THIRD SEASON FOR "FREQUENCY NORTH" WRITERS SERIES AT SAINT ROSE

"Frequency North," the visiting writers reading series at The College of Saint Rose, returns for its third season with another aggressively eclectic mix of award-winning poets, authors, essayists, and one comedian/playwright/actor/bartender.

The 2007-08 series kicks off Thursday, October 4, with David Lehman, acclaimed author of several collections of poems and series editor of The Best American Poetry. Author Nalini Jones and essayist Wayne Koestenbaum follow in November. Spring will bring readings by poet Gregory Pardlo, the first writer of color to win the American Poetry Review/Honickman Prize; author Darcey Steinke; Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, founder and host of the three-time National Poetry Slam Championship venue in New York; and Shappy Seasholtz, slam poet, playwright, comedian, actor and head bartender at New York's Bowery Poetry Club.

Frequency North is sponsored by the The College of Saint Rose School of Arts and Humanities and the English, Spectrum and Identity student organizations.

The complete Frequency North schedule follows. All readings begin at 7:30 p.m. and are free and open to the public. For more information, visit the series' website at www.FrequencyNorth.com or contact Daniel Nester, assistant professor of English and series curator, at 518-454-2812 or nesterd@strose.edu.

- Thursday, October 4, 2007: David Lehman
Neil Hellman Library, First Floor, 392 Western Ave., Albany

Lehman has authored several collections of poems, most recently When a Woman Loves a Man (Scribner, 2005) and Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man (with James Cummins, Soft Skull Press, 2005). His books of criticism include The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets (Anchor, 1999), which the New York Public Library named a "Book to Remember 1999." He is series editor of The Best American Poetry, which he initiated in 1988, and is general editor of the University of Michigan Press’s Poets on Poetry Series. In addition, Lehman is editor of a new edition of The Oxford Book of American Poetry, a one-volume comprehensive anthology of poems from Anne Bradstreet to the present. [photo by Jason Stern]

- Thursday, November 8, 2007: Nalini Jones and Wayne Koestenbaum
Neil Hellman Library, First Floor, 392 Western Ave., Albany

Jones is the author of What You Call Winter: Stories (Knopf, 2007), which Publisher's Weekly calls an "auspicious debut." Her work has appeared in Ontario Review and Creative Nonfiction, among other publications. Jones is a Stanford Calderwood Fellow of the MacDowell Colony and worked for several years in music production, most notably for festivals in New York, Newport and New Orleans.

Koestenbaum's most recent books include Hotel Theory (Soft Skull Press, 2007), in which a meditative essay on hotel life runs alongside a dime-store novel account of Liberace and Lana Turner. Other essay collections include Jackie Under My Skin (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1995), Cleavage: Essays on Sex, Stars, and Aesthetics (Ballantine Books, 2000) and Andy Warhol (Lipper/Viking, 2001). He has written several books of poetry, most recently Best Selling Jewish Porn Films (Turtle Point, 2006), as well as the novel Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes (Soft Skull, 2004). He writes frequently for such periodicals as The New York Times Magazine and the London Review of Books. Koestenbaum also is an art critic, participating in panels at the Whitney Museum of American Art and contributing regularly to Artforum.

- Thursday, March 6, 2008: Darcey Steinke and Gregory Pardlo
Neil Hellman Library, First Floor, 392 Western Ave., Albany

Pardlo's book Totem (Copper Canyon Press, 2007) was chosen by Brenda Hillman as the winner of the 2007 American Poetry Review/ Honickman Prize, making him the first writer of color to win this award. He is the recipient of a 2005 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in poetry, a 2006 fellowship in translation from the National Endowment for the Arts, and fellowships from The New York Times, the MacDowell Colony, the Seaside Institute and Cave Canem. Pardlo's poems, reviews and translations have appeared in Calalloo, Lyric, Painted Bride Quarterly, Ploughshares, Seneca Review, Black Issues Book Review and on National Public Radio.

Steinke's most recent book is Easter Everywhere: A Memoir ( Bloomsbury, 2007). Entertainment Weekly writes that her book "unflinchingly recounts years of disillusionment in her stumble back toward faith." Steinke has authored four novels, most recently Milk (Bloomsbury, 2007). The New York Times praised two of her books as "Notable Books of the Year." Her novel Suicide Blonde has been translated into eight languages. Steinke's short fiction has appeared in the Literary Review, Story Magazine and Bomb, and her nonfiction has been featured in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Village Voice, Spin and The New York Times Magazine.

- Thursday, April 3, 2008: Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz and Shappy Seasholtz
Neil Hellman Library, First Floor, 392 Western Ave., Albany

O'Keefe Aptowicz's most recent book of poetry is Oh Terrible Youth (Wordsmith Press, 2007). Her first book of nonfiction is Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam (Soft Skull Press 2008). Founder and host of the three-time National Poetry Slam Championship venue, Urbana, out of the New York's Bowery Poetry Club, Aptowicz has performed around the world, with extended residencies in Australia and a commission for New York City's Chamber Dance ballet company.

Shappy is a slam poet, comedian, playwright, actor and bartender who has appeared twice on HBO's "Def Poetry Jam." He has performed at such venues as slam's birthplace, the Green Mill in Chicago, the National Poetry Slam, the Lollapalooza music festival and the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas. Shappy has a small part in the upcoming film "Fanboys," in which the role played by actor Seth Rogen ("Knocked Up") is modeled on Shappy in real life.

Labels: Frequency North, Saint Rose, Shameless self-promotion