Barbara Cole received her Ph.D. in English with a specialization in Poetics from the University at Buffalo where she later served as assistant director of Composition and adjunct professor, and her M.A. in Creative Writing—Poetry from Temple University. Barbara has held the position of Education Director at Just Buffalo since 2008, increasing the organization’s reach to students across the region despite tough economic conditions in upstate New York.

In addition to her academic and professional qualifications—which include numerous honors, awards, and a wide range of teaching experience—Barbara puts forth an impressive creative effort. Most recently, she earned a 2011 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry.

For additional information about Just Buffalo Literary Center’s programs, please visit www.justbuffalo.org, call 832-5400, or send an e-mail to Artistic Director Barbara Cole at bcole@justbuffalo.org.

$5, $4 members and students
Free Food. Cash Bar. Oh yeah.
Western New York Book Arts Collaborative
468 Washington Street, Buffalo 14203 MAP

Please join us at 7:30 to bid farewell to Michael Kelleher!

After 14 years at Just Buffalo Literary Center, Associate & Artistic Director, Michael Kelleher has accepted a new position at Yale University where he will become Program Director of the Windham-Campbell Literature Prizes.

Ryan Eckes was born in Philadelphia in 1979 . He’s the author of Old News (Furniture Press) and when i come here (Plan B Press). More of his poetry can be found on his blog and in various magazines.

The Mordaunt Sisters are a Buffalo five-piece rock group that creates sculpted song structures with piano and steel guitar signatures that feature the muted but powerful vocals of the sisters. More information and a 3-song demo can be found on the group’s Facebook and Bandcamp sites.

Geoffrey Gatza, a Gulf War veteran, is a poet and the publisher of Blazevox Books. A former sous-chef at the Mansion on Delaware Ave., he has a degree from the Culinary Institute of America (C.I.A.)

ZADIE SMITH

Just Buffalo Presents Babel
Featuring Zadie Smith
Wednesday, March 21, 8 PM

Kleinhans Music Hall
3 Symphony Circle, Buffalo

General Admission: $35, $25 with Buffalo Library Card
Students: $10

Click here for tickets or call 832.5400
Tickets are available at the door.

At the age of 24, Cambridge University student Zadie Smith drew worldwide attention with her ambitious first novel, White Teeth. The novel earned Smith comparisons to Salman Rushdie for her ability to paint rich, multicultural portraits of modern society and family. Today, she is regarded as one of the most celebrated young writers of her generation and is the author and editor of three books and several literary collections..Click here to read more in the reader’s guide to White Teeth.

Join us tonight, Monday, March 12 at 7:00 PM

For wine, coffee, food and a discussion of

White Teeth, by Zadie Smith

Laurie Ousley, who teaches at the Nichols School, will lead the discussion.

$10, $5 for members and subscribers.
Food and drink included with admission.

Gary Earl Ross

Come see the best minds of our membership read their work aloud!

When: Thursday, March 8, 7:00 PM
Where: Western New York Book Arts Center, 468 Washington St.
Admission: Free
Cash Bar

Each year, Just Buffalo hosts a writing contest open to all members of the organization. This year’s edition features flash fiction, which we define broadly as narrative prose in less than 250 words.

Buffalo fiction writer, poet and Edgar Award-winning playwright Gary Earl Ross will choose the winner, who will be announced at the reading.

All contestants will also get a chance to wow the audience with their work by reading it live. The audience will then give its own award to the performer whose work they like most.

Performance by Buffluxus
Music by Don Metz and Michael Basinski
Poetry, visual and spoken, by MIchael Basinski

Saturday, Feb 25th @ 08:00 PM
$5, $4 members/students
Western New York Book Arts Center, 2nd Floor, 468 Washington St. @ Mohawk
MAP

Michael Basinski is the Curator of the Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, the University at Buffalo. He performs his work as a solo poet and in ensemble with BuffFluxus. Among his many books of poetry are Trailers (BlazeVox); Poems Popeye Papyrus (Slack Buddha Press); Of Venus 93 (Little Scratch Pad); All My Eggs Are Broken (BlazeVox); Heka (Factory School); Strange Things Begin to Happen When a Meteor Crashes in the Arizona Desert (Burning Press); Mool, Mool3Ghosts and Shards of Shampoo (Bob Cobbings Writers Forum); Cnyttan and Heebie-Jeebies (Meow Press); By and The Doors (House Press); Un-Nome, Red Rain Two, Abzu and Flight to the Moon (Run Away Spoon Press): Poemeserss (Structum Press) and many more. His poems and other works have appeared in many magazines including Dandelion, BoxKite, Antennae, Unbearables Magazine, Open Letter, Torgue, Leopold Bloom, Wooden Head Review, Explosive Magazine, Deluxe Rubber Chicken, First Offense, Terrible Work, Juxta, Kenning, Witz, Lungfull, Lvng, Generator, Tinfish, Curicule Patterns, Score, Unarmed, Rampike, First Intensity, House Organ, Ferrum Wheel, End Note, Ur Vox, Damn the Caesars, Pilot, 1913, Filling Station, fhole, Public Illumination, Western Humanities Review, Vanitas, Talisman, Yellow Edenwald Field, and Poetry.

Don Metz has been composing and performing his music since completing his studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1977. His music has been performed by the S.E.M. Ensemble, Percusso Argaro from Brazil, The Composers Alliance of Buffalo, the U.B, Percussion Ensemble, The New Jazz Orchestra of Buffalo, Los Caribes, various solo artists, Buffluxus and the East Buffalo Media Association. In 1978, Metz formed the East Buffalo Media Association, creating Inter-Media presentations with writers and artists from the western New York area. Over the past 30 years Metz has worked with artists, Andrew Topolski, John Toth, Fred Ciminelli, Andrew Deutsch, and Peer Bode, writers Jeff Filipski and Michael Basinski, and actor Paul Schmidt. As a guitarist, Metz has performed the music of John Cage, Earl Brown, Petr Kotik, Lucas Foss, Jon Gibson, John Bacon Jr., Jackson MacLow, Phil Niblock, LaMonte Young, Michael Colquhoun, and others. His solo compositions are a blend of written and improvised music and his ensemble works range from mixed trios to large ensembles of spoken text and instruments of up to 18 pieces. Currently, Metz is performing with NeoBossa, Bufffluxus, Carrier Band and the Electric Eclectic Orchestra. He has recently completed “Funginii”, a CD collaboration with Michael Basinski, produced by Buffluxus productions.

Just Buffalo Literary Center invites you to join us as we honor

Poet & Teaching Artist Sherry Robbins
and
Literary Arts supporters Corinne and Victor Rice

Thursday, February 23rd, 6:30 PM
Asbury Hall at Babeville, 341 Delaware Ave
Make your reservation by calling (716) 832.5400

Dinner $100 each or 2/$175
Includes 1 limited edition gift per ticket

Literary Underwriter $500
Includes 2 dinner reservations, limited edition gift & listing in program and on event signage

Table of eight seats $750
Corporate Table $1,000

For more than a generation, Just Buffalo Literary Center has connected the Western New York community with great voices in literature. Many people over many years have contributed to Just Buffalo’s growth and vitality. We created the Literary Legacy Award to honor individuals who have made a significant contribution to the literary legacy of Buffalo.

The dinner itself is a biennial fundraiser for the organization, which includes a catered meal, an awards ceremony and a gift of a broadside of a poem by Sherry Robbins. It is also a special occasion to come together as a literary community. We hope you can join us!

BIG NIGHT!

Saturday, March 31 @ 8:00 PM
$5, $4 members and students
Free Food. Cash Bar. Oh yeah.
Western New York Book Arts Collaborative
468 Washington Street, Buffalo 14203 MAP

Poetry by Joel Lewis!
More Poetry by Ryan Eckes!
Music by The Mordaunt Sisters!
Food by Geoffrey Gatza!

Come early to bid farewell to Michael Kelleher!

After 14 years at Just Buffalo Literary Center, Associate & Artistic Director, Michael Kelleher has accepted a new position at Yale University where he will become Program Director of the Windham-Campbell Literature Prizes. Please join us at 7:30 for a Farewell Party!

Joel Lewis, declared by Ron Silliman to be “the quintessential New Jersey poet of our time, as much so as Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Amiri Baraka, David Shapiro or Joel Ceravolo were for theirs.”, is the author of the forthcoming Surrender When Leaving Coach, Learning From New Jersey (2007),  Vertical’s Currency (1999) and House Rent Boogie (1992), and was the winner of the second (and last) Ted Berrigan Memorial Award. He edited Bluestones and Salt Hay, an anthology of contemporary NJ poets, as well as editing Reality Prime, the selected poems of Walter Lowenfels and On The Level Everyday, the selected talks of Ted Berrigan. A social worker by day, he has taught creative writing at the Poetry Project, The Writer’s Voice and Rutgers University. And, for better or worse, he initiated the ill-fated New Jersey Poet Laureate position that was such a headache for Amiri Baraka. With his wife, Rutgers Univerisity cinema professor Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, he resides in Hoboken.

Ryan Eckes was born in Philadelphia in 1979 . He’s the author of Old News (Furniture Press) and when i come here (Plan B Press). More of his poetry can be found on his blog and in various magazines.

The Mordaunt Sisters are a Buffalo five-piece rock group that creates sculpted song structures with piano and steel guitar signatures that feature the muted but powerful vocals of the sisters. More information and a 3-song demo can be found on the group’s Facebook and Bandcamp sites.

Geoffrey Gatza, a Gulf War veteran, is a poet and the publisher of Blazevox Books. A former sous-chef at the Mansion on Delaware Ave., he has a degree from the Culinary Institute of America (C.I.A.)

Just Buffalo’s exciting afterschool program, RECLAIMING BUFFALO, in collaboration with CEPA Gallery, is currently enrolling students (ages 11-16) for Winter & Spring sessions.

Combining photography, creative writing, and computer literacy, this unique program has already received rave reviews.

Young artists begins by photographing spaces in their community that they would like to “reclaim.” Using PhotoShop and creative writing, students learn to express their vision for the future.

Finished artworks are featured in an exhibition at CEPA Gallery and on bus shelters throughout the city.

There is NO COST to participate in this program.

Call now to reserve a spot: 716-856-2717

Available dates:

SESSION 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays

January 24-February 16

4:00-6:00 p.m.

SESSION 2:  Winter Break

February 20-24

9:00 a.m. to noon        

SESSION 3:  Tuesdays and Thursdays

February 28-March 22

4:00-6:00 p.m.

SESSION 4:  Spring Break

April 9-13

9:00 a.m. to noon

SESSION 5:  Tuesdays and Thursdays

April 17-May 15

4:00-6:00 p.m.

RECLAIMING BUFFALO is made possible by generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts.