Join the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop April 2-5, 2015 for our first annual springtime writing & yoga retreat at the historic Victorian “Inn Bliss” in beautiful and gilded Newport, Rhode Island. Our Newport retreat offers the opportunity for writers of all genres and levels to work alongside award-winning authors & editors to hone their craft and expand their writing skills, while working on new or existing projects. Famous for its seafood and coastline, we chose this location for its inspiring beauty and history. During free sessions in the afternoon, take a mansion tour of gilded-era Newport, visit the Newport Museum, listen to some Newport jazz classics, or just relax beside the ocean watching the sailboats and let the stunning location influence your writing. Faculty includes internationally renowned author and writing coach Kathleen Spivack (fiction, poetry, nonfiction), Stephen Aubrey (playwriting, screenwriting), Diana Norma Szokolyai (poetry, nonfiction), Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), and Elissa Lewis (yoga, meditation). If you’d like to join us in Newport, please apply online at cww.submittable.com by March 15, 2015. More info: cww.nyc
Winter 2015 Literature Recommendations
The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop just published their Winter 2015 – Books to Keep You Warm in honor of Valentine’s Day! To celebrate February and the snowy tidings of 2015, the CWW staff has written about their favorite reads to keep you warm through this winter season! Some of these works that have inspired our own writing and changed how we think and see the world, and other works have just stayed with us, entertained, or made us stop, stare, or smile for a little while. The list has been curated by Alex Carrigan and contributors include Stephen Aubrey, Rita Banerjee, Alex Carrigan, Gregory Crosby, Katy Miller, David Shields, Emily Smith, Christine Stoddard, Diana Norma Szokolyai, and Megan Tilley. Here are some Winter 2015 literature recommendations by Rita Banerjee. For the full list, please visit CWW Recommends!
Rita’s Winter 2015 Lit Picks:
Where Europe Begins by Yoko Tawada
(Recommended by Rita Banerjee)
Yoko Tawada is a force of nature. She has mastered the art of defamiliarizing the familiar whether it be language, gender, the facets of the body, or the interplay between imagination and reality. She is a master of writing fiction, memoir, and gorgeous lyrical essays in both Japanese and German (for which she’s won the Akutagawa Prize and Goethe Medal, respectively), and she’s given some impressive speeches in English quoting Japanese, German, and even Italian idioms and literary texts at free will. (I had a chance to see her recently at Munich’s 2014 Shamrock festival and was floored by her performance and also later when she spoke to me in Japanese!) Where Europe Begins explores the strangeness and uncertainty one encounters when looking at things just a little too closely. In these short stories and musings, one’s body, one’s relationships and feelings towards others, one’s language, and even one’s existence become irrevocably uncanny and peculiar.
Akashic’s Noir Series
(Recommended by Rita Banerjee)
A few years ago, I picked up my first Akashic Noir Series book in the famed City Lights Books in San Francisco while I was working on my dissertation at Berkeley. I selected San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics because for every flower in someone’s hair, San Francisco was also pretty cold and gritty, and the ghosts of Dashiell Hammet, Jack London, and Mark Twain seemed to hang around downtown, just lurking in the air. And this volume did not disappoint. Frank Norris’s chilling, uncomfortable view of Chinatown still haunted in “The Third Circle,” and you could see why Hitchcock was so mesmerized by the city by the bay. Flitting back to Cambridge for work, Boston Noir also provided a delightful read. Don Lee’s “The Oriental Hair Poets” seemed especially à propos in the atmosphere of Cambridge. The story centers around two female Asian poets who compete with one another for men and literary accolades, attempting to sabotage each other’s poetic careers and prestige, until something goes horribly wrong…
Treadwinds by Walter K. Lew
(Recommended by Rita Banerjee)
During my MFA days, Walter K. Lew’s Treadwinds was a poetry collection that I returned to again and again. Like Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s novel Dictée, Lew’s Treadwinds was unique and powerful for its unusual collage-like form and ability to breakdown and rethink linguistic barriers. Lew presents poems written in English alongside phrases and texts written in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese in order to demonstrate the narratives of colonial occupation, immigration, and cultural assimilation felt by Koreans and Korean-Americans in the 20th century. He juxtaposes images from film, photography, news stories, and idioms from folk songs, jazz, and old family anecdotes and tales of trauma to convey the complexity and multifaceted voice of the Korean in the modern era. In the namesake poem, “Treadwinds” language and grammar itself breakdown as Lew explores what it means to return, hungry and dwindled, to home and “the sounds of spring.”
Moon Mountain by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay
(Recommended by Rita Banerjee)
Moon Mountain or Cāndēr Pāhaṛ (চাঁদের পাহড়), is a famous Bengali novella by the much-loved Bengali novelist, Bibhutibhushan Bandopahdyay (author of the renowned novel Pather Pāncālī, which was later made famous on the silver screen by Satyajit Ray). Set between 1909-1910, Moon Mountain focuses on the story of Shankar Roy Chowdhury, a young Bengali man, who goes to Africa and winds up working for the Uganda Railway. Hungry for adventure, Shankar meets a strange cast of imperialists and prospectors from Britain, Portugal, Holland, and elsewhere as they try to exploit the riches of Africa and its people. One prospector, the Portuguese Diego Alvarez, a Kurtz-like figure, tells Shankar about his trials and misfortunes hunting for diamonds in the caves of the Moon Mountain, a legendary place deep in the jungles of Richtersveldt, which is haunted and guarded by a spirit called bunyip. Shankar then has to decide whether or not he will follow Alvarez and his thirst for adventure with open eyes or with eyes wide shut.
Family Happiness by Leo Tolstoy
(Recommended by Rita Banerjee)
There’s really nothing like setting the mood for Valentine’s Day in the middle of a snowy winter than reading some dark, deeply existential Russian Literature. Leo Tolstoy is a master of examining the minutae of social relationships and the unpredictably psychology of human behavior. In “Family Happiness,” he takes a hard look at romance and bourgeois obsession of finding the perfect romantic partner and creating the façade of the perfect family. The story follows Masha, a young seventeen-year-old girl, and Sergey, her much older would-be paramour as they engage in a courtship which leads to “romance” and a very unexpected ending.
Poetic Scientifica by Leah Noble Davidson
(Recommended by Rita Banerjee)
Leah Noble Davidson’s poetry collection, Poetic Scientifica, is a beautiful experiment. The collection follows the breakdown of a romantic relationship as it simultaneously explores memories of past sexual violence, individual agency, and female empowerment. In doing so, Poetic Scientifica explores the roles of double-identities, mirror images, Norma Jeane & Marilyn Monroe, beauty, and its lovelorn echo. Perhaps, the charm and play of Davidson’s work can be best described by the hidden poem in her collection which introduces all others: “Oh careful readiness, oh cinders in the jaw / you: fountains of birdsong and / velvet ropes, aspiring Marilyns / maybe I covet you / the way you would have me, do so / Climbing into our story / we build your image together / a person to love, an echo / of the anecdotes strangers tell each other / I can not hate you for being the bathtub / I drain my culture into / for shining myself into / so many lights.”
Voyages Extradonaires by Jules Verne
(Recommended by Rita Banerjee)
When I was studying at the Sorbonne, I would always carry a Poche paperback of a Jules Verne classic with me and would devour it as I made my way through the undergrounds of Paris each morning. Some of my favorite reads were Voyage au centre de la Terre, Vingt milles lieues sous le mer, De la Terre à la Lune, and Paris au XXe siècle. While the stories were familiar from childhood, there was just something about cracking a secret code or cipher with Axel and Lindenbrock in French. The scope and worldview of Verne’s novels, which are set in Baltimore, Hamburg, Paris, China, and India, was also impressive as was his mastery of the scientific romance genre. Characters in his novels always seemed to be at the brink of discovery, whether in realizing the potential or limitations of science and technology or in understanding the potential and limitations of their own humanity. The future could materialize crystal clear in a Verne novel, full of possibilities and full of failures. And now as I am writing my own futuristic novel, it’s wonderful to go back to the pillars of modern day science fiction with writers like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and try to find answers to those big and scary questions like, “what is science?” “what is fiction?” and “what might tomorrow bring?”
The Man Suit by Zachary Schomburg
(Recommended by Rita Banerjee)
The Man Suit is a memorable, must-read collection of poems by Zachary Schomburg. The poems in The Man Suit dance a fine line between melancholy, dark humor, and unnerving absurdity. Images of forests, monsters, stars, death, white and black telephones, music bands, and theatre pepper the collection. And stories of late barons, experiments gone awry, John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln, and a singular tale of a lost love and a girl named Marlene appear, disappear, and remix like constellations across the page. Read in another way, Schomburg’s collection takes a hard look at the values of Americana and the changing shape of the American social and political landscape in the waning years of the Bush presidency. In “Last President of a Dark Country,” the speaker of the poem, states “Trying being the last president of a dark country. It is lonely as hell here. You should come. / …if you are careful, you can find the railing. It will lead you to a dimly-lit hole that you can climb down into. You’ll find me there, most likely. I’ll be working on my last presidential address. It will be a list of everything that haunts me. No matter how much you ask me to read it, I probably won’t.”
Echo in Four Beats – An Evening of Poetry & Fiction by Rita Banerjee – Feb 7, 2015
Saturday February 7, 2015 * 19:00-20:30
The Munich Readery * Augustenstraße 104 München, Germany
Join the Munich Readery for an evening of original poetry and fiction by writer and creative writing instructor, Rita Banerjee. Rita Banerjee will be reading from her poetry collection, Cracklers at Night, and her new poetry manuscript, Echo in Four Beats. She will also read excerpts from her novel manuscript, Mélusine, as well as her selections of her short fiction.
Rita Banerjee is a writer and creative writing instructor at the Munich Readery. She received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University and her writing has been published in Poets for Living Waters, The New Renaissance, The Fiction Project, Jaggery: A DesiLit Arts and Literature Journal, Catamaran, Amethyst Arsenic, The Crab Creek Review, The Dudley Review, Objet d’Art, Vox Populi, Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure, and Chrysanthemum. Her first collection of poems, Cracklers at Night, received First Honorable Mention for Best Poetry Book at the Los Angeles Book Festival. Her novella, A Night with Kali, was digitized by the Brooklyn Art-house Co-op. She is Executive Creative Director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, and her writing has also been recently featured in VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, Quail Bell Magazine, Speaking of Marvels, and on KBOO Radio’s APA Compass in Portland, Oregon.
Saving Mes Aynak
In late November 2014, my partner and I had the opportunity to attend and participate in the world premiere of Brent E. Huffman’s documentary film, Saving Mes Aynak. About a year and a half ago, we had screened an early version of Huffman’s film as part of a larger discussion on Buddhist manuscripts and archeological sites at our Institute for Indology and Tibetology at Ludwig-Maxilimans Universität in Munich. Saving Mes Aynak premiered in the Amsterdam at the Dutch IDFA festival, and the film “follows the Afghan archaeologist Qadir Temori as he races against time to save a 5,000-year-old archaeological site in Afghanistan from imminent demolition. A Chinese state-owned mining company is closing in on the ancient site, eager to harvest $100 billion dollars worth of copper buried directly beneath the archaeological ruins. Only 10% of Mes Aynak has been excavated, though, and some believe future discoveries at the site have the potential to redefine the history of Afghanistan and the history of Buddhism itself” (Huffman). Mes Aynak played a significant role on the Silk Road and current houses one of the oldest surviving Buddhist sites in Afghanistan. The Buddhist monasteries and historical forts on Mes Aynak are threatened by a Chinese mining company which plans to dynamite and destroy Mes Aynak in Spring 2015. Not only then is this historical site and its rare and ancient artifacts at stake, but the area surrounding Mes Aynak and the livelihoods of the villages, drinking water, and ecosystem surrounding the site threatens to be destroyed by mining at Mes Aynak. To prevent the destruction of the ancient sites at Mes Aynak and the environmental damage the mining would cause, please sign this petition. To help spread the word on Mes Aynak, request to screen Brent E. Huffman’s Saving Mes Aynak here. – Rita Banerjee
Screening of Tareque Masud’s The Clay Bird – January 13
Rita Banerjee will introduce and lead the discussion for Tareque Masud’s 2002 film, The Clay Bird (মাটির ময়না), on Tuesday, January 13 from 6-8:30 pm for the Institute for Indology and Tibetology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The screening will take place in Seminar Room 427 (Ludwigstr. 31, Munich). The screening is part of the course Bengali 3: Intermediate Bengali Language and Literature at LMU. Anyone interested in Bengali Cinema or South Asian Art House Film is welcomed to join the screening. In The Clay Bird (Māṭir Maynā), Tareque Masud follows the increasing religious, linguistic, and political tensions leading up to Bangladesh’s War of Liberation from Pakistan in 1971. The film is based on Masud’s childhood experience in a madrasa (Islamic seminary) during the late 1960s in the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). This was a very turbulent period in Bangladesh’s history, when as the eastern wing of the greater Islamic state of Pakistan, the country was torn between a strong secular and democratic movement and a pro-Islamic military junta bent on stifling dissent and reform. Although there are oblique references to the historical events of that time, the story Masud tells is an essential human one, told through the eyes of a child. Māṭir Maynā became the first feature film from Bangladesh to be selected for presentation at Cannes Film Festival. At Cannes, it was given the honor of being the opening film of the Directors Fortnight section of the festival, and won the International Critics Prize for best film in that section. However, even as the French and international press were lauding the film for its positive portrayal of Bangladesh and its tolerant traditions, the Bangladesh Censor Board gave their own verdict: the film was banned from public screening because it was deemed too religiously sensitive.
Screening of Satyajit Ray’s The Big City – December 5
Rita Banerjee will introduce and lead the discussion for Satyajit Ray’s 1963 film, The Big City (মহানগর), on Friday December 5, 2014 from 6-8:30 pm for the Institute for Indology and Tibetology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The screening will take place in Seminar Room 427 (Ludwigstr. 31, Munich). The screening is part of the course Bengali 3: Intermediate Bengali Language and Literature at LMU. Anyone interested in Bengali Cinema or South Asian Art House Film is welcomed to join the screening. “In The Big City (Mahānagar), Ray sets his ironic and humorous eye on the plight of the Bengali middle class, caught amid the changing moralities of city life. The cultural crossfire is internalized in each individual. Focusing in particular on the role of women in this metamorphosis, Ray tells a story that is both minutely particular to Calcutta and universally recognizable. Madhabi Mukherjee gives a beautifully unfolding performance as the timorous housewife who finds her strength when she takes a job—selling knitting machines door to door—in order to help support her family and her husband’s extended family, all of whom resist the move. ‘Few directors can match Ray’s facility for observation or his perceptiveness in registering those tiny moments of conflict when a casual nuance can drop like a bomb.’” —David Wilson, Monthly Film Bulletin. The screenplay for The Big City (Mahānagar) was written by Satyajit Ray and adapted from a story by Narendra Nath Mitra.
Rita Banerjee’s Mis/Translation poems featured in Quail Bell Magazine
Over the next few weeks, Quail Bell Magazine will be curating and publishing a series of “Mis/Translations” poems by Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai. Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai are the founders and directors of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop (CWW). You can read about the CWW’s upcoming Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga, Writing, and Juice Cleanse Retreat in Quail Bell Magazine. In the interview, the CWW shares tips on creating a creative discipline of writing, yoga, and self-care. Rita also discusses the creative writing invention exercise “Mis/Translations” and how it can help kick-start your writing. Rita’s poem, “Who Lamb” was inspired by a Mis/Translation exercise at the last CWW Verderonne retreat. Norma read her own poem, “hullám/wave” in Hungarian and Rita “Mis/Translated” based entirely on the sound and feel of words that were foreign to her. – Jessica Reidy
Rita Banerjee Interviewed in Quail Bell Magazine
Jessica Reidy, Pushcart Nominee, member of VIDA and Quail Bell Magazine, novelist, and yoga practitioner, interviews Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokolyai, Elissa Joi Lewis, Alex Carrigan and Megan Tilley for her article Writing through Holiday Stress: Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Pre-Thanksgiving Retreat in Quail Bell Magazine. In the article, Jessica Reidy discusses how daily yoga, craft of writing seminars, and workshops go hand in hand to spark creativity, encourage relaxation, and produce good writing habits. Jessica Reidy writes,“No matter how cozy your family is, the holidays are stressful. Writers need their time, space, and routine to create and sustain their work, and these necessities fall by the wayside as Thanksgiving marches nearer. Then add the surplus of heavy food, sugar-packed nostalgic treats, and the stress-eating, and you’re feeling like a hot mess and your manuscript is still unfinished. The Cambridge Writer’s Workshop (CWW) knows this all too well, which is why the Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga & Creative Writing Juice Cleanse was born. On Saturday November 22 and Sunday November 23rd, from 2-4 PM, at Ashtanga Yoga Shala in New York City, we will be hosting an afternoon of creative writing classes, yoga classes, and juice for writers who need to decompress and write their hearts out, all with a little raw juice kick.” (Read the article & interview at Quail Bell Magazine, register for Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga & Creative Writing Cleanse at Cambridge Writers’ Workshop)
Character Development Revision Workshop at the Munich Readery – November 16
Sunday, November 16, 2014 * 14:00-16:30
The Munich Readery, Augustenstraße 104, 80798 München
Femme fatales, gumshoe detectives, star-crossed lovers, wicked stepmothers, wise fools, empathetic anti-heroes: dynamic and archetypal characters can be key to making a good story or lyrical piece tick and pulling in the reader deeper into your creative work. In this revision workshop, we’ll pick up where our Character Development workshop left off, and will focus on putting dynamic and archetypal characters in action. During workshop, we will review and revise the writing begun for the Character Development and Playing with Persona Workshop. Participants are also welcomed to bring in the character sketches, stories, poems, and performance pieces they are currently working on which utilize dynamic and archetypal characters. Workshop fee: €25. To register, send an email and writing to review (1000 words or less) to store@themunichreadery.com by November 12.
Screening of Satyajit Ray’s Company Limited – November 11
Rita Banerjee will introduce and lead the discussion for Satyajit Ray’s 1971 film, Company Limited (সীমাবদ্ধ), on Tuesday November 11, 2014 from 6-8:30 pm for the Institute for Indology and Tibetology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The screening will take place in Seminar Room 427 (Ludwigstr. 31, Munich). The screening is part of the course Bengali 3: Intermediate Bengali Language and Literature at LMU. Anyone interested in Bengali Cinema or South Asian Art House Film is welcomed to join the screening. “In Company Limited, the hero is the amiable, self-satisfied, and ambitious young sales manager of a factory manufacturing electric fans, comfortably married and nicely set up in a smart apartment. The arrival from the country of his beautiful, intelligent, naive young sister-in-law unsettles him at the same moment as a crisis in his department awakens him to his own ability to fight dirty. He gets his directorship and emerges from the experience a good deal wiser and rather less certain of himself… This is one of Ray’s best films. The domestic relationship—the unrealized triangle of the man and the two girls—is revealed more by what is left out than by what is shown. At the same time it is one of Ray’s most richly comic films, with shrewd satire on the American-styled business world of Calcutta.” —David Robinson, London Times
