Oh, Bernice!

John Rice here, blogging in preparation of hosting for this month’s edition (4/20/13) of the Oh, Bernice! Reading Series.  As a way to best get to know the readers, I asked them all the same question. 

Tell me about the last time you were cruel. 

Audrey: In my dreams I often wind up as a town-smashing dragon - pretty cruel to all those dream-townspeople. As penance, in my waking life I save spiders instead of smooshing them. YOU’RE WELCOME. 

We’re welcome, indeed. 

——-

Audrey Dimola is a journalist, editor, poet, and arts event curator born in Astoria/Long Island City, Queens where she (proudly!) still lives. She has performed at Bowery Poetry Club, Brooklyn Museum, and the NY Aquarium, and her articles, poetry/prose, and photos have been published in print and online. Audrey is the author of “Decisions We Make While We Dream,” an original collection of work spanning 2000 to 2012, and in 2013 she founded “Nature of the Muse,” a Queens literary series playing with themes of inspiration and on-the-spot creation. She loves to explore and lives by these words: stay wild, stay grateful. http://audreydimola.com/

And, if you really want to get to know Audrey, you should check out the entry she wrote about her reading series for the Newtown Literary blog http://newtownliterary.org/2013/03/28/discover-nature-of-the-muse-in-lic/ which focuses on the idea of live, improvisational writing. 

And so does the monthly Oh, Bernice! reading series.  Join us April 20th as John Rice, and his fabulous mustache*, as he hosts a parade of talented writers at the Cafe Marlene at 44-11 49th Street in Sunnyside, Queens, “same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.”  (“Bat-time” being 7:30 PM.) 

Readers include:

• Brian Kim
• Jenna Telesca
• Audrey Dimola
• Sachiko Clayton
• and Aracelis Girmay
   

For more information on the reading, the series, and the mysterious Bernicians, go to www.OhBernice.com. 

*Note: Oh, Bernice! does not endorse, condone, or believe in mustaches, cruelty, flying donkeys, The Monkees, or the Tooth Fairy.  We do, however, totally believe in the Easter Bunny, and the life-affirming journey he takes with Jimmy Stewart in the film Harvey.  Bernice is all about dedication. 

Vanderberg, Oh, Vanderburg!  Peter, Peter, Vanderburg.  Vanderberg, Oh, Vanderburg!  Peter, Peter, Vanderburg.  Vanderberg, Oh, Vanderburg!  Peter, Peter, Vanderburg.  Vanderberg, Oh, Vanderburg!  Peter, Peter, Vanderburg.  Vanderberg, Oh, Vanderburg!  Peter, Peter, Vanderburg.  Vanderberg, Oh, Vanderburg!  Peter, Peter, Vanderburg. 

Read an excerpt of his work, here.  Catch him this Saturday at the Oh, Bernice! reading series.  (End communication.)

John Weir, the man who taught Bernice’s own John Rice to speak with his hands, will Helen Keller some fine fiction this Saturday at the Oh, Bernice! reading. 

A highly fictional fiction writer himself, John declined to give a bio.  This, of course, means I’m just going to make one up. 

Professor Weir grew up in New Jersey with horses, also parents.  He was able to escape The Garden State disguised as a hollow tree to come to New York City, disguised as a street lamp. 

He’s been a Columbia student, an AIDS activist, novelist, all of which have have landed him squarely in the Queens College MFA program, where he sits in his office full of books, verbally awash in a hand gesture sign language some students are still looking to define.  He’s lived.  He’s loved.  He avoids answering email. 

Or maybe not. 

I once heard Philip Levine say of John Berryman (this sentence is too pretentious, already) that he was a professor who could get away with anything because he said it as joke.  John Weir is just that kind of professor.  The signature lilt, the chopping hand gestures, are the gift wrapping on his thoughts. 

As he once told me himself, “Humor is my only pedagogical tool.  If they aren’t laughing, what else do I have?” 

Surely he does have us laughing, but it’s because your opening sentence is terrible and your story starts on page five, of a seven page story.  (I can only guess what he’ll have to say about this poorly written paragraph.) 

So give it up for the proser who reads poetry, and complains about sentences by Henry James.  We are all a little weirder for knowing him. 

- John Rice

Hey there, cats and kittens.  Little Richard Schotter’s gunna show you a good time, this Saturday night at Oh, Bernice! where he’ll be slingin’ cool jive and hot drama.  So ditch those blues for blue jeans, and put the bees’ knees in the cats’ pajamas, cause mama’s in the kitchen with Groucho Marx, and we know he ain’t there for the Chili Con Carne. 

You can’t read Schotter’s work online—he’s just that good—but you can read the bio of this accomplished thespian.  (Get your mind out of the gutter, I said ‘thespian.’) 

Richard Schotter is the author of the plays Medicine Show, Benya the King, The Wood Dancer, Taking Stock and his latest, The Sussman Variations, which will be produced this coming Fall at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. He has been an “Obie” Award nominee and received a CAPS grant and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture’s Berman Playwriting Award (for Benya the King).

 In addition to his full-length plays, Mr. Schotter has written the ten-minute plays, The Duke, The Spot, The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, The River, and There’s an App for That! which have been performed at the Boston Theatre Marathon.  His short musical, Duet for Shy People (Music by Michael Kosarin), has been widely performed, most recently at the Williamstown Theatre Festival (Summer, 2008). Mr. Schotter has written lyrics for the PBS children’s series The Puzzle Place and co-authored with his wife, Roni, the children’s book, There’s a Dragon About:  A Winter’s Revel.

Richard Schotter holds a PhD in Dramatic Literature from Columbia University. He is Professor of English at Queens College, CUNY, where the directs the MFA Playwriting Program and is also Visiting Professor of Playwriting in Graduate Creative Writing Program at Boston University.

Brian Kim takes the spelling of his name very seriously.  If he worked at the DMV, no one in the state would have a misspelled ‘Brian.’  When he’s not keeping the world safe from evil ‘Bryans,’ and making sure any ‘Byrants’ or ‘Byrons’ don’t step over the line, Brian enjoys a ‘bri’colage of hobbies involving the letters ‘bri-,’ including ‘bri’dling horses with ‘bri’efcases and ‘britches’, watching A ‘Bri’dge Over The River Kwai while dressed as a ‘bri’gadier general, and curing and causing ‘Bri’ght’s Disease.  Also, here is a picture of him smoking a cigar with a baby.  (Photo credit, John Rice.) 

You can read an excerpt of his work, here, from his first appearance at Oh, Bernice! 

Meet Mr. Paolo Javier, poet laureate of the borough of Queens, who will bring the noise andthe funk to the stage, this Saturday at the Oh, Bernice! reading series.  Beatlemania?  Try Paolomania.  Prepare to start screaming, now. 

PAOLO JAVIER is the current Queens Poet Laureate. The recipient of grants from the Queens Council on the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts, he is the author of five chapbooks and three full-length poetry collections, including The Feeling Is Actual (Marsh Hawk Press, 2011). Javier also publishes 2nd Avenue Poetry (2ndavepoetry.com), and curates Queens Poet Lore, a roving poetry series set across the borough.

An excerpt from his latest book, The Feeling Is Actual, is available on the Marsh Hawk Press website, here. 

The wonderful Celine Keating will be appearing this Saturday at Oh, Bernice! to read from her work. 

Céline Keating is a writer living in New York. Her short fiction has been published in many literary magazines, including Appearances, Echoes, Emry’s Journal, The North Stone Review, Prairie Schooner, and Santa Clara Review.  She has received two fellowships to The MacDowell Colony as well as scholarships to both the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and the Writers at Work Conference. Currently Keating works with the poetry press Hanging Loose and writes and edits the newsletter for Concerned Citizens of Montauk, an environmental group for which she serves as a vice president.  She holds masters degrees in Urban Studies (Queens College, CUNY) and Creative Writing (City College, CUNY).  A student of classical guitar, Keating reviews and writes for Acoustic Guitar and Minor 7th magazines. Her articles have also appeared in Guitar World and Coastal Living magazines.

An excerpt of her book, Layla, is available on her website, here. 

That’s right, Bernice’s own Tyler Rivenbark will be returning to the stage this Saturday to entertain you all.  Forecast: fedora with a chance of cardigan. 

You can read an excerpt of his work here, from the last time he brought the drama to Oh, Bernice!:

http://ohbernice.tumblr.com/post/17432282331/have-a-drink-listen-to-a-fine-playwright

Camila Santos gives you the gift of good reading, this Saturday at Cafe Marlene. Camila has no picture so, instead, she is being represented, in graphic form, by a picture of a turtle eating mashed potatoes.  (Thank you internet!) 

Camila Santos is a writer and translator from Recife, in the Northeastern part of Brazil. She has been living in the U.S. for the past fifteen years and is approaching completion of her MFA in Creative Writing at Queens College.She is currently working on a collection of short stories and translating BaléRalé, by Brazilian author Marcelino Freire.  

You can read some of her work here:

http://www.92y.org/Uptown/Podium/Issues/Issue7/Fiction.aspx

And here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/nyregion/thecity/21braz.html

But not here:

(Because there is no link here.  Only parenthesis.)