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Rainstorm Press has published my NYC-noir crime novel, Nobody Wakes Up Pretty. Now available in print or Kindle editions. Click here to order.
And breaking news: April 28, 2012 - Aqueous Books just accepted The Still Point. Details to come.
I'm back from Bolivia. Edson Quezada of the nonprofit organization Educar es fiesta invited me to Cochabamba to share my techniques. Educar es fiesta works with kids growing up in difficult circumstances and families in crisis as well as with local public school teachers. Many of the families are Quechua-speaking. They've arrived in the city driven by poverty and seeking work but lack urban skills and education. My workshops are 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. Educar es fiesta uses circus and theatre arts to bring out the joy that is the birthright of every child and learning goes hand in hand with happiness. Read here about the educational philosophy that so impressed me.
The Cochabamba project reprised the Spanish-language workshops I offered in May in Barrancabermeja, Colombia where I joined artists and activists from all over Latin America and other parts of the world. It was a wonderful time enjoying and learning from performances and discussions and even leading a series of workshops at the Festival Internacional de Teatro por la Paz. Hector Aristizabal performed Viento Nocturno, the Spanish-language version of our play, Nightwind, and led a Theatre of the Oppressed workshop along with Till Bauman who flew in from Berlin. You can read my article about the festival and the role of theatre in peacemaking here. And about women in the crossfire as well as more background on some of the people mentioned in that piece here.
I do these workshops in English as well: recently in the snowy Midwest where buildings are heated (unlike my apartment) and it was heaven to walk around my hotelroom in Chicago naked, ah, warm air on my skin! I was at Valparaiso
University (Indiana) for the celebration for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and at the University of Chicago's Graham School. We also got to see the new documentary Beneath the Blindfold (about torture survivors, including Hector) by Kathy Berger and Ines Sommer.
My short story, "Sin-Tra-La!", appears now in Willow Springs along with a feature profile. My lengthy essay on the juvenile in/justice system is available on-line, published April 15 by Connotation Press (and reposted in August in the special compilation issue). You can read it here.
I'm on a postcard! My words, that is. The Postcard Press publishes poems and short prose pieces and/or prose poems, one postcard a month. Check me out for April 2012 and look at other months, too, at http://the-postcard-press.com/
It was fun to collaborate in November with The Internationalists, an international directors collective. They produced as Lorenzo Montanini performed my short interactive play, Ave Atque Vale, via Skype from his home in Rome for an audience in NYC.
The Blessing Next to the Wound, co-authored with Hector, received Honorable Mention from the International Latino Book Awards and was a reading selection chosen in 2010 by the Amnesty International book club in Pasadena. In September 2011, Amnesty International US headquarters included it in a list of suggested readings for Banned Books Week. The Blessing Next to the Wound is Hector's true story of surviving civil war, torture, and more in Colombia and how he has worked to heal himself and others by engaging the imagination through activism and art. Hector himself has been chosen to receive the 2012 Rene Otto Castillo Award for political theatre. His nonprofit organization, ImaginAction, takes his methods around the world. Our book is available from Lantern Books or your favorite bookstore or on-line bookseller. It is also available in e-book format:Amazon's Kindle: All other readers:
Do check out the Books page for information on my past books (esp. fiction) and links to stories of
mine that can be read on-line-- and the Coming Up page for events and recent publications. Workshops and Teaching will give you information about the programs and manuscript critiques I offer. A quick link to my blog is here. (The Wordpress blog, started for the upcoming publication of Nobody Wakes Up Pretty, has similar blog posts.)
Thanks!
contact me: DianeLefer@gmail.com
Rainstorm Press has published my NYC-noir crime novel, Nobody Wakes Up Pretty. Now available in print or Kindle editions. Click here to order.
And breaking news: April 28, 2012 - Aqueous Books just accepted The Still Point. Details to come.
I'm back from Bolivia. Edson Quezada of the nonprofit organization Educar es fiesta invited me to Cochabamba to share my techniques. Educar es fiesta works with kids growing up in difficult circumstances and families in crisis as well as with local public school teachers. Many of the families are Quechua-speaking. They've arrived in the city driven by poverty and seeking work but lack urban skills and education. My workshops are 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. Educar es fiesta uses circus and theatre arts to bring out the joy that is the birthright of every child and learning goes hand in hand with happiness. Read here about the educational philosophy that so impressed me.
The Cochabamba project reprised the Spanish-language workshops I offered in May in Barrancabermeja, Colombia where I joined artists and activists from all over Latin America and other parts of the world. It was a wonderful time enjoying and learning from performances and discussions and even leading a series of workshops at the Festival Internacional de Teatro por la Paz. Hector Aristizabal performed Viento Nocturno, the Spanish-language version of our play, Nightwind, and led a Theatre of the Oppressed workshop along with Till Bauman who flew in from Berlin. You can read my article about the festival and the role of theatre in peacemaking here. And about women in the crossfire as well as more background on some of the people mentioned in that piece here.
I do these workshops in English as well: recently in the snowy Midwest where buildings are heated (unlike my apartment) and it was heaven to walk around my hotelroom in Chicago naked, ah, warm air on my skin! I was at Valparaiso
University (Indiana) for the celebration for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and at the University of Chicago's Graham School. We also got to see the new documentary Beneath the Blindfold (about torture survivors, including Hector) by Kathy Berger and Ines Sommer.
My short story, "Sin-Tra-La!", appears now in Willow Springs along with a feature profile. My lengthy essay on the juvenile in/justice system is available on-line, published April 15 by Connotation Press (and reposted in August in the special compilation issue). You can read it here.
I'm on a postcard! My words, that is. The Postcard Press publishes poems and short prose pieces and/or prose poems, one postcard a month. Check me out for April 2012 and look at other months, too, at http://the-postcard-press.com/
It was fun to collaborate in November with The Internationalists, an international directors collective. They produced as Lorenzo Montanini performed my short interactive play, Ave Atque Vale, via Skype from his home in Rome for an audience in NYC.
The Blessing Next to the Wound, co-authored with Hector, received Honorable Mention from the International Latino Book Awards and was a reading selection chosen in 2010 by the Amnesty International book club in Pasadena. In September 2011, Amnesty International US headquarters included it in a list of suggested readings for Banned Books Week. The Blessing Next to the Wound is Hector's true story of surviving civil war, torture, and more in Colombia and how he has worked to heal himself and others by engaging the imagination through activism and art. Hector himself has been chosen to receive the 2012 Rene Otto Castillo Award for political theatre. His nonprofit organization, ImaginAction, takes his methods around the world. Our book is available from Lantern Books or your favorite bookstore or on-line bookseller. It is also available in e-book format:Amazon's Kindle: All other readers:
Do check out the Books page for information on my past books (esp. fiction) and links to stories of
mine that can be read on-line-- and the Coming Up page for events and recent publications. Workshops and Teaching will give you information about the programs and manuscript critiques I offer. A quick link to my blog is here. (The Wordpress blog, started for the upcoming publication of Nobody Wakes Up Pretty, has similar blog posts.)
Thanks!
contact me: DianeLefer@gmail.com
The joy of learning in Cochabamba
