Category: Cracklers at Night

 Jessica Reidy, Pushcart Nominee, member of VIDA and Quail Bell Magazine, novelist, and yoga practitioner, interviews Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokolyai, and Elissa Joi Lewis for her new piece on the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Summer Yoga & Writing Retreat at the Château de Verderonne in Picardy, France 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, “The Château de Verderonne feels like a sumptuous two week ritual. Yoga in the gardens or, weather not permitting, in our private salon, is led twice a day, before breakfast and dinner, by the wonderfully gifted Elissa Joi Lewis, who also teaches art classes.  Outside of yoga class, there are allotted times for free-writing, workshops, and craft talks, all of which made me realize how much I needed a non-judgmental writing community. An MFA is a lot of great things, but most MFA workshops don’t necessarily give you room to make (many) mistakes. That’s what your community of writers is for—they are the friends you can trust (inside and outside an MFA) to look at your messy, fragile baby bird novel, as ugly and wet as it is, and not to smash it into the ground. Instead, they’ll give you advice to help it grow up into some more presentable stage of bird. And whether I was in yoga class or workshop at the retreat, I had room to experiment and could trust gentle yet wise guidance. Yoga asks the practitioner to sacrifice her ego, just as the writer must surrender her ego in order to allow herself the space to draft and try out those imperfect ideas.”  (Read the article & interview at Quail Bell Magazine)

Revision Workshop
Sunday, June 8, 2014 * 14:00-16:00
The Munich Readery, Augustenstraße 104, 80798 München

The last two creative writing workshops on Evocative Objects and Literary Taboo were huge successes at the Munich Readery.  And thanks to Lisa and John, a follow-up creative workshop has been scheduled for Sunday June 8 from 2-4 pm at the Munich Readery.  This workshop will focus on the topic of revision and will feature the writing begun for the Literary Taboo and Evocative Objects workshop.  Participants are also welcomed to bring in some of the writing they are currently working on at home.  Feedback will be provided on all the writing that has been sent to the Munich Readery before June 4.  Workshop fee: €25.  To register, send an email and revised to store@themunichreadery.com by June 4.

Rita Banerjee will introduce and lead the discussion for Satyajit Ray’s 1970 film, The Adversary (প্রতিদ্বন্দী), on Tuesday June 3, 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 2: Introduction to the Bengali Language & Art House Film, II at LMU.  Anyone interested in Bengali Cinema or South Asian Art House Film is welcomed to join the screening.  Created amid the growing social unrest and political violence of India (and the world) post-1969, and specifically responding to Bengal’s armed Naxalite radical movement, The Adversary is Ray at his most openly political, yet also Ray at his most compassionate and even humorous. A young college graduate seeks employment (or at least respect) in Calcutta, “that nightmare city” (as Ray described it at the time), and finds neither. Indifferent to joining polite society, his younger brother chooses revolution instead. “This is Ray’s funniest, most piercing film,” wrote Pauline Kael; “its humanism is like the quality of Olmi’s Il Posto.” – Jason Sanders [The Adversary is based on a story by the Bengali Modernist writer, Sunil Gangopadhyay]

Rita Banerjee will introduce and lead the discussion for Satyajit Ray’s 1970 film, Days and Nights in the Forest (অরণ্যের দিনরাত্রি ), on Tuesday May 13, 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 2: Introduction to the Bengali Language & Art House Film, II at LMU.  Anyone interested in Bengali Cinema or South Asian Art House Film is welcomed to join the screening.  Ray’s most overtly Renoir-ish film, this might almost be a remake of Une Partie de Campagne, transposed to another time and place and through another sensibility. Instead of the French bourgeois family setting off for a picnic, four young men leave Calcutta for a few days in the country, trailing their westernized careerist attitudes, a middle class indifference to the lower orders, a self-satisfaction that leaves them closed to experience. Out of a series of delightfully funny mishaps as the visitors eagerly try to pursue acquaintance with their two promisingly attractive neighbors, Ray gradually distills a magical world of absolute stasis: a shimmering summer’s day, a tranquil forest clearing, the two women strolling in a shady avenue, wistful yearnings as love and the need for love echo plangently. Elsewhere jobs have to be won or lost, problems faced and solved, but not here; an illusion of course, revealed as time lifts its suspension but leaves one of the quartet a changed man, the other three assailed by tiny waves of self-doubt. Beautifully shot and acted, it’s probably Ray’s masterpiece. – Time Out   [Days and Nights in the Forest is based on a story by Bengali modernist writer, Sunil Gangopadhyay]

Literary Taboo Creative Writing Workshop
Sunday, April 27 * 14:00-16:00
The Munich Readery, Augustenstraße 104, 80798 München

Come join Rita Banerjee and the Munich Readery for an afternoon of literary games, riddles and creative writing!  Get ready to play Literary Taboo. During the game, you may be asked to describe a person, idea, object, or phenomenon without using certain taboo words. You are welcomed to create poems, short stories, theatrical sketches, first-person narratives, and riddles about the topics you encounter during the game, and everyone is invited to become a true literary detective! So join us for an afternoon filled with creative writing, sensorial riddles, and literary taboos!  Workshop fee: €20.  To register, send an email to store@themunichreadery.com

 

Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokolyai, Elissa Lewis, and Jessica Reidy are featured in the March/April 2014 Writers Retreats Issue of Poets & Writers Magazine for their instruction in the 2014 Yoga & Writing Retreat at the Château de Verderonne.  In this special issue of Poets & Writers, the “Conferences & Residencies” section features the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop 2014 Summer Retreat in France.  The 2014 Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Summer Yoga & Writing Retreat will be held from August 7 to August 20 at the Château de Verderonne in Picardy, France, located approximately 50 miles north of Paris. The conference features workshops in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, as well as craft seminars, art classes, time to write, and daily yoga and meditation classes. Optional excursions to Paris and Chantilly are also available to participants. The faculty includes poets Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai, fiction writer Jessica Reidy, and yoga and arts instructor Elissa Lewis. – P&W

A special thanks to Vanguard Seattle, an arts, culture, and fashion journal, for featuring the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop’s “A Night at the Victrola” #AWP14 Reading as one of their featured #Seattle events for the week of February 25 – March 2.  The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop presents many poets from both coasts and several grads of UW’s MFA program. The lienup includes Peter Mountford, Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokolyai, Pattabi Seshadri, Nancy Jooyoun Kim, Kevin Skiena, Jessica Day, Anca Szilágyi, Talia Shalev, Carrie Kahler, Dena Rush Guzman, Leah Umansky, Susan Parr and Johnny Horton.  Check out more information here.

Friday February 28, 2014* 8:30-10:00pm
Victrola Coffee & Art
411 15th Ave E, Seattle, WA 98112

The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop presents “A Night at the Victrola,” an AWP 2014 Reading, featuring the talents of Peter Mountford, Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokolyai, Pattabi Seshadri, Nancy Jooyoun Kim, Kevin Skiena, Jessica Day, Anca Szilágyi, Talia Shalev, Carrie Kahler, Dena Rush Guzman, Leah Umansky, Susan Parr, & Johnny Horton.  Join us as we celebrate some of Seattle, New York, & Boston’s best writers, and graduates from the University of Washington MFA program.

Rita Banerjee will be a featured author at the 2014 Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference in Seattle.  She will be signing her book, Cracklers at Night (Finishing Line Press) on Friday February 28 from 10:00-11:30am at the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop table (BB29) in the AWP Bookfair.  Rita Banerjee’s writing has been published in Poets for Living Waters, The New Renaissance, The Fiction Project, Jaggery: A DesiLit Arts and Literature Journal, Catamaran, The Crab Creek Review, Amethyst Arsenic, The Dudley Review, Objet d’Art, Vox Populi, Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure, and Chrysanthemum among other journals.  Her first collection of poems, Cracklers at Night, was published by Finishing Line Press received First Honorable Mention for Best Poetry Book of 2011-2012 at the Los Angeles Book Festival.

Come join the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop for our third annual writing retreat in France. This year, we will return to the beautiful Château de Verderonne & take classes at a lovely and spacious 17th century manor house located on the Château grounds.  A French chef will prepare all of our meals on site, and we will dine together in the large kitchen or on the terrace. Enjoy walks through the museum at your leisure, take refuge writing in the drawing rooms, or relax in the sprawling gardens.  Writers Diana Norma Szokolyai, Rita Banerjee, and Jessica Reidy will be your guides and help you create the space you need to nurture your writing projects. Certified yoga instructor and visual artist Elissa Lewis will guide participants in daily yoga and meditation exercises. The retreat is tailored for allowing participants to relax and access their creative process. We will offer the following options to those electing to participate: craft of writing seminars, creative writing workshops, manuscript review, yoga, meditation, French conversation groups, fine art workshops, and excursions to Paris, Chantilly, and nearby medieval towns.  Apply by May 15, 2014: cww.submittable.com

More Information: Poets & Writers * Cambridge Writers’ Workshop