Monthly Archives: May 2017

An Old Story Made New: Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde

May 29, 2017, by

blogimageWhat is it about an age-old story that makes people want to experience it again and again? Certainly variation via content, form, or other means can help, but how many times can a story play this quasi three-card Monte before people’s interests are sucked toward the table up the block?

The answer to this could surely focus on the machinations of narrative or even the socio-biology of humans, or, much more simply, the evident fact that folks love the salacious (like really love the salacious), but one thing is for certain: the phenomenon of a narrative never losing its color despite repeated washings is one that continues to happen. For instance, on May 31st the River Oaks Theatre is having a special film presentation of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, a story that has its origins in the 12th century, and, more to the point, has a history of being told and retold that is more varied and alive than arguably any other narrative. Continue reading →

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UHCWP Student Spotlight: Selena Anderson

May 26, 2017, by

1517556_10105358955057980_8598560224807440091_nSelena Anderson is one of the University of Houston’s newly minted PhD’s in Fiction. She completed her MFA at Columbia University where she won the Transatlantic/Henfield Prize. She has held fellowships at the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference, the Carson McCullers Center, and the MacDowell Colony. Her work appears or is forthcoming in AGNI, Joyland, Georgia Review, Callaloo, Glimmer Train, Kenyon Review Online, NANO Fiction, and elsewhere.

Recent UHCWP grad Melanie Brkich interviewed Selena about her work, her new teaching job, and what she’ll miss most about Houston.

Melanie Brkich: Congrats on successfully defending your dissertation! How does it feel to be a doctor?

Selena Anderson: Thank you, Melanie! It’s cool! I’ve been working towards it for a long time and it’s always nice to accomplish something that you’ve worked so hard for.

MB: What is your dissertation about? Where did you draw the inspiration for it?

SA: My dissertation is a collection of stories about people who want to win and who make a bad situation worse by trying to do something about it. The stories are set in Texas—but in my imagined Texas of the recent past. There are ghosts, tiny men, a slave ship, dolls, dudes who talk in third person, forest fires, and plenty of girls brooding in their apartments. Continue reading →

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Ars Lyrica Houston’s Don Quixote’s Excellent Adventures

May 12, 2017, by

AL-Ars Lyrica web imagesAs many Houstonians know, Ars Lyrica Houston presents a diverse array of music from the 17th and 18th centuries on period instruments. The 2016-17 season was no exception, and as the season is now coming to a close, Ars Lyrica is concluding with a decidedly interesting finale: a performance based on Cervantes’s literary classic Don Quixote. I had a chance to discuss the project with Ars Lyrica founder and artistic director, Matthew Dirst.

MATTHEW KRAJNIAK: What inspired you to take the literary figure of Don Quixote and turn his experiences into an orchestrated musical production?

MATTHEW DIRST: Well, to start with there is a lot of great music surrounding this particular subject, from Henry Purcell’s Incidental Music to Don Quixote to Joseph Bodin de Boismortier’s Ballet on Don Quichotte to name but a few. However, in addition to this there has also recently been an important anniversary as this year coincides with the 400th anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote. Continue reading →

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Imagine Wanting Only An Evening of Conversation Between Smart Writers

May 8, 2017, by

Upright and cropped IMG_9270On Monday, May 1, Kristen Radke, author of the newly released graphic memoir-inquiry-novel Imagine Wanting Only This, spoke to Houston’s own beloved, award-winning poet and writer Nick Flynn at Brazos Bookstore.

Radke began the event by expressing her “admiration for booksellers.” She is the managing editor of the popular indie press Sarabande, so is familiar with both sides of the book industry. She also explained that Imagine Wanting Only This is “about ruins and abandoned places.” She decided to read an excerpt from the very end and “give it all away.” The section, a monologue, read like poetry in its pacing and probing of abstract ideas. A slideshow of the accompanying illustrations was also played.

Radke then sat with Flynn, who asked about her role as an illustrator and a writer. She admitted that while she studied commercial art as an undergrad and creative nonfiction at the University of Iowa in graduate school, she essentially taught herself how to combine her two passions. As her project continued, she did her research. When Flynn asked which women comics she liked, she answered straightforwardly “every woman who’s ever been a comic” and touched the pop cultural history of comics as a boys’ club with women typically portrayed as “anatomically incorrect.” Continue reading →

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