Nor'easter in the news!

We were honored to have WHYY Newsworks's Jana Shea come out to our inaugural Nor'easter Open at Mt. Airy's Big Blue Marble Bookstore, check out her article and audio slideshow below and you can also access it here.  Thanks to everyone for coming out, rocking the mic, and partaking in the remainder of our Superbowl fare. 

Yolanda Wisher kicks off Big Blue's first poetry open-mic night

February 15, 2012
By Jana Shea for NewsWorks

 

Mt. Airy has added a new open mic event to its growing literary calendar of spoken word happenings. An intimate group gathered for the first Nor'easter Open at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore last Friday night.

The Nor'easter Exchange will be hosting the monthly reading series on every second Friday at the book store near Weavers Way.

The Nor'easter Exchange was founded in 2010 by husband and wife team, Quincy Scott Jones and

Nina Sharma-Jones. Its mission is to build a multi-cultural community amongst writers from Philadelphia, New York City and the tri-state region.

"We know all these great writers from two cities and they're all about to blow up," Quincy Scott Jones remarked.

Yolanda Wisher was one of two featured authors who gave a reading.  Named the first poet laureate of Montgomery County in 1999, Wisher also founded the Germantown Poetry Festival.  She heads the art education department at the Mural Arts Program. Wisher is currently collaborating with Philadelphia's poet laureate, Sonia Sanchez on a Mural Arts' multimedia project, Peace Is A Haiku Song.

Northeast Philadelphia poet Dan Shall read from his collection entitled Space Within Line Not Dedicated: Private Moments in Public. Shall is a professor at nearby Arcadia University and director of its Writing Center. He is also the editor for Obsession Literary Magazine.

The evening wrapped up with an open mic session for audience members who wished to read from their own works. Joe Roarty, Chad Crisp, Stephanie Noor and Nina Sharma-Jones each read two poems.

Sharma-Jones considers Mt. Airy to be a "new haven" for the reader series.

"It will be exciting to see what the space can do to nurture this project," she said.

The next Nor'easter Open will be held on March 9 and will feature authors Aziza Kinteh and Iain Haley Pollock.

Behold, The Storm:

Our Monthly Open Mic!

Friday, February 10, 7:00-9:00 PM

Nor’easter Open: Two Features and an Open Mic!

Join us for our inaugural Nor’easter Open, Nor’easter Exchange’s monthly open mic series that will take place the second Friday of every month at Mt. Airy Philadelphia’s Big Blue Marble Bookstore, co-hosted by Nina Sharma Jones and Quincy Scott Jones.  Each series kicks off with readings by two feature authors, followed by an hour of open mic.  Our February features are Yolanda Wisher and Dan Schall, incredible poets and Philadelphia natives.  Nor’easter Exchange welcomes and is proud to support both emerging and established writers, at a bookstore with a truly independent heart.  Come read your work or just support that of your friends and neighbors.

For open mic, please arrive at least 15 minutes early (6:45 pm) to sign up, and allot 3 minutes for your reading.

YOLANDA WISHER received a B.A. in English/Black Studies from Lafayette College and a M.A. in Creative Writing/Poetry from Temple University.  In 1999, she was named the first poet laureate of Montgomery County.  A Cave Canem fellow and Leeway Foundation Art and Change Award recipient, her poems have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Ploughshares, The Fence Reader, and Gathering Ground.  During a decade of teaching at Germantown Friends School, Wisher hosted a poetry radio show on Gtown Radio and founded the Germantown Poetry Festival.  She currently heads the art education department at the Mural Arts Program.

DAN "THE MAN" SCHALL teaches at Arcadia University and is the Director of the University's Writing Center. He is a scholar by day, and a poet by night (or is it the other way around?). He is a founding member of the Assassin's Guild Writing Group and is currently an editor for Obsession Literary Magazine.  He has forthcoming publications in xcp streetnotes and Moria Poetry Journal, and is currently working on a collection of poems titled "SPACE WITHIN LINE NOT DEDICATED: Private Moments in Public."

@ Big Blue Marble Bookstore
551 Carpenter Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19119