Blue Sun, Yellow Sky: An Interview with Jamie Jo Hoang

June 29, 2015, by

Jamie Jo HoangWe are always thrilled when former students of Inprint Writers Workshops write us with the news that they’ve finished a book that they started in one of our classes. Jamie Jo Hoang is one such young writer, and her self-published book Blue Sun, Yellow Sky, is about an artist who develops a condition which will rapidly lead to blindness, and her journey to accept her condition. The book is available locally at Brazos Bookstore. Inprint asked Jamie Jo to tell us more about herself and her writing.

Inprint: Please tell us how you got your start in creative writing.

Jamie Jo Hoang (JH): For most of my life I have been a listener. I listened to the stories my grandmother told while she chewed tobacco on the front stoop of our small apartment building in Orange County. I listened to the stories my parents told of their escape during the Vietnam War. And I heard the stories of others come to life in books I found at the local library when I was kid. Then during my freshman year of college at UCLA, I applied for admission to the School of Film and Television, and it was there that I really learned the craft of creative writing.  I continued taking writing classes after college and Blue Sun, Yellow Sky began in an Inprint class taught by Aja Gabel. That Inprint class is also where I met two of my best friends (a.k.a. my creative writing soundboards) Shawn and Ellen. Continue reading

Houstonians celebrate Shakespeare, the long and short of it

June 23, 2015, by

IMG_4691On a sunny, breezy Friday, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers gathered at Brazos Bookstore to celebrate its partnership with the Houston Shakespeare Festival (HSP). This summer, the bookstore is hosting a series of Bard-tastic events, including dramatic performances of Shakespeare’s sonnets and soliloquys, and two informal book club gatherings that offer a sneak peek into HSF’s repertory productions of Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice.

The first event, all about sonnets, was emceed by Jim Johnson, HSF executive director and UH professor of voice and dialects, who presented a theatrical dish fit for the gods. Throughout the evening, he also explicated interesting tidbits for the audience’s edification.

Readers included Suzelle Palacios, a BFA alumna from UH, who’s heading to the Old Globe MFA program this fall; Kat Cortes, a current MFA student at UH, who’s teaching with the HSF conservatory, an intensive two-week program for high school students; Liz Wright, Brazos bookseller, who participated in Wellesley College’s Shakespeare Society for four years; and Carolyn Johnson, Houston-based actor and director, as well as Jim Johnson’s wife, their partnership proving that there is no such thing as too much of a good thing.

The evening kicked off with the classic sonnet 18, which asks the age-old writerly question: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? This selection was followed by early sonnets 1 (From fairest creatures we desire increase / that thereby beauty’s rose might never die) and sonnet 2 (When forty winters shall besiege thy brow / And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field). Johnson explained that these “fair youth” sonnets expound on the theme of procreation and illustrate that the course of true love never did run smooth. Continue reading

On the road with Inprint

June 19, 2015, by

BEA logoLike physicians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and fans of anime, those in the literary world have their own conventions—that is, annual conference where those in the field share new ideas. (Here, I do not mean “convention” as in a distinct protocol of behavior, although that argument can, of course, be made….).

AWP is the bad boy of literary conventions, where thousands upon thousands of creative writers descend upon a hip city, ostensibly to attend professional development panels and hawk their books. In reality, carousing, quaffing, cavorting, capering, and kvelling are top priorities on the itinerary.

BEA (BookExpo America) is AWP’s sophisticated, practical cousin. From a creative writer’s perspective, this conference has a 401K and knowledge about fine wines. It’s less about hysterical events in a writer’s life that result in a book, and more about packaging and marketing that book once it’s written—the business and politics of publishing.

As a creative writer entrenched in the former convention, I spoke with Rich Levy, Inprint’s Executive Director, about his recent travels to BEA in New York, to see how the other half (of the book world) lives.

Erika: Why does Inprint visit BEA?

BEA gives us the opportunity to connect personally with publicists at major publishing houses.

Rich: BookExpo America is the publishing industry’s national trade show, which primarily serves independent book sellers, always held in May. Although we are somewhat fish out of water there, BEA gives us the opportunity to connect personally with publicists at major publishing houses. We meet with them (1) to tell them about the Inprint Margarett Root Continue reading

A Houston Independent Bookstore Day Celebration

May 11, 2015, by

IMG_4485On Saturday, May 2, perhaps your Facebook feed was filled with friends posting from their favorite bookstores across the country. It was a day to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day, honoring those special places that pull triple duty as retail stores, community centers, and performance venues.

Of course, there’s no team like the home team, and Brazos Bookstore scheduled a day of events to please every bibliophile. The inaugural celebration packed eight hours of special events, with an agenda including family-friendly story time and crafts, a drunk coloring part for adults in homage to the new book Hemingwasted: A Loving Look at Literary Lushes, a reception for the new Shakespeare-inspired mural on the front window of the store, and more.

Mark Haber, sales floor manager at Brazos, talked to me about the benefits and opportunities of the day’s activities. “Our bookstore is truly a community center,” he enthused. “Today, I’ve seen people who wouldn’t necessarily know each other rub shoulders. It’s just a great opportunity to talk about books and be around books.” Continue reading

A literary recap of MenilFest 2015

April 25, 2015, by

IMG_4458Although the weather was cloudy and grey, spirits were bright at MenilFest 2015 last Saturday. MenilFest is a multi-pronged cultural celebration, combining an indie book fair, literary lectures, musical performances, film screenings, and more.

The indie book fair flanked the northern, eastern, and southern sides of The Menil Collection museum building, providing an opportunity for local ‘zines, publishers, authors, and nonprofit organizations (I spied Friends of the Houston Public Library, the Hare Krishna Cultural Center, and the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, among others) to display their wares and welcome conversation.

There was printed matter for everyone—romances, poetry, mysteries, cookbooks, Spanish-language, spiritual, YA, and even some book-related crafts.

Brazos Bookstore touted literature by Houston-based authors, like Nick Flynn, Tony Hoagland, Lacy Johnson, Thomas McNeely, (and, in full disclosure, moiself). I spoke to Benjamin Rybeck, events coordinator, about the store’s involvement with MenilFest over the years. “We are first and foremost a community bookstore,” he explained. “We come every year to meet our neighbors.” Continue reading

Not Yo’ Mama’s Poetry!

May 16, 2014, by

If you still have nightmares about interpreting The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for your seventh grade English teacher, come conquer your fear of poetry and hear what hip young poets are writing these days.

There is a ton of fresh, smart, and diverse poetry coming from Houston poets and it’s exciting to see. Inprint is proud that the four University of Houston Creative Writing Program PhD candidates who will be reading their poetry Monday night—Beth Lyons, David Tomas Martinez, Karyna McGlynn, and Justine Post—are good friends of the organization and the Houston reading and writing community. The free reading takes place Monday, May 19, 7 pm at Brazos Bookstore, Houston’s fine independent bookseller, 2421 Bissonnet.

All four poets have participated in Inprint’s Poetry Buskers program, which sends poets out to write poetry on demand (on a typewriter!) at Houston festivals and other public events. Justine and Karyna have each won the Inprint Paul Verlaine Prize in Poetry; David Tomas was one of the three pre-dinner readers at this year’s Inprint Poets & Writers Ball and will be teaching an Inprint Writers Workshop this summer; and Beth is currently working part-time at Inprint! We are also happy to report that all four are wonderful poets whose work yields many riches.

Here’s a short poem we promise you’ll understand from David Tomas Martinez’s just released book of poetry, Hustle, along with bios of each of the poets who will read Monday night

HustleScientifically Speaking

There have
been exciting

discoveries
in the field

of me.
Many

of which,
I have

made
myself. Continue reading

Talking to David Berg: A Brother and his Book

June 28, 2013, by

Run Brother RunLast Friday, Brazos Bookstore was packed as Houston lawyer David Berg read from his new book Run, Brother, Run: A Memoir of a Murder in My Family. The standing-room-only crowd listened intently as David read the foreword and took questions from the audience. The memoir focuses on the murder of his brother Alan Berg by hit man Charles Harrelson (father of actor Woody Harrelson) in Houston in the late 60s.

The memoir has been receiving significant local and national attention. The Houston Press recently included Berg in a story about “Houston’s Top 10 Authors” and the New York Times wrote, “What is remarkable about the book, though, is Mr. Berg’s writing. He elegantly brings to life the rough-and-tumble boomtown that was 1960s-era Houston, and conveys with unflinching force the emotional damage his brother’s death did to his family.”

We had the opportunity to catch up with David and ask him a few questions.

INPRINT: Could you talk about how you came to write this memoir after having kept this traumatic event in your life mostly a secret for so many decades? I imagine the process was incredibly difficult. Was it also in some ways therapeutic?

DAVID: With the book finished and a little perspective, I think I wanted to tell my brother’s story for a very long time but wasn’t conscious of it.  For four decades I rarely talked about Alan and even less about how he died.  Then, on vacation in the early nineties, I watched an astonishingly large flock of geese—so many that dusk turned dark—flying along paths that had been charted for them over millions of years and thought of how little choice they had about the direction they flew—and then I started thinking about Alan, and how much of his life, too, was predetermined, and maybe, too, his death. And all those memories came bursting through the barrier his violent death had created.  Continue reading

“Readers,” Junot Diaz said, “are just happy to see you.”

October 5, 2012, by

Last Monday, over a thousand of us were. We’d come to Wortham Center to see him open the 32nd year of the Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series. Diaz—whose 2008 trip was nixed by Hurricane Ike—took the stage wearing dark jeans and running shoes. (Those of us who by now have read his latest collection, This is How You Lose Her, might be forgiven the desire to conflate these running shoes with Yunior’s, he of the depression-abating miles logged along the Charles River and the ruinous plantar fasciitis.)

Diaz shaded his eyes and looked into the crowd. He’d given readings, he said, at which the only people were his best friend and the guy’s fiancee, who would dump him later that night. After thanking us for coming and thanking Inprint for, as he said, “just existing,” then playfully cursing his favorite bookstore—“Damn you, Brazos,” he said. “I spent $300 there today”—Diaz read two short sections from This is How You Lose Her. Continue reading

Enjoying the Sweet Land of Bigamy

July 18, 2012, by

Before dawn this morning, I grabbed the book that I had reluctantly laid on my bedside table late last night, when I could no longer keep my eyes open. It was Miah Arnold’s debut novel Sweet Land of Bigamy. I eagerly devoured the remaining 30 pages of this wonderfully quirky tale of a cast of realistically drawn characters caught in a love triangle. Miah is reading at Brazos Bookstore this Thursday at 7 pm, and I’m so glad that I had a chance to read it ahead of her book launch. I’ve known Miah since she was a graduate student at the UH Creative Writing Program, and have had the pleasure of hiring her to teach many writing workshops for Inprint. Everyone associated with Inprint should take special pride in Miah’s achievement, as she was the recipient of one of our first $10,000 prizes―the Inprint Diana P. Hobby Prize in Fiction, as well as the recipient of an Inprint Cambor Fellowship and Barthelme Prize. Continue reading

Life As An Emerging Poet Part 2

June 6, 2012, by

Here is Part 2 of our story, Life As An Emerging Poet. On Monday, we posted Part 1 featuring an interview with Glenn Shaheen. Poets Glenn Shaheen and Lauren Berry will give a reading from their work on Thursday, June 7th, 7 pm at Brazos Bookstore. For more information, visit www.brazosbookstore.com

Lauren Berry, who received her MFA from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, was a National Poetry Series winner in 2009 for her first collection of poetry, The Lifting Dress. Her book was selected by Terrance Hayes and published by Penguin. Among the many eminent names that Lauren lists in her acknowledgements page, we are proud that Inprint is the first! Lauren was the recipient of the Inprint Paul Verlaine Prize in Poetry and served as poetry editor of Gulf Coast, the nationally renowned literary journal published by the graduate students in the UH CWP. We are happy to have her back in Houston after a year teaching in Wisconsin, and were able to catch up with her this week.

Inprint:  Can you tell us what you are doing now, career-wise?

Lauren: Right now I have the pleasure of teaching twelfth grade English and ballet at YES Prep North Central. Our campus is a charter school with a drive to get low-income students in Houston into college with the expectation that they will return to our beloved city and devote themselves to better serving its community. YES is an acronym for Youth Engaged in Service, a commitment which informs much of the work that we do. In the fall, I will start my third year with the school. Continue reading