Listen & Be Heard Network Arts News

Monday, August 18, 2008, at 7 PM. Giovanna Capone and Jan Steckel (www.jansteckel.com) plus open mic at Poetry Express, hosted by Mark States, Nance Wogan and Jim Barnard. Priya Indian Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. (near University Ave.), Berkeley, CA. 510-644-3977. Ask for special seating for poetry reading; 20% off dinner.

Giovanna Capone is a San Francisco bay area poet and fiction writer. She was raised in New York in an Italian American neighborhood whose intense flavor still resonates strongly in her life. Her work has appeared in numerous publications. Some of these include Unsettling  America: an Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry (Viking Penguin); Curaggia: Writing by Women of Italian descent, (The Women’s Press); Queer View Mirror, 2, Lesbian/ Gay Short Short Fiction (Alyson Publications); What I Want From You: East Bay Lesbian Poets (Raw Art Press), and Sinatra…but Buddy I’m a Kind of Poem (Entasis Press). Her first play, Her Kiss, was produced in San Francisco by Luna Sea Women’s Performance Project as part of their Dyke Drama Festival. It performed to sold-out audiences. Giovanna also co-edited Hey Paesan: Writing by Lesbians & Gay Men of Italian Descent with Tommi Avicolli Mecca and Denise Leto. Most recently, while working with teenagers at the Dimond Branch Public Library, Giovanna edited a new book of their poetry and art, entitled Words on Fire! An Anthology of Teen Voices (Wordrunner Press). She lives in Oakland, California.

Jan Steckel, author of the poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006), is a bisexual activist and a Harvard- and Yale-trained former pediatrician. She is a founding member of the queer women’s writing collective Woman-Stirred (woman-stirred.blogspot.com). Over a hundred of her short stories, poems and nonfiction pieces have appeared or are forthcoming in publications such as Scholastic Magazine, Yale Medicine, Red Rock Review, Harrington Lesbian Literary Review, and Bellevue Literary Review. Her writing has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize, has won numerous awards and has been widely reprinted and anthologized. She recently won the 2008 Gertrude Press Fiction Chapbook Contest, and her chapbook Mixing Tracks is forthcoming from Gertrude Press. You can find out more at www.jansteckel.com.