The 2011 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Opening Launch Event

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 from 4:30-6:00PM

Philadelphia Writing Project & Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership, Regional Partner for the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers are proud to announce:

The 2011 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Opening Launch Event

Please join us for an afternoon featuring student art and writing at the Moonstone Arts Center, 110A S. 13^th Street.

Featuring Renowned Local Poets:

Elijah B. Pringle, III: is a Philadelphia based poet. To his credit he has edited and published several chap books by other poets as well as published three chapbooks of his own poetry and prose.  His work has been featured in the Edison Poetry Review, Minority Interchange’s IMpact, The God’s Must Be Bored, Fox Chase Poetry Review, River Poetry Journal, The River and anthologies published by Robin’s Book Store and Lilly Press.  He has lectured on poetry in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Minneapolis, and San Francisco.  His opinion and insights have appeared in the NY Times, Newsweek and the Philadelphia Daily News.  He is the former on air host of Panoramic Poetry at OctoberGallery.com.   Although he reads infrequently he considers First Fridays hosted by Aziza, Panoramic Poetry hosted by Crucial and Moonstone Art Center to be his artistic home.

Dr. Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, B.A. (Journalism); MFA (Theater); Ph.D. (Cultural Anthropology), is Assistant Professor of Theater History at Temple University and teaches a course on Poetry as Performance Art. Winner of the PEW Charitable Trusts Fellowship in the Arts (Scriptwriting, 2000); the DaimlerChrysler National Poetry Competition (1999), and the Provost’s Arts Commission grant, she is the author of 8 books of poetry, nearly 20 plays, and has received numerous awards and honors. She was Arts Producer for public radio, WXPN-FM 88.5, reporter and columnist with the Philadelphia Tribune and television editor for the Chicago-based Maceba Affairs Media Review magazine. She has received numerous community service awards, including citations from Philadelphia City Council, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the key to the City of Scranton, Pennsylvania by Mayor James P. Connors in 1992.

Eleanor Wilner has published seven collections of poems, most recently Tourist In Hell, The Girl with Bees in Her Hair; Reversing the Spell: New and Selected Poems; and Otherwise. Her work has appeared in over forty anthologies, including Best American Poetry 1990 and The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Wilner has been the recipient of numerous awards, including fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Juniper Prize, and three Pushcart Prizes. Former editor of The American Poetry Review, she is currently an Advisory Editor of Calyx. She has taught, most recently, at the University of Chicago, Northwestern, and Smith College. She is currently on the faculty of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, and lives in Philadelphia.

“Wilner . . . has a deep and heroic belief in the transformative power of language and myth. She paddles her surfboard outside the reef where most poets stop; she rides the big waves.” – Tony Hoagland

Light Refreshments will be served.

Learn about the awards program recognizing students excelling in the visual arts and writing. Students can submit work in more than 30 categories and compete for more than $4 million worth of college scholarships.

Moonstone Arts Center is located one block from the Walnut Street Station on the Broad Street Line.  Free parking in the Stoddart-Fleisher Middle School lot at 540 N. 13 Street, which is near the Broad Street Line.

For more information about the Writing Awards, contact Ted Domers at philwp@gse.upenn.edu or 215-898-1919

For more information about the Art Awards, contact Raye Cohen at paep@uarts.edu or 215-717-6596