Paul Christensen, Jenny Browne and Andrew Porter at Gemini Ink
Posted by ben on 24 Apr 2008 at 04:31 pm | Tagged as: upcoming events
Readings by poet, essayist, and memoir writer Paul Christensen, poet Jenny Browne, and short story writer Andrew Porter.
When: Friday, May 9, 6:30 – 8 pm
Where: Gemini Ink, 513 S. Presa
For more information: Call
Event is free and open to the public.
Paul Christensen is the author of West of the American Dream: An Encounter with Texas (Texas A&M Univ. Press, 2001), and Strangers in Paradise: A Memoir of Provence (Wings Press, 2007.) His personal essays have appeared in Antioch Review, Southwest Review, Connecticut Review, and The Texas Observer. Christensen teaches creative writing and is coordinator of the writing program at Texas A&M University.
Jenny Browne has published three volumes of poetry, Glass (Pecan Grove Press), At Once (University of Tampa), and The Second Reason (University of Tampa). She recently completed the James Michener Fellowship program at the University of Texas in Austin, and has joined the faculty of Trinity University.
Andrew Porter is the author of the short story collection, The Theory of Light and Matter, which won the 2007 Flannery O’Connor Award in Short Fiction and will be published in Fall 2008. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Porter is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the 2004 W.K. Rose Fellowship in the Creative Arts, a James Michener-Paul Engle Fellowship, an Iowa Teaching/Writing Fellowship, a Tennessee Williams Scholarship and a Helene Wurlitzer Fellowship. He currently lives in San Antonio, where he teaches creative writing at Trinity University.
as Cranach the Elder: Judith with the Head of Holofernes
Charissa N. Terranova’s Reponse
written by terranov on April 27, 2008
I am entering this blog because, as the Director of Centraltrak, I, Charissa N. Terranova, PhD, am responsible for setting the record straight and posting a more veritable account of the events that occurred last weekend at Centraltrak: The UT Dallas Artists Residency. It is my responsibility to make certain that the truth is known about the residency.
Please bear in mind that the author of this blog, Titus O’Brien, did not attend the opening on Thursday night. Mr. O’Brien has written about events he neither saw nor experienced. His writing – or reporting – is based largely on hearsay and not empirical evidence or experience.
Also bear in mind that Mr. O’Brien begins his blog with an account of his failure to attain the post of Director of the UTD artists residency. Please bear in mind, thus, that this, his failure to attain the Directorship, is at least in part his motivation for writing a blog entry that is neither constructive nor critical but destructive and divisive.
There seems to be confusion about what constitutes criticism and its distinction from reportage and debased personal attacks. Criticism can be negative or positive, but it always opens new intellectual space. Even if dissecting it builds. Criticism is an intellectual contribution that furthers intellectual discussion and debate. To be “criticized” would have been fine: I welcome criticism. This – Mr. O’Brien’s blog entry about me — is not criticism. Mr. O’Brien’s entry is a personal attack and does nothing to further develop the Texas discourse on the arts. It is parochial and provincial – two things Centraltrak: The UT Dallas Artists residency is not.
Mr. O’Brien: Please refrain from posting blogs full of lies and negativity. Not only are you doing yourself a disservice, but, more importantly, you’re misrepresenting the state of Texas. In your petty entries, you represent the state and more precisely the city of Dallas as ankle-biting, bitter, narrow-minded, and parochial – all qualities many of us are working diligently to erase and move beyond.
When you’re ready to engage in an intelligent, cool-headed, critical discussion about the work in the show, False Space and Time of the Apartment, please contact me. I am open to meeting with you in person to discuss this. I invite you to a public debate at Centraltrak in the gallery to discuss intelligently the work in the show and the state of criticism and art writing in DFW. My schedule is flexible because the semester is ending at UTD. Let’s together on dates for a public discussion of your ideas and positions. Do contact me if you’re interested:
For the record, here are the falsehoods Mr. O’Brien presented in his recent blog entries:
From Centraltrak entry:
“He’s [Ted Setina] told to get a piece together for open studios that night.” I never told Ted this.
“Terranova was informed ahead of time what was happening (locked door, noise etc), without exactly revealing the mystery.” I wasn’t told.
“Terranova dressed down Setina in front of two dozen wine swilling stragglers, shouting that he was immature and telling him to “grow up”.” Not true.
I never said these things.
“As we talked, a smiling Terranova walked up, butting loudly in to tell me she’s glad I’m moving to Chicago, so that I can just get out of town and be bitter somewhere else.” I told Mr. O’Brien that I was glad that he was moving because maybe he wouldn’t be so bitter in Chicago.
From Conduit Countdown entry:
“Fully enacting the darker side of collaboration, co-curator Charissa Terranova apparently got mad at one of the artists and severed her own connectivity.” Not true again. This absolutely never happened.