Hearing Voices with Stephanie Kartalopoulos and Stacey Lynn Brown

Join us at Orr Street Studios at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, for readings of poetry by Stephanie Kartalopoulos and Stacey Lynn Brown.

STACEY LYNN BROWN

Stacey Lynn Brown was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and studied at Emory University, Oxford University, and The University of Oregon, where she received her MFA in poetry. A poet, playwright, and essayist, her work has appeared in various literary journals, including Crab Orchard Review, Poetry Daily, The Cortland Review, Natural Bridge, Sou’wester, and The Southern Quarterly, as well as the anthology From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great. Her book-length poem in sections, Cradle Song, was published by C&R Press in January, 2009. Poems from Cradle Song have won awards from The Poetry Center of Chicago and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, where she lives with her husband, poet Adrian Matejka, and their daughter.

STEPHANIE KARTALOPOULOS

Stephanie Kartalopoulos is a creative writing fellow in poetry at the University of Missouri, where she also is studying toward a PhD in creative writing and literature. She holds an MFA In creative writing from the University of Florida and a BA in English from Harvard and has taught at Boston University, Lesley University, the educational non-profit Year Up, Cambridge College and The University of Florida in addition to Mizzou. Stephanie's poems appear in and are forthcoming from a variety of journals that include 32 Poems, Phoebe, Harpur Palate, Waccamaw, Barn Owl Review, Subtropics, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Fifth Wednesday and St. Katherine's Review.

Orr Street Studios is located at 106 Orr St. in downtown Columbia, Mo. Join us every Tuesday evening during the academic year for literary readings and visual-arts presentations.

Hearing Voices with Sarah Heston and Jim Coppoc

Join us at Orr Street Studios Tuesday, Oct. 11, for readings of nonfiction by Sarah Heston and poetry by Jim Coppoc.

Sarah Heston

Sarah Heston earned an MFA in poetry from the University of California, Irvine in 2003 and has since published chapters of her current project, a memoir, in Hotel Amerika and American Literary Review. She is also the recipient of the 2009 Eda Kriseova Fellowship in creative nonfiction from the Prague Summer Program and the Mizzou Creative Writing Program 2011 Nonfiction Award. She is working on a Ph.D. in nonfiction at the University of Missouri.

Jim Coppoc

Jim Coppoc makes his living through some murky but evolving balance of poetry, pedagogy, playwriting, music and performance. In addition to his long history on spoken word and music stages, Coppoc recently has been getting a lot of good attention from the literary world, with four Pushcart nominations this year alone. Among other projects, Coppoc teaches English and American Indian Studies at Iowa State University; teaches poetry and spoken word in Chatham University's low-residency MFA in Writing program; serves as music coordinator for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Ames; plays bass in the Gatehouse Saints; and lives in Ames, Iowa with his wife and two sons.

Seeing Visions with Matthew Ballou

Taming the Tongue by Matthew Ballou.

The best way to experience art is to have the artist who created it present it you! Come for a guided tour of artist Matt Ballou's work and an informal talk about his approach to the creative process.

Matthew Ballou is an artist and writer living in Columbia, Mo., with his wife, Alison, and daughter, Miranda. He is an assistant teaching professor of painting and drawing in the Art Department at the University of Missouri, where he has taught since 2007. Recently his work has been seen in solo shows in Boston and Seattle, as well as in a two-person show in Louisville, Ky. His extensive article on the work of Odd Nerdrum was the cover feature in Image Journal's 2006 summer edition. Ballou has been a contributor to Neoteric Art in Chicago since 2009, and Neoteric will release a collection of his essays in October 2011. See his work at www.eikonktizo.com.

A closing reception for Matt's show will be held during Artrageous Friday, 6-9 p.m. Oct. 7.