Dorchester scribes, poets unite for public reading on Labor Day

Next Monday, September 5 at 7 p.m., the Pearl Street Studios in Savin Hill will host a free evening of fiction and poetry readings by Dorchester and UMass authors as the second installment of the “Write on the DOT” series. Readers will include Dorchester poets Sandra Kohler and U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo along with UMass-Boston MFA candidates Danielle Fontaine, Nathaniel Forsythe, Calvin Hennick, and Mitch Manning.

Tonawanda St. resident Kohler has seen her verse published in such prestigious periodicals as “The New Republic,” “Prairie Schooner,” and “The Beloit Poetry Journal,” over the past 35 years. She’s taught literature and writing in venues ranging from elementary school to university. Mhlaba-Adebo, who lived in Zimbabwe before coming to Dorchester, has written and produced a CD of poetry and music entitled “Soul Psalms, Birth, Death, and Resurrexion,” which has been used as a teaching tool in schools, universities, NGOs and in films and documentaries.

“Write on the DOT” was founded in late 2010 by students in UMass-Boston’s Creative Writing MFA program in order to create a space in which the Dorchester and UMass-Boston creative writing communities “can meet, mingle, and check out what each other are up to.” Founders include Dot residents Natty Forsythe and Aaron Devine along with Sam Cha and Molly Maguire.

The inaugural reading, held on May 3, attracted a large audience, filling the back room of The Blarney Stone in Fields Corner. Crescent Street resident Danielle Fontaine, who was at the event, recalls, “The readers were respectful of the time limits, and the audience was respectful of the readers.” Her only concern was that some found it hard to hear with the bar so close, a problem that won’t arise at Pearl Street.

Videos from the May reading, as well as biographies for the upcoming reading, can be found at www.writeonthedot.blogspot.com.

Organizers plan to hold a “Write on the DOT” reading in Dorchester twice a semester and are open to exploring new venues. The next reading will probably be in December. Dorchester authors who wish to be considered for an invitation to read in the future should send a query to dotreadingseries@gmail.com.

Topics: 


Subscribe to the Dorchester Reporter