 775-682-6022.

The 2014-2015 school year marks the 10th anniversary of the Poetry Out Loud program. Since 2005, more than 16,000 students throughout Nevada have powered up poetry by memorizing and reciting the words of classic and contemporary poets. Students can be a part of this creative community and join the celebration of the spoken word.

Carson City government officials on Thursday recognized Western Nevada College’s nationally known humanities exhibition on the costs of war, “Always Lost: A Meditation on War,” Thursday with a proclamation of appreciation and honor.

Carson City Mayor Robert Crowell, a Vietnam veteran, has called the exhibit “our community’s gift to the nation.”

A proclamation honoring the creators and contributors of “Always Lost” was presented to Western Nevada College President Chester Burton and Professors Emeritus Don Carlson and Marilee Swirczek during the Board of Supervisors meeting.

The Carson City Board of Supervisors will pay tribute to the creators of the acclaimed Western Nevada College exhibit “Always Lost, a Meditation on War” when it meets Thursday, Oct. 2.

A Western Nevada College student veteran crouches down on her knees to search for those she served with. The mother of a fallen soldier stares at the face of her son. The Wall of the Dead quietly tells the story of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and the thousands who have died.

“Always Lost, A Meditation on War,” the nationally touring humanities exhibition created by WNC students and faculty, opened Monday at the historic Minden Inn, 1594 Esmeralda Ave., and remains through Friday, Sept. 12.

Nick Flynn, whose first memoir sparked the major motion picture, “Being Flynn,” international reviews and much press attention, will visit Sierra Nevada College on Sept. 5-6 to kick off the 2014-15 Writers in the Woods literary speaker series and to introduce the college’s Common Read book for the year.

Nevada poets and fiction writers have a unique new opportunity to express themselves and compete for an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to meet with top literary professionals, including editors, agents, publishers, and prominent writers. Poets & Writers, the nation's largest nonprofit organization serving creative writers, has selected Nevada as the only state to participate in its annual Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award program.

Douglas County is hosting the Western Nevada College “Always Lost: A Meditation on War” arts and humanities exhibition as part of a special Nevada Sesquicentennial tour sponsored by the Nevada Department of Veterans Services.

Nevada writer Ellen Hopkins has appeared at book and literary festivals around the country since the publication of her young-adult novel "Crank" 10 years ago, followed by nearly a dozen more books.

This year she asked herself, "Why not here?" meaning Carson City and a book celebration.

Gardnerville freelance writer and former Nevada Press Association Journalist of Merit Scott Neuffer will be hosting two public signings for his first full-length book, a collection of short fictional stories entitled “Scars of the New Order.”

Neuffer will be signing books 6:30-8 p.m. June 4 at Sundance Books and Music at 121 California Ave. in Reno. He’ll also be hosting a book reading and signing 6 p.m. June 6 at Shelby’s Book Shoppe at 1663 Lucerne St. Suite C in the Minden Village.

The Great Carson City Literary Festival is coming to town on the weekend of June 6-8 at Mills Park. The festival will have many family oriented and child activities including authors of every genre, a book nook with readings by the actual authors, Kid Chef Eliana who will be doing cooking demonstrations, a giant bounce house and obstacle course, a free kids art tent, food, and much more.

Gardnerville freelance writer and former Nevada Press Association Journalist of Merit Scott Neuffer will be hosting two public signings for his first full-length book, a collection of short fictional stories entitled Scars of the New Order.

Neuffer will be signing books 6:30-8 p.m. June 4 at Sundance Books and Music at 121 California Ave. in Reno. He’ll also be hosting a book reading and signing 6 p.m. June 6 at Shelby’s Book Shoppe at 1663 Lucerne St. Suite C in the Minden Village.

Spend time talking with students in Michelle Crain’s drama class at Dayton Intermediate School and it’s not long before one realizes the recurring theme is “we’re family.”
As the students relentlessly rehearse ahead of their public performances of “Romeo & Juliet,” taking place Friday, May 16 and Saturday, May 17, the ties that bind while challenging at first, have been woven into a tapestry of unconditional acceptance, tolerance, care and dependability, qualities not always readily seen on a school campus.

To honor all those who write, read and breathe poetry, the Nevada Arts Council will highlight a new poem on Facebook every day, Monday through Friday, in April for National Poetry Month, a celebration established in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets.
 

As part of National Poetry Month, the Capital City Arts Initiative invites you to attend a reading and writing workshop with poet and writer Ismael García Santillanes at the BRIC, 108 E Proctor Street, Carson City.

The writing workshop will take place Tuesday, April 8 from 4 to 5:30 p.m. The reading follows immediately at 5:30 p.m.

The free events are part of CCAI’s Books and Writers series co-sponsored with the Carson City Library. CCAI and the Library enthusiastically invite all readers and writers to attend the workshop and reading.

“Four thousand faces of American military who had perished in Iraq stared at me,” said former Western Nevada College professor Don Carlson. “I realized that this war has been perhaps one of the most impersonal wars the U.S. ever fought.”

In 2008, the army veteran saw a Roster of the Dead, then totaling 4,000. He explains that with the all-volunteer military, more than in any previous war, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been remote to the vast majority of Americans. Impersonal.

The public is invited to the 2014 Nevada Poetry Out Loud Competition State Finals at the Siena Hotel Spa Casino Ballroom in Reno Saturday, March 15, from noon to 3 p.m.

Fifteen students who gained the status of district finalists after a series of local competitions will vie for awards totaling $4,000 for the first, second and third place winners and their respective schools.

Readers will discover “deftly-crafted narrative moments that unreel like snippets of cinema” in the poems of June Sylvester Saraceno's new book, entitled “Of Dirt and Tar.”

The second, full-length collection of poetry by Saraceno, the English department chair at Sierra Nevada College, will be released March 1 by Cherry Grove Collections, with accolades on its jacket by some of the nation's top poets.