at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco
Welcome! CW develops the art and craft of creative writing through instruction, collaboration, and respect. This blog showcases STUDENT WRITING and how to APPLY to Creative Writing.
Thanks to the umläut staff who made this year’s umläut release party the best we’ve ever seen! Hosted at our dearly beloved 826 Valencia, party-goers were greeted with delightful decorations in deep sea theme under an ambiance lighting.
The 2012 release of umläut, Even-Toed Ungulate, is only one in a long line of many remarkable collections of a variety of art from students here at SOTA. From photography to paintings to, of course, writing, umläut’s got it all.
The crowd was filled with people– parents, students and wanderers alike– gathered as one attentive audience for the guest readers, reading poetry, short stories, and a script in this year’s publication.
And who can forget the delightful guest stars, local bands Rin Tin Tiger and Comodo Complex?
The raffle was a success, the charming prizes attesting to the staff’s creativity and spirit.
A fun social gathering of friends and family supporting our community of artists, the party was a tremendous success. Umläut staff, you guys were stupendous, providing and generous. This party will forever leave its mark in Creative Writing history and be commemorated for its achievements.
Last night, creative writers attended a concert/reading at Old First Church: The music of Dmitri Shostakovitch interspersed with readings of poetry by his compatriots Anna Akhmatova and Joseph Brodsky. The performance was unusual and spectacular; hearing both the musical language and the literature of one culture in one evening was awe-inspiring. As Brodsky said, “Music is actually the best teacher of composition, I think, even of literature.” Thanks to Kathy Barr, director of Old First Concerts, who gave us comped tickets!
-Abigail Schott-Rosenfield
As our playwriting unit continues and eventually (sadly) comes to an end, we will hopefully continue to bring you videos concerning it. Enjoy our first one! It’s covering cold reads, which are basically people picking up scripts they’ve never seen before and acting them out. It’s one of many steps in the journey to a show of magical plays!
-Reba
We are very lucky and pleased to have Dan Hoyle joining us for our playwriting show, Play On Words (April 20-21, 7:30 pm, Dan Kryston Memorial Theatre). If you buy an advance ticket, you can go to the pre-show reception in the theatre lobby, where he will be milling about chatting everybody up. As for the show itself, he will be performing in at least one of the students’ plays.
Dan Hoyle is an actor, playwright, and journalist currently based in San Francisco. The Real Americans enjoyed a long run at The Marsh in San Francisco, and played Joe’s Pub in New York, The Painted Bride in Philadelphia, The Lensic in Santa Fe, Berkeley Repertory Theater, and The Cleveland Playhouse.
His third solo show, Tings Dey Happen, won the 2007 Will Glickman Award for Best New Play before running five months Off-Broadway at Culture Project, where it was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Show. Tings Dey Happen was based on Hoyle’s experiences as a Fulbright Scholar living in the Niger Delta of Nigeria studying oil politics. In October 2009, Hoyle returned to Nigeria to perform the show in five Nigerian cities, sponsored by the U.S. State Department. This tour was filmed by a documentary crew who hope to make it a program for PBS.
This winter, Hoyle will begin work on a new solo project about digital media and the News, commissioned by the Pew Philadelphia Theater Initiative, and he was recently commissioned to write his first play for multiple actors by SF Playhouse. His essays have been featured in Salon, Mother Jones, and Sports Illustrated and he also performs with his father, actor and comedian Geoff Hoyle. Hoyle holds a double degree in Performance Studies and History from Northwestern University. Website: www.danhoyle.com
-Reba
Tick tock, guys. As the clock counts down to our sure to be spectacular show Play On Words, the time for edits is also running out. Behold, the due date of the final drafts of our plays! Creative Writing One, tomorrow is Judgment Day. Make sure your script’s in proper format, along with a list of characters, a list of props, and set descriptions. Isaiah will be collecting completed plays only! (At least, I presume. Slap us with the hard cheese, Isaiah.)
Creative Writing Twos, plays are due Wednesday for you guys. /mumblecomplain
Oh! 4/10, your readings and submissions are due as well!
“Wayne Koestenbaum’s brilliant new collection is like a lurid coloring book of Fauvist Depravity. Playfully perverse, his poems reinvent the lyrical, satirical barb for our moment. And they’re as telling as they are outrageous. Where else could we meet the ‘Mrs Robinson of Abstract Expressionism’ or experience the joy of biting “the wolfman’s wombat ass.” This scholar of excess is off the cuff, over the top, and always on the money!” — Elaine Equi
Read his bio on poets.org
Here is a quote about his new work from Publilshers’ Weekly:
“In his sixth book of poems, Koestenbaum takes a hilarious and dirty look at the underbelly of culture in America in poems that are raunchy, mean, darkly funny, and a joy to read. Flirting, and often going to bed, with nonsense, these poems, many set in sectioned-off couplets or tercets, poke fun at everything Koestenbaum’s capacious intelligence seizes, drawing together elements as disparate as dairy and philosophy (“The heavy cream went bad. I read aloud/ a Lacan line about the stupid signifier”) and Barbra Streisand and Stravinsky (in a memorable suite of imaginary album titles: “Streisand Sings Stravinsky/ Streisand Sings Schoenberg/ Streisand Sings Chomsky”). He pushes the limits on all sorts of subjects, including Eros between men (“The Ass Festival” is simply too dirty to quote) and high fashion (“Guilt: I bought Dior/ Homme silver/ sneakers”). But these are not just dirty jokes for dirty jokes’ sake: Koestenbaum achieves something powerful in this book, in which anger, sarcasm, self-deprecation, and desire are all swept into a kind of emotional whirlwind that feels deeply authentic and nakedly human. These poems are beautiful in spite of themselves.” -Publishers Weekly, 02/20/2012
To read more go to the City Lights events page.
Do you remember that Sarah worked at a VERY high-end leather goods boutique selling absolutely gorgeous pieces? The shop, April in Paris, is on Clement. I have a very cool bookmark that Sarah made for me when I visited her there!
Check out this article on the shop, the owner, and Sarah!
sfgate.com
Heather Woodward
Director, Creative Writing
CREATIVE WRITING 