News from the New Wing

The fall of 2011 and now the new year have given the DWC much to laud:

• In the fall, we opened the new wing of the Downtown Writer's Center, after a very successful capital campaign. Thanks to the generosity of many donors from the CNY community, we have new offices, two new classrooms, and a library area that is fostering the connection of our students and members.
• Our reading series has continued with visitors from around the country, regional writers, and a reading by Jessica Cuello and Elinor Cramer, two of our long-time students students who have published books and chapbooks.
• We welcomed some wonderful new faculty members to our roster, including Megan Davidson, Mike Raicht, K.C. Wolfe, and Yvonne Murphy, along with including a memoir course by Mona DeVestel before she moved to San Francisco.
• Our director, Phil Memmer, had the poems he created while on his writing retreat in Scotland last summer released in book form this winter. The Storehouses of the Snow: Psalms, Parables, and Dreams was published by Lost Horse Press, who also published his last book. It is a beauty with cover art by the amazing Don Gregorio Anton.  
• Georgia Popoff assumed the role of Workshops Coordinator, following Jennifer Pashley and Becky Sernett. Georgia's most recent book, Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy, & Social Justice in Classroom & Community was recently nominated for an NAACP Image Award.

• Lastly, the DWC, with generous funding from an anonymous donor, launched a long-time dream of the Young Authors Academy in mid-February. This program will include writing instruction, inspiration, and peer critique in all genres of the writing arts for teens in the Syracuse City School District to start, then expanding after we get the pilot program running smoothly. Look for continued updates on the Young Authors Academy and its talented teen writers!

The spring schedule will be full of surprises and delights in our course offerings and the reading series will continue with its tradition of nationally noted authors and poets reading for free on Friday nights. For information or to be included on our mailing list, email:

dwcworkshops@syracuseymca.org or call 315.474.6851 ext. 380.

Friday's Three Items: Reminder, Recommendation, & Writing Prompt

Happy Friday! To those who are mothers, we salute you. To those who are graduating, congratulations. To the rest of you, we hope you had a prolific week with words! We are closing the week with the following:

Reminder: Our last visiting writer of the season, Lynn Levin, will appear this evening, May 7th, at 7 p.m. at the DWC, 340 Montgomery Street, downtown Syracuse. Lynn will share her poetry and take questions about the work so please join us for this season closer. For more information about Lynn's work, Fair Creatures of an Hour (Loonfeather Press, 2009) was recently reviewed on the Comstock Review web site: http://www.comstockreview.org/review/l.html.

Recommendation: If you are an HBO subscriber with digital cable, treat yourself to a series called Master Class, available on HBO On Demand. The episode that particularly speaks to our DWC community is that of the Edward Albee mentorship of four young writers. Fascinating discussion on the elements of writing, craft, and the writer's identity! Make a cup of tea and take a half hour for yourself to sit with this literary master.

Writing Prompt: Two weeks ago, DéLana R.A. Dameron read at the DWC with Jane Springer. We asked DéLana to share a favorite writing exercise with our community and this was her response:

Choose a jazz song without lyrics. Spend as many times as you need listening to it. In the solo part you most resonate with, write the lyrics. If you need, use the title of the song as a guide. Here are some of my favorite jazz songs to get you started.

Robert Glasper: Maiden Voyage/Everything in its right place
Esperanza Spalding: Junjo
Miles Davis: New York Girl

Have fun!

One last thought: watch your email inboxes for announcements regarding the schedule for the DWC PRO Student Readings as our first class of PRO students prepare to graduate. These readings are celebrations of a 2-year course of study by these accomplished writers. We invite you to attend and support these remarkable achievements! If you are not on the DWC mailing/email list, please call Phil Memmer at 315.474.6851, extension 328.

Spring Is Close - Come Celebrate with Poetry This Evening

The air will be clear and bright this evening, according to the forecast. Are you feeling cabin fever? Then plan on being at the Downtown Writer's Center this evening. Our guests are the DWC's own Nate Pritts and his good friend and educator, Matt Hart, who is traveling in from Ohio to share his work with our community.

Nate Pritts is the author of The Wonderfull Yeare (Cooper Dillon, 2010), Sensational Spectacular (BlazeVOX, 2007) and Honorary Astronaut (Ghost Road Press, 2008).  The founder & primary editor of H_NGM_N, on on-line journal of contemporary poetry, Nate currently teaches at the DWC. Now we get a chance to feature Nate not as educator but for the poetry he creates.

Matt Hart is the author of two full length books of poetry, Who’s Who Vivid (Slope Editions, 2006) and You Are Mist (Moor Books, forthcoming), as well as numerous chapbooks. A co-founder and the editor-in-chief of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, & Light Industrial Safety, Matt teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

The Spring calendar of readings will be released soon but you can get a jumpstart on the season with this last of the Winter line-up. The reading starts at 7:00 p.m. and, as always is free. We encourage you to bring a friend as well to share the evening. The Downtown Writer's Center is located off the main lobby of the Downtown YMCA, 340 Montgomery Street, near Syracuse's Columbus Circle. We hope to see you!

] Open Interval [ - Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon and Her New Work

In 2006, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon read from her first book, Black Swan, which had won the Cave Canem Prize. I was enthralled in the moment as she read and wanted more, so I bought the book to lounge in the language when the busy life around me permitted, with a cup of tea by my side on the table and Anthony Hamilton crooning in the background, much like now on this snowy morning.

Lyrae returns to the DWC this evening at 7 p.m. to read from her new collection ] Open Interval [ and perhaps share even newer work. ] Open Interval [ was a finalist for the National Book Award so this Cornell University Assistant Professor has significantly stepped up her game.

The stars in the sky, the flowers before her in the garden, the divorce and the accepting the life ahead as a sole entity rather than a partner all come to play in this collection.

A sparse sense of phrasing is prevalent in Lyrae's work. It is obvious that she trusts the intelligence of her readers. As she references Harriet Tubman, astronomy, Rilke, her interior world, her ancestors, there is plenty of room for the reader to slow down in the poem. Even her relationship with punctuation serves to slow the eye down and allow the mind to rest in each word. And punctuation becomes a new symbology with this poet. There are personal symbols for breath and timing that give these poems a unique profile.

To experience these poems in breath, in sound, join us in the Downtown Writer's Center at the Greater Syracuse YMCA at 340 Montgomery Street, at 7 p.m. This is still another FREE reading sponsored by the DWC with funding from the NYS Council on the Arts. We hope to see you tonight and to introduce you to Lyrae Van-Clief-Stefanon.

Friday Means FREE READING @ the DWC

First of all...we know that spring is just 6 or 7 weeks away. This creates an optimism in upstate NY, rumors of robins marking an early return, some hearty growth pushing through snow in the cracks along the basement, all signs that we have survived another winter thus far and the end is in sight.

One of the things that make the season slide on by is the reading series at the DWC.  Ah yes, nationally known writers sharing their words and it does not cost a thing beyond parking, if you choose a lot, and the cost of a book so you can get it signed.  And the books are always $15 or less.  Hey!  A bargain in anyone's eyes.

So this week, as we continue our journey through the dark months, we will be hosting Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, in a return visit to read from her new collection, ] Open Interval [, published by the University of Pittsburg Press and recently recognized as a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award for Poetry.  Lyrae is also the author of Black Swan, which won the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.  Her poems have appeared in African-American Review, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, Rattapallax and Shenandoah and several anthologies.

Lyrae lives in Ithaca, NY, where she is an Assistant Professor at Cornell University; Tomorrow will be her second visit to the DWC.  Please join us for this evening of marvelous verse.  We will post a review of ] Open Interval [ tomorrow.

Do you want a sneak peak of the poems we will be receiving from our guest?  Visit Laura Ryan's new blog on Central New York literary news, Syracuse Books Examiner for a video clip.