Tuesdays with Writers

April 2nd, 7pm

at the South Mill

48th and Prescott, Lincoln

Tuesdays with Writers

tonite:  Women and Creativity

WOMEN AND CREATIVITY will feature poets Marge Saiser and Laura Madeline Wiseman and artists Sally Deskins and Wendy Jane Bantam. 

Saiser's new book, a novel in poems, tells the story of three generations of women, their lives and loves. Wiseman's anthology, Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence, is just out, celebrating an effort to create a more peaceful world, one woman at a time. Deskins' new Les Femmes Folles anthology includes art, poetry and interview excerpts from over 150 women in all forms of art. Bantam has opened an exhibition space, FUSE, with other artists to provide collaboration, community and creativity. Fuse's grand opening with be April First Friday (April 5) in the Haymarket above the Mill. 

MARJORIE SAISER is a poet living in Lincoln, Nebraska. She received an MA in creative writing at the University of Nebraska — Lincoln, winning the Vreelands Award and the Academy of American Poets competition. Her work has been published in literary journals including Prairie Schooner, Georgia Review, Zone 3, CrazyHorse, and Cream City Review. Her poems have been finalists for the Robert Penn Warren Prize, the New Letters Literary Awards, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is a 2000 recipient of the Merit Award from the Nebraska Arts Council and in 1999 received the Literary Heritage Award from the Nebraska Literary Heritage Association. Saiser is a speaker for the Nebraska Humanities Council. Her first full-length collection, Bones of a Very Fine Hand, won the Nebraska Book Award for poetry in 2000. Her second book, Lost in Seward County, was published in 2001 by Backwaters Press, 3502 N 52nd St, Omaha, NE 68104, and is available there or from Lee Booksellers 888-665-0999. She is co-editor of Times of Sorrow, Times of Grace (Backwaters Press, 2002), an anthology of poetry and prose by women of the Great Plains, which was named Poetry Honor Book in 2003 by the Nebraska Center for the Book, and also co-editor of a book of interviews, Road Trip: Conversations with Writers (Backwaters Press, 2003). Her most recent collection is Beside You at the Stoplight (The Backwaters Press, 2010). 

see : http://poetmarge.com/

Laura Madeline Wiseman has a doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she teaches English. She is the author of seven collections of poetry, the full-length book Sprung (San Francisco Bay Press, 2012), the letterpress books Unclose the Door (Gold Quoin Press, 2012), andFarm Hands (Gold Quoin Press, 2012), and the chapbooks She Who Loves Her Father(Dancing Girl Press, 2012), Branding Girls (Finishing Line Press, 2011), Ghost Girl (Pudding House Publications, 2010), and My Imaginary (Dancing Girl Press, 2010). She is also the editor of the anthology Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013). 

Her poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and reviews have appeared in Margie, Poet Lore, Blackbird, Arts and Letters, Prairie Schooner, Feminist Studies, Thirteenth Moon, American Short Fiction, Cream City Review, and elsewhere. 

She has received an Academy of American Poets Award, a Mari Sandoz/Prairie Schooner Award, a Will P. Jupiter Award, a Susan Atefact Peckham Fellowship, a Louise Van Sickle Fellowship, several Pushcart Prize nominations, and grants from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, the Focus for the Arts, the Center for the Great Plains Studies, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation.

http://www.lauramadelinewiseman.com/about/

Sally Deskins is an artist, art writer, consultant, art model, mother, wife and general art enthusiast. She holds a BA in Art from UN-Lincoln and MPA from UN-O. Her writing has been published locally and nationally. Her art has been shown and published nationally. She has been an art critic for Omaha’s Reader since 2006. She is founder, editor and curator of LES FEMMES FOLLES. She published the book Les Femmes Folles: The Women, 2011; and is currently working on Les Femmes Folles: The Women, 2012 among other projects. For a complete resume visit linkedin.com and search for Sally Deskins. See her new art page at http://sallydeskins.tumblr.com/.

Contact Sally for more information, story ideas or consulting inquiries for art portfolios/shows, resumes, press releases or statements. Her rate is $25/hour. She is also willing to art-trade. Sallydeskins@yahoo.com 

Wendy Jane Bantam's Artist Statement 

Dream and reality have always interplayed within my work. Our family farm was in a part of the Nebraska Sandhills called Mirage Flats. At certain times of the day, light played on the fields and on the clouds casting illusions of blue mountains on what was otherwise, a desert. My father worked on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and my childhood daydreams were blanketed with stories my father would tell at night and the happenings of the Lakota Sioux. I never knew what was real or a mythological tale. It was a fantastical world where I was constantly in awe of the smallest of changes in light, and nuances of story telling. In the beginning I wanted to find a way to parallel mythological stories with reality. In working with oils, I found color, light, and form emphasized the mystery of the story by drawing viewers in to the texture, and field of canvas. 

Weaving dream life with reality through image making is one thing; even more compelling for me is the making of a painting. The brush and the knife on the canvas, and the process of making a composition and essentially creating problems to be solved with form, and color moves me. 

In regards to my most recent body of work I moved through the process of making paintings without restriction of linear narrative. I created the work to be viewed as a moveable storyboard. The paintings were based on a dream. It was not so important to know the exact nature of the dream, as it was to have the freedom of the telling of it; and for each painting to stand on its own. By creating multiple paintings at once and moving from each massive painting I could essentially be in the painting as I was making it. 

http://www.wendybantam.com/statement.htm