Columbia: A Journal launched Issue 46 on May 7 at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City, with readings by Laura Esther Wolfson, Victoria Redel, Thomas Sayers Ellis, and Diane Williams. If you couldn't make it to the event, listen to it here (QuickTime required).

 

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On April 2, Columbia: A Journal hosted "Writing by Numbers: A Panel Discussion on Academia and the Arts," at the Housing Works Bookstore Café in New York. Our elite panel—moderated by Alan Ziegler and featuring Joanna Hershon, Phillip Lopate, Andrew Nagorski, Martin Roper, Lucy Thurber, and Diane Williams—discussed the following:

In our contemporary cultural climate that praises the commodification of art, a steady stream of artists still file into the halls of our nation’s most renowned academic institutions to MFA programs that purport to better their craft, amplify their voices, and proffer pearls of insight regarding the perils of turning passion into paycheck. But how does one truly measure the efficacy of graduate programs for the arts? How does one teach art, specifically writing, in graduate programs? Does a writer have to choose between the possibilities of language and staying true to one’s artistic vision, and embracing a mass audience?

View a video of the entire panel discussion here:

Or here.

 

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On February 11, Columbia: A Journal launched Issue 45 at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York. The event featured the following readers:

Terese Svoboda
Melissa Monroe
Ashley Hudson
Joe B. Sills

Listen in here: (Quicktime required) Part 1 Part 2