Prose & Cons

GRAND SLAM CHAMP Imani Thompson and PAGE POET SLAM CHAMP and VCU SLAM CAPTAIN Pressman Pressman from The Writer’s Den delight our ears and hearts with their pomes of love and anguish. Ben and Dom are also present.

Catch their slams the last Thursday of every month at Infuzion RVA. Doors open at 7, pomes start at 8.

Prose & Cons is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://proseandconsdotorg.wordpress.com/

It’s not often that you meet a 13-year-old who has already accomplished more than a studio full of radio hosts in their mid-20s combined… but Henry Haggard is no ordinary lad! He’s organized rallies, written columns, and been involved with some of the heaviest-hitting non-profits around. Henry Haggard is my hero.

Aaaaand in the chair next to Henry is his amazing mother, Valley! Valley Haggard founded Life in 10 Minutes, an online literary magazine, back in 2010. Since then, it has grown into so much more! Valley offers classes, workshops, and all kinds of writing-tastic events at the Life in 10 Minutes./Richmond Young Writers space in Carytown. Instead of the soul-crushing pressure to get published (ubiquitous in most workshops) Valley’s classes focus on the therapeutic power of writing. I myself got a chance to participate in a one-on-one Life in 10 Minutes session and it was even more lovely than I had imagined. (I’m currently signed up for a “Meditation and Musing: Focus Your Mind While Honing Your Craft” workshop with Sadeqa Johnson and a six-week class. I’m friggin’ hooked!

So many goodies in this episode. Lots of gems. Wisdom. Words! Laughter. More words.

If you enjoy anthologies and/or great writing, you can find Nine Lives online, or at Chop Suey. This mondo-collection includes 148 pieces of creative non-fiction from 121 local authors, including Patty Smith, author of The Year of Needy Girls former P&C guest.

Henry wants to spread the good word about Love 146, an international organization dedicated to stopping child trafficking and exploitation. He also wants you–yes, you–to vote!

This young man gives me hope for the future.

There are so many great things in the works for Life in 10 Minutes. You can sign up for classes, workshops, even in your very own living room! (“It’s like a Tupperware party, but for writing.”) Valley is even developing a hybrid press, with her next book as the first publication!

And since you have dutifully read all the way to the end of this long-winded blog post, I’m going to let you in on a little secret….

[I’m working with Valley to create a brand-spanking new weekly Life in 10 Minutes podcast.] Don’t tell anyone. Wait, actually–do, we want people to listen.

Prose & Cons is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://proseandconsdotorg.wordpress.com/

Mikemetic is a man of many modes and balances life as a father, musician, community advocate, and educator with a constant influx of new creative engagements each year. He is an Honorary member of University of Richmond’s Alpha Psy Omega Theater and Dance Society, a former Style Weekly “Top 40 Under 40” selection, and an author with a number of forthcoming titles. His 2017 release “Hood Haiku Volume One: Sidewalk Science” earned him the characterization as “part Public Enemy, part Zora Neale Hurston” and has allowed him to continue pushing forward the dialogue around art, culture, and identity. Mikemetic has also been a volunteer at WRIR for over a decade with 8 years as host of Middle East Coast Mecca, and several more years as a regular contributor and guest host on Mellow Madness and a number of other shows.

A.M. Pressman is an Indonesian-American poet living in Richmond, Virginia. Their work has appeared on Button Poetry and Write About Now, and explores issues of mixed Asian identity, family, faith, and trauma through personal narratives. They are currently an undergrad student at VCU. Their work has appeared on Button Poetry, Write About Now, Slamfind, and other publications. Pressman is the 2015 VCU Grand Slam Champion, 2016 CUPSI Best Poet Nominee, 2016 Southern Fried Indie Finalist, 2017 WOWPS and IWPS Representative for Washington D.C.’s Beltway Slam, and 2016-2017 President of VCU’s internationally ranked poetry team, Good Clear Sound.

Lydia Armstrong lives and writes in Richmond, Virginia, with her two cats. Her work has appeared in Voicemail Poems, Blotterature, Neon, The Axe Factory, Arsenic Lobster, apt, and others. Her poem, “The November We Are Fifteen,” was selected for the Crack the Spine Anthology XV and The Best Small Fictions 2017 (Braddock Avenue Books). She was a 2017 nominee for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. In 2016, Lydia helped operate Slam Richmond, a local spoken word venue, and facilitated writing workshops in conjunction with Slam Richmond open mics, in high schools, and for private groups. She is currently working on a novel.

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Poetry + Short Narrative Open Mic @ Fallout

Wednesday, April 18, 7:00, 117 N. 18th St.

Come support National Poetry Month at Fallout with their exciting new Open Mic Series. Free to attend! If you want to perform, get there by 6:30 to sign up. 18+

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RVA Lit Crawl

April 20-21

The second annual Lit Crawl is upon us! This year’s events will be staged in various venues throughout Carytown and will feature dozens of local authors. We will be there to record readings and perhaps even give out some P&C swag! For more information, check out their website.

Prose & Cons is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://proseandconsdotorg.wordpress.com/

Brace for impact.

Phil/Dogfuq/Dogfriend is a veteran of Secret Bonus Level and a fantastically animated artist.

VOS is a cool, collected gentle giant with a heart of gold.

Together they form like Voltron to give you unadulterated freestyle nirvana.

Hang tight/enjoy the madness~

Prose & Cons is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://proseandconsdotorg.wordpress.com/

Lydia Armstrong is a prolific and deeply personal poet. We Prosers sat down with Lydia to discuss her poetry and writing, and we are pleased to share our conversation and her performance with you here on the airwaves.

The piece she chose to bring in (something which inspired her) was an excerpt from Seymour: An Introduction, a novella by the late J.D. Salinger. Initially published in The New Yorker in 1959, since 1963 it has been published together with another one of his novellas, Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenter. Like many of Salinger’s post-Catcher in the Rye stories, Seymour features members of the fictional Glass family. The Glass’ seven children are all as bright as they are precocious, and are the basis for the Tenenbaum children from Wes Anderson’s 2001 cult classic The Royal Tenenbaums. Seymour: An Introduction has been maligned by many literary critics for its lack of structure and its stream-of-consciousness narrative style, but others, like Lydia, have found a wonderful sense of sadness within Buddy Glass’s lament of his lost brother, Seymour.

Lydia read two poems for us. The first is The Highway is Just Concrete, published in the Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal. It’s a deep look into Lydia’s struggles with Intrusive Thoughts and O.C.D. by way connecting the concrete making up the highway, on which she has had unwelcome thoughts of intentionally causing an accident, with that of the walls we surround ourselves with for safety and security.

Yet another great episode with yet another great writer! We discuss memes as works of art, the lasting legacy of Marina Abramović‘s popularization of poignant performance art, and what it’s like to slog through the writing of a first novel.

You can catch Lydia at a number of open mics around Richmond, especially the Open Mic Poetry night at Café Zata in Forest Hill, 7pm – 9pm, fourth Fridays. You can also follow her on Instagram, and watch videos of her slam performances on her YouTube channel.

This is Prose & Cons, thanks for listening.

Prose & Cons is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://proseandconsdotorg.wordpress.com/

Phil and Bill are two fine fellows. They are also extremely talented Middle Grade and Young Adult authors!

Phil Hilliker has been a successful freelance illustrator for sixteen years. After working so closely with many different authors, Phil started thinking about the stories that he wanted to tell and became a writer himself. As a writer and as an illustrator, Phil tells us that he quickly recognized Middle Grade (the expanding literary genre aimed at 8-12 -year-olds) as his true niche. Though as yet unpublished, Hilliker has secured a literary agent for his exciting new novel, Atomic Diner, and is working on his next novel, this one based around “frontier” tall tales of the American West.

Though not a Richmond native, Phil says that the local writing community here has played a huge part in making the city feel like home. Hilliker is the Membership Coordinator for James River Writers, the largest writing group in Richmond (including more than a few prior P&C guests, like Kris Spisak, Patty Smith, and Cheryl Pallant). He has also created a wonderful hobby: Scrabble paintings. For years, Phil has created micro-paintings on the back of Scrabble tiles and has been leaving them in random public spaces. So, if you happen to find one around the Greater Richmond Area, hit him up!

Phil also teaches an awesome Introduction to Children’s Book Illustration at The Visual Arts Center of Richmond.

Bill “Wildcat” Blume has been on our list of guests we want on P&C for a long time. A longtime member of JRW, Bill served as the chair for their 2013 annual writing conference and is a frequent moderator of The Writing Show, a monthly writing panel at The Firehouse Theatre.

A writer since way back, Bill is the author of many published short stories, as well as the exciting Gidion Keep series, of which the first two books, Gidion’s Hunt and Gidion’s Blood, have been published so far. It’s a YA series about a teenage vampire hunter, navigating the tricky path of adolescence while using his wiles to kill devilish vamps.

Bill and Phil were wonderful guests, and we had a ball talking about Howl’s Moving Castle, Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, and the vexing vampirical post-Twilight landscape for Young Adult Paranormal Fiction. Plus, advice for anyone who wants to publish a book! Check it out.

Since we’ve recorded this episode, Phil has sent me a couple of clarifications from our discussion, which I will include here. There has been quite a bit of criticism of the Indian in the Cupboard series from the Native American community, some links to which can be found here. Also, the story about Stephen Fry being unable to say the phrase, “pocketed it” while recording the first Harry Potter book is, sadly, untrue.  On a positive note, Felica Day has, in fact, narrated quite a few audiobooks!

This is Prose & Cons, thanks for listening ~

Prose & Cons is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://proseandconsdotorg.wordpress.com/

“I killed dreadlocks. It was a crime of passion.”

Bert Ashe is an English professor at the University of Richmond, and author of Twisted: My Dreadlock Chronicles. We sat down with Dr. Ashe in the WRIR studio to talk about his influences, his book, and his dreads.

Origins. Growth. Twisted. Golden Age. Locked. Confession. Twisted is structured according to Bert’s own journey of cultivating his dreadlocks, interspersed with Black history and the context of the modern dread, voiced in Ashe’s characteristic pithy wit.

The book starts with a confession–which Dr. Ashe reads during the second segment of the episode–he goes on to explain that he missed the Golden Age of dreads. That Bert, a down-to-earth husband, dad, and dude, has contributed to the normalization of the hairstyle that once, not so long ago, was a clear sign of righteous rebellion.

“from Uppercase Dreads to common-denominator lowercase locks…”

Dr. Ashe is not only unquestionably intelligent and well-educated, he’s also funny as hell! We had a ball chatting with our new friend Bert, and we, your ever-humble hosts, hope you’ll enjoy listening to this episode.

Bert also wants to promote his RVA reading group, Black Men Read?! If you’re a readerly black man in Richmond, you can contact Dr. Ashe for details!

Prose & Cons is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://proseandconsdotorg.wordpress.com/

“I killed dreadlocks. It was a crime of passion.”

Bert Ashe is an English professor at the University of Richmond, and author of Twisted: My Dreadlock Chronicles. We sat down with Dr. Ashe in the WRIR studio to talk about his influences, his book, and his dreads.

Origins. Growth. Twisted. Golden Age. Locked. Confession. Twisted is structured according to Bert’s own journey of cultivating his dreadlocks, interspersed with Black history and the context of the modern dread, voiced in Ashe’s characteristic pithy wit.

The book starts with a confession–which Dr. Ashe reads during the second segment of the episode–he goes on to explain that he missed the Golden Age of dreads. That Bert, a down-to-earth husband, dad, and dude, has contributed to the normalization of the hairstyle that once, not so long ago, was a clear sign of righteous rebellion.

“from Uppercase Dreads to common-denominator lowercase locks…”

Dr. Ashe is not only unquestionably intelligent and well-educated, he’s also funny as hell! We had a ball chatting with our new friend Bert, and we, your ever-humble hosts, hope you’ll enjoy listening to this episode.

Bert also wants to promote his RVA reading group, Black Men Read?! If you’re a readerly black man in Richmond, you can contact Dr. Ashe for details!

Prose & Cons is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://proseandconsdotorg.wordpress.com/

On the last Thursday of every month, poets and poetry enthusiasts gather at Infuzion RVA for The Writer’s Den Poetry Slam. Poets include members of The Writer’s Den slam team, as well as walk-on performers. Slams provide a unique experience: during the course of three rounds, poets advance (or are eliminated) based on the combined scores of judges from the audience. The growing success of these events is due largely to the efforts of the founder of The Writer’s Den, Roscoe Burnems (one of our guests for our second-ever show, along with fellow TWD teammate Monica Edwards).

Last month, I attended my second Writer’s Den Slam. Upon arriving, I was asked to be a judge. I was given a small whiteboard and an unexpected dose of anxiety. How do you judge a poem? How do you compare one poet to another? Turns out, it’s as simple as it is stressful. I decided on a handful of basic criteria and tried to keep my cool when my score was met with pained yelps from the back of the room.

Each poem had its own distinctive style and tone. Some were bitter, cursing an ex-lover. Others downright hilarious. Two particularly charismatic performers were Michelle Dodd and Rob “Robalujah” Gibson.

“The Dodd is good…” “All the time.” “All the time…” “The Dodd is good.” Michelle Dodd is the only member of the Writer’s Den who receives her own battle cry before each performance. Michelle is a black woman who was adopted by a white family, and much of her poems revolve around feeling out of place and uncomfortable in her own skin. She is also a musician, often incorporating ground-shaking vocal performance into her poetry. Michelle Dodd is a powerhouse poet. She has published two books of poetry, which you can find on her website.

Robalution. Robalujah. Robalu. Rob Gibson is a poet, artist, musician, and coach. This man breathes verse. While we were recording this episode, I saw that Rob was writing or doodling on some scrap paper while we spoke. Afterward, we saw that he had sketched each of us in the room.

Writing this, I realize that I actually know very little about Rob. Maybe that’s part of his charm.

During our conversation, Michelle mentioned that another member of The Writer’s Den once said that all poets can be classified as of the elemental “benders” from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra: water, earth, fire, and air. Michelle is a self-described water poet, Rob an air poet. This seems about right to me. Michelle’s poems will wash over you with total emotion. Rob is whimsical and daring with his poetry, like Aang riding the wind on his glider.

Prose & Cons is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://proseandconsdotorg.wordpress.com/