Events and Blog Tour

Coming up in 2013:

Loose Leaves Publishing will bring out my novel, The Fiery Alphabet. This really brought me some joy as the manuscript had been turned down by the publisher Jessica Knauss used to work for. When she co-founded Loose Leaves, she immediately got in touch and asked for it. Isn’t that what authors often dream will happen? There will be more details as we move forward.

I’ll be a panelist in the 7th annual festival, Literary Orange, sponsored by Orange County Public Libraries, on Saturday, April 6, 2013 at the Irvine Marriott from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM, 18000 Von Karman Ave, Irvine, California 92612. Andrew Tonkovich (the Bibliofella) moderating. There will be so many terrific authors there. I will certainly stay for the entire event.

We Are Here: Theater of Witness with Survivors of Torture
Survivors from five countries tell their own stories and perform scenes about their escape to the US and how they rebuild their lives…two nights only. I served as playwright/dramaturg for this project directed by Hector Aristizabal and Alessia Cartoni with the support of LA’s Department of Cultural Affairs and in cooperation with the Program for Torture Victims, the first organization in the US to offer free medical and psychological treatment to survivors.
Please come and meet and applaud these courageous people from Cameroon, El Salvador, Guatemala, Russia, and Uganda.
PTV has offices above Mercado La Paloma, 3655 S. Grand Avenue, LA 90007 and on Tuesday, February 26th, we will premiere the play in the community space. The next night, Wednesday, February 27th, survivors will take the stage in a more theatrical venue, Club Fais Do-Do, 5257 W. Adams, LA 90016.
Both performances are free to the public.

January 28th, the blog tour continues. I’m Charlene Wilson’s Highlighted Author.

* * *
December 15, I helped the fabulous Youth Ambassadors — high school students Elizabeth Ferreira, Olivia Finnegan, Marlee Goldshine, Heather Reitzfeld, and a new very welcome addition, Sybil (whose last name I unfortunately didn’t learn–got to add that!), and their adviser, Christine Ferreira — as they prepare to create theater focused on the environment of Ballona Creek with 4th graders at Stoner Elementary School.

And the 21st-century book tour turns out to be via blogs instead of in person, so here are links to my guest blogger posts:

September 7th, 2012 at Elizabeth Spann Craig’s site, Mystery Writing Is Murder

August 25th, an interview at Pat Bertram Introduces.

August 22nd at Creative Writing Addict, the site of historical fiction author Gretchen Elhassani.

and at Indie Book Spot. (And–what an honor–Gbanabom Hallowell, poet and journalist in Sierra Leone, has asked to reprint this piece in Sierra Arts. Do check out his online magazine to read new writing from Sierra Leone, Africa. Read. Think. Enjoy.)

August 15th at the Hunger Mountain site (with thanks to Cynthia Newberry Martin) I look at giving equal weight to characters with opposing views.

Ray Bradbury’s passing made me think about how genre fiction slips past barriers of censorship. Mary Ann Loesch posted this in All Things Writing.

And thank you Leah Tallon and Gina Frangello for The Nervous Breakdown, publishing this self interview and this excerpt from Nobody Wakes Up Pretty.

Here’s’ what else I’ve been up to:

My short theatre piece Future Forward has been selected for this year’s Museum of Dysfunction presented by Mildred’s Umbrella Theater Company. Really, how can I be anything other than thrilled to be an exhibit in such a museum! The show will run August 9-11 at Studio 101 at Spring Street Studios in Houston. How I would love to be planning a trip to Texas.

Back to Peace Camp in the Santa Monica Mountains on June 26. Once again, I led a political theatre workshop for the high school and college activists who attend this inspiring program offered each summer by San Pedro Neighbors for Peace and Justice.

On June 21, actor Victoria Hoffman will portray me in Henry Ong’s theatre piece for the Program for Torture Victims.

I’ll be on the panel organized by PEN Center USA to discuss Censorship and the Enduring Legacy of Fahrenheit 451 on April 30, 2012, from 7-9 PM in the City Council Chambers, West Hollywood.

And on Sunday, April 29, from 3-5 PM: If They Take You in the Morning: Defending Civil Liberties in the Era of the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, and the War on Immigrants.  I’ll be on the panel moderated by Sharon Kyle following the “Reckoning with Torture” presentation. Other panelists:  Ali Mir, Muslim Student Chaplain, USC; Veronica Velez, Immigrants Rights; Ernest Shepard III, ex-con. At Neighborhood UU Church, 301 North Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena, CA

Workshop coming up April 9-14, 2012 here in Los Angeles County with young people at Childrens Institute International.

March 22 at 8:00 – performing “Future-Forward” again at the Secret Rose Theatre along with other past winners of the Monolog Slam.

March 14, 2012 I’m invited back to CalState-Fullerton for a still more updated presentation to the Media Literacy class on how the media and popular culture treat the subject of torture.

February 11-23, 2012 In Bolivia with the wonderful nonprofit organization Educar es fiesta.

January 16, 2012 I’ll be at Valparaiso University (in Indiana, not Chile) to lead a focus session during the whole-day Martin Luther King, Jr. event which this year is devoted to education. I feel so honored to be invited. Later that week, Hector and I will be at the University of Chicago thanks to the incredible efforts made by talented writer Stephanie Friedman. These events are free and open to the public.

Here’s the schedule:

The Blessing Next to the Wound:

Actor and Author Bring their Unique Combination of Art, Activism, and Pedagogy to the University of Chicago

Hector Aristizábal is a psychologist, actor, and human rights activist whose work has taken him all over the world, including the United States, Afghanistan, Colombia, India, Israel and the Occupied Territories, and Northern Ireland. Diane Lefer, self-described “author, playwright, [and] troublemaker,” has been praised by Oscar Hijuelos as “one of the most witty and gifted writers around.” Together, they have created works about violence and healing which have reached audiences all over the world. They also give workshops which provide participants with the tools to bring change to their own communities through writing and theater arts.

From January 18^th through the 21^st, in a series of events titled The Blessing Next to the Wound: Imagination and Social Change, members of the University of Chicago and wider community will have the chance to see these artists perform, talk to them about their work and the issues which inform it, and learn from them in specially tailored workshops. They will also have the opportunity to sneak preview a new documentary featuring Mr. Aristizábal, Beneath the Blindfold, with a Q&A afterward with Mr. Aristizábal and the Chicago-based filmmakers. All events will be free and open to the public.

Lefer and Aristizábal have collaborated on a one-man performance piece, Nightwind, about hisexperiences surviving civil war, torture, and imprisonment in Colombia, and a book, The Blessing Next to the Wound, about how he has worked to heal himself and others by engaging the imagination through activism and art. In addition to his performances, Mr. Aristizábal enacts his philosophy of transformation through a blend of theater arts in workshops offered via his nonprofit organization, ImagiNaction (http://imaginaction.org/). He is the winner of the 2012 Otto René Castillo Award, an award established by the Castillo Theatre in New York City to support the ongoing development of political theatre internationally, and previously won by luminaries such as Laurie Anderson, El Teatro Campesino, and Steppenwolf Theatre Company. He is literally leaving straight from Chicago to perform and give workshops in Guatemala.

In addition to her collaborations with Hector Aristizábal, Ms. Lefer  is also the author of the short story collections, California Transit (winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction), Very Much Like Desire, and The Circles I Move In, as well as the novel Radiant Hunger.  Her many plays include God’s Flea, which was most recently produced by New Carpa Theatre Company at the Border Justice Conference at Arizona State University and on the lawn in front of the Arizona State Capitol. After twenty-three years teaching in the MFA in Writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts, she now teaches writing both English- and Spanish-language workshops “aimed at getting people to write who think they can’t, often because they’ve been told they can’t or have even been labeled illiterate” in her home town of Los Angeles as well as in communities throughout the Americas; this is what she’ll be doing in Bolivia after she leaves Chicago.

Schedule of Events:

Wednesday, January 18, 8 pm: Sneak Preview of Beneath the Blindfold, followed by a Q&A with Hector Aristizábal and filmmakers Ines Sommer and Kathy Berger (International House Assembly Hall, 1414 E. 59^th Street)

Thursday, January 19, 8 pm: Performance by Hector Aristizábal: Nightwind, followed by a book signing for The Blessing Next to the Wound by Hector Aristizábal and Diane Lefer (Reynolds Club Third Floor Theater, 1135 E. 57^th Street)

Friday, January 20, noon: Brown Bag Lunch and Discussion with Hector Aristizábal and Diane Lefer on their advocacy work in Latin America and the principles of the Theater of the Oppressed (Center for Latin American Studies, Kelly Hall room 114, 5848 S. University Avenue)

Friday, January 20, 3-4 pm: Reading/Performance by Diane Lefer (Office of Multicultural Student Affairs room 140, 5710 S. Woodlawn Avenue)

Friday, January 20, 4-5:30 pm: Workshop with Hector Aristizábal: Awakening the Imagination for Social Change (Office of Multicultural Student Affairs room 140, 5710 S. Woodlawn Avenue)

Saturday, January 21, 10 am-12:30 pm: Workshop with Diane Lefer: Teaching Writing as a Tool for Social Change (Cobb Hall room 409, 5811 S. Ellis Avenue)

Co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, the Civic Knowledge Project, the Film Studies Center, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, the Writer’s Studio program at the Graham School of Continuing Professional and Liberal Studies, the Human Rights Program, International House, the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, the Theater and Performance Studies Program, and the Urban Teacher Education Program.

Friday night I will also speak about human rights at the Or Chadash synagogue and on Saturday, after the Graham School workshop, it’s off to the suburbs to work with the Barrington Writers Workshop thanks to the terrific writer and milonguera (is that the right word?) Natalie Pepa. 

To feel honored and grateful for a trip to the c-o-o-o-l-d Midwest in January…I must be motivated!

Back in Southern California: January 25, 2012 – thank you Jerry Mansfield – I’m looking forward to performing and reading at Moorpark College (Third Floor, LLR Building). The event starts at 5:30. I’ll get to hear students from the poetry workshop and a faculty member before I go on.
 

Then February – it’s off to Cochabamba, Bolivia to work with Educar es fiesta, a wonderful nonprofit that brings the arts to families in crisis, including children who live in the streets. My project there grew out of the workshops I offered in May 2011 at the International Theatre Festival for Peace in Barrancabermeja, Colombia, and it means being reunited with my compa, Silvana Gariboldi, theatre artist from Argentina. Life is good!

Here’s Silvana in Barrancabermeja: