WHAT: Italian American Writers Association Open Reading Series.  Since 1991, IAWA has given voice to writers through its Open Reading series every second Saturday of the month.  IAWA East is held even months at Sidewalk Café (Feb, Apr, June) and IAWA West continues at Cornelia Street Café on odd months (Mar, May, July.)

WHEN: February 8, Saturday, 5:30-7:30 pm

WHERE: Sidewalk Café at 94 Avenue A (6th Street) in East Village, NYC-10009

WHO:  Maria Mazziotti Gillan is a recipient of the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers and the 2008 American Book Award for her book, All That Lies Between Us (Guernica Editions). She has published 18 books, including What We Pass On: Collected Poems 1980-2009, The Place I Call Home, The Silence in an Empty House , Ancestors’ Song , and Writing Poetry to Save Your Life: How to Find the Courage to Tell Your Stories. Mazziotti is the founder/executive director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, NJ and editor of the Paterson Literary Review. She is also director of the Binghamton Center for Writers and professor of poetry at Binghamton University-SUNY.  With her daughter Jennifer, she is co-editor of four anthologies. Visit her website at www.mariagillan.com.

James Mammarella is a poet, business journalist and editor.  He will read from his newly published poetry collection, Sonnets for Silvertoes.  He is founding editor and associate publisher of License! Magazine and won several juried awards, including the Godfrey Lebhar Award for Editorial Excellence and the Jesse Neal National Business Media Award. He studied poetry at George Washington University and performed at antiwar rallies in Washington, D.C. in the 1970s, Native American-based cultural events and most recently at the Enigma Bookstore in Astoria as a member of group Queens Writers Read.  Mammarella is currently studying Italian.

Event kicks off with Open Mic readings of five minutes.

COVER: $8 includes complimentary beverage.  CONTACT: www.sidewalkny.com; or 212-473-7373.

DIRECTIONS: By Subway, F to Second Avenue or #6 to Astor Place

Next Readings

March 8, 2014: Christopher Castellani and Marisa Labozzetta @Cornelia Street Café

April 12, 2014: Mark Saba and Joey Nicoletti @Sidewalk Café

May 10, 2014: Frank Lentricchia and Fred Misurella @Cornelia Street Café

Contacts: www.iawa.net , www.corneliastreetcafe.com or www.sidewalkny.com

Join us on November 9, 2012 for our monthly Open Reading, along with featured writers Peter Covino and John Trause.

Poet, translator, and editor Peter Covino is associate professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Rhode Island. He is the author the poetry collections, The Right Place to Jump (2012), recently featured on NPR, Lambda Literary, and on the Huffington Post, and Cut Off the Ears of Winter (2005). His prizes include the 2007 PEN American/ Osterweil Award for emerging poets, the Paterson Prize for Literary Excellence, and the Frank O’Hara Poetry Prize for his chapbook, Straight Boyfriend (2001). Recent poems appear or are forthcoming in such places as the American Poetry Review, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Interim, The Journal, LIT, The Paris Review, The Yale Review, Witness, and The Penguin Anthology of Italian-American Writing, among others. Visit www.petercovino.com 

 John J. Trause is the Director of Oradell Public Library and the author of Eye Candy for Andy (2013); Inside Out, Upside Down, and Round and Round; Seriously Serial and Latter-Day Litany, which was staged Off-Off Broadway.  His translations, poetry, and visual work appear internationally in many journals and anthologies, including the artists’ periodical Crossings, Maintenant, and the avant-garde art and literary journal Offerta Speciale. A founder and former curator of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative in Rutherford, N. J., and its reading series, his work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize (2009 – 2011).

Cornelia Street Café, 29 Cornelia Street, Manhattan, 212-989-9319, www.corneliastreetcafe.com

$8 minimum includes one drink.  Come in time to sign up at 5:45.  5 minute time limit for open mic.