SCENE: Alabama Poet Jeanie Thompson in NYC 6/10 & 13

Highly esteemed Alabama poet Jeanie Thompson will be in NYC to share work from her new book The Seasons Bear Us this week.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10 @ 7:30Pm at
The Southern Writers Reading Series
at the Happy Ending Lounge in lower Manhattan

SATURDAY, JUNE 13 @ 7PM at
KGB Bar's "Trumpet Fiction" night
in the East Village

Jeanie Thompson, MFA (poetry). Jeanie Thompson has published four collections of poetry, The Seasons Bear Us (River City Publishing, 2009), White for Harvest: New and Selected Poems (River City Publishing, 2001), Witness (Black Belt Press, 1995), and How to Enter the River (Holy Cow! Press, 1985), three chapbooks and has co-edited The Remembered Gate: Memoirs by Alabama Writers, (University of Alabama Press, 2002) with Jay Lamar. Witness won a Benjamin Franklin Award from the Publishers Marketing Association in 1996. Her poems, interviews with writers, and critical articles have appeared in Antaeus, Crazyhorse, Ironwood, North American Review, New England Review, and Southern Review. Jeanie holds the MFA from the University of Alabama, where she was founding editor of the literary journal Black Warrior Review. She has taught at the University of New Orleans and the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, as well as in the poetry-in-the schools program in New Orleans and in Alabama. Jeanie has received Individual Artist fellowships from the Louisiana State Arts Council and the Alabama State Council on the Arts and was a Walter Dakin Fellow at the Sewanee Writers Conference 2000. Jeanie is founding director of the award-winning Alabama Writers' Forum, a statewide literary arts organization in Montgomery.

SCENE/WORDS: Southern Writers Reading Series @ Happy Ending tonight (2/11) at 8PM

Photo Credit: Bruce Newman/NY Times

Virginia native Ekoko Omadeke runs the monthly Southern Writers Reading Series at Happy Ending in NYC. I ask the one question that matters most:

WHY a Southern Writers series in NYC?
I decided to a Southern Writer's Reading Series for several reasons. The main reason I decided to do the SWRS is because I feel the south is often misunderstood and misrepresented to those who are not from the region. To many people, the south is simply the McCain voting bible belt, states of the former Confederacy and the root of racism in America. However, the south is just as diverse, culturally, ethnically, politically, and artistically as New York. A reading series is a great way to demonstrate excellent people, writers and artists can come from the south.

Another reason I decided to the series is in response to the numerous barbecue and jazz joints throughout the city. I've been living in NY since August and learned early on, people in NY seem enchanted with the South However, many of the owners of "southern" restaurants and establishments are not from the south. One restaurant in particular served catfish with a mustard aioli. I feel as someone born and raised in Virginia, I am in a better position to accurately represent the region socially, culturally, and artistically.

Omadeke works with graduate students in the area to cull the best of the best for the monthly series.

February 11th's readers are:

Dave Grumblatt, a Kentucky native and fiction MFA candidate at NYU and

Ebony Golden, a Texas native and creative director of Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative.

The two featured Southern authors are followed by an open mike (sign up begins at 7:30PM). “Bring poetry or fiction to share and a mind ready to experience the mythic South without ever leaving Manhattan.”

After Feb 11, upcoming dates include March 11, April 8, June 10 and July 8.

Happy Ending Lounge @ 8PM - FREE

302 Broome Street (Forsyth/Eldridge)

Subway: B/D to Grand Street, or J/M/Z to Bowery