Women Out Loud! - Friday, November 6
FEATURING TARA BETTS!
Friday, November 6
7 to 9 PM
We hope you can make this Friday to Women Out Loud at the Center for New Possibilities, 1505 W. Morse.
Tara Betts is the author of the upcoming book ARC AND HUE, herdebut collection on the Willow Books imprint of Aquarius Press inSeptember 2009. Tara is a lecturer in creative writing at RutgersUniversity in New Brunswick, NJ. She is also a Cave Canem fellow.
Tara’s work has appeared in Essence, the Steppenwolf Theater production“Words on Fire,” Obsidian III, Callaloo, PMS, Drum Voices Revue, WSQ,Columbia Poetry Review, Ninth Letter, Hanging Loose, Drunken Boat andWombPoetry. Her work has been anthologized in Gathering Ground(University of Michigan Press), Bum Rush the Page (Three Rivers Press),The Spoken Word Revolution (Sourcebooks), Power Lines (Tia ChuchaPress), Poetry Slam (Manic D Press), Black Writing from Chicago(Southern Illinois University Press), ROLE CALL (Third World Press),These Hands I Know (Sarabande), Best Black Women’s Erotica 2 (CleisPress), Hurricane Blues (Southeast Missouri University Press), HomeGirls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism (Parker Publishing),Fingernails Across a Chalkboard (Third World Press) and Letters to theWorld (Red Hen Press). Her work will appear in Mythium, Reverie,Meridians, TUESDAY: An Art Journal, and Thomas Sayers Ellis’ Breakfastand Blackfist: Notes for Black Poets (University of Michigan Press).Tara has also been a freelance writer for publications such as XXL, TheSource, BIBR, Mosaic magazine and Black Radio Exclusive.
Tara Betts encourages literacy and works with arts programs such asUrban Word NYC. In Chicago, she was an influential educator throughYoung Chicago Authors and the internationally-acclaimed Gallery 37.Tara co-founded GirlSpeak, a weekly writing/leadership workshop foryoung women. She has also conducted short-term workshops in schools,community centers, Ms. Foundation, City Girls (a substance abuserehabilitation center for teen girls), Cook County Jail and Cook CountyJuvenile Detention Center, Louder Arts Project, Cooper Union, DodgeFoundation’s Poets-In-The-Schools program and London’s Roundhouse.
Tara Betts appeared on HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam” She also appeared in theBlack Family Channel series “SPOKEN” with Jessica Care Moore-Poole. Shehas also been one of the writers/performers in girlstory-anintergenerational, multicultural women’s performance collective. Tarahas also performed in plays, including two SouthWest V-Day productionsof Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues” at Chicago’s DuSable Museum. Afterwinning Guild Complex’s Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award, sherepresented Chicago twice at the National Poetry Slam. She hasperformed her work in Cuba, London, New York, the West Coast andthroughout the Midwest at venues such as Arie Crown Theater, The Museumof Contemporary Art, Studio Museum of Harlem, Lincoln Center for thePerforming Arts, Bar 13, Cornelia Street Café, Bowery Poetry Club,Yerba Buena Cultural Center, The Metro, The Hip Hop Theater Festival,Ladyfest Midwest, the Field Museum of Natural History, HarvardUniversity, poetry slams, conferences, several colleges, universitiesand numerous public, private and alternative schools. She has sharedthe stage with Patricia Smith, Rosellen Brown, Afaa Michael Weaver,Kwame Dawes, Luis Rodriguez, MC Lyte and Grammy-winner Jill Scott. Shealso coached and mentored countless young writers and performers thathave participated in the Brave New Voices and Louder Than a Bomb teenpoetry slams.
Comments