Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Story/Stereo Week!

I didn't really discuss the history of Story/Stereo in yesterday's post. In 2009, The Writer's Center joined forces with local musicians Chad Clark (Beauty Pill) and Matt Byars (The Caribbean) to create an exciting night of performances that feature the best works of literature by emerging writers and unique appearances by the DC area's most interesting musicians, such as the one this Friday with Susanna Lang, Merrill Feitell, and hip-hop group The Cornel West Theory. The prototype for the event was a reading a year earlier featuring The Caribbean, Bernadette Geyer, Sandra Beasley, and Deborah Ager of 32 Poems.

Around the same time, then director Charles Jensen started our Emerging Writer Fellowship program to accompany the series; that program has now provided 23 emerging writers with a place to read and a nice check to boot. Among our first winners were Suzanne Frischkorn (Lit Windowpane), Neil Smith (Bang Crunch), Alexander Chee (Edinburgh), Srikanth Reddy (Facts for Visitors), and musical guests Roofwalkers, DC "It" band Bluebrain, Zomes, and former front man for Jawbox, J. Robbins, who led an incredible acoustic set of old and new tunes. You can see photos & video from those past events at our Web site and Youtube channels. Here's a teaser, from J. Robbins' performance at Story/Stereo 4:

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