The Betsy Writer's Room presents two artists in residence, writer Marcia Butler and poet Nicole Callihan, for a wine & cheese reception hosted by hotel owner, Jonathan Plutzik. Take an hour to get to know the Artists in Residence as part of The Betsy Writer's Room residency program.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Marcia Butler’s nationally acclaimed memoir, The Skin Above My Knee, was one of the Washington Post’s “top ten noteworthy moments in classical music in 2017”. She was chosen as 2017 notable debut author in 35 OVER 35. Her work has been published in Literary Hub, PANK Magazine, Psychology Today, Aspen Ideas Magazine, Catapult, Bio-Stories and others. Her first piece of flash fiction appears in the anthology One Hundred Voices from Centum Press. Marcia was a 2015 recipient of a Writer-in-Residence through Aspen Words and the Catto Shaw Foundation. Her forthcoming debut novel, The Optimistic Voices, will be released in Spring 2019 from Central Avenue Publishing. Marcia was a professional oboist for twenty-eight years until her retirement in 2008. During her musical career, she performed as a principal oboist and soloist on the most renowned of New York and international stages, with many high-profile musicians and orchestras – including pianist Andre Watts, and composer/pianist Keith Jarrett. The New York Times hailed her as a “first-rate artist”. She lives in New York City.
Nicole Callihan writes poems, stories and essays. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming in, among others, American Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Tin House, Copper Nickel, Plume, and as a Poem-a-Day feature from the Academy of American Poets. Her books include the 2012 nonfiction Henry River Mill Village which she wrote with Ruby Young Kellar and which documented the rise and fall of a tiny mill village turned ghost town in North Carolina, as well as, SuperLoop, a collection of poems published in early 2014. In 2015, she received, with Zoë Ryder White, the Baltic Writing Residency Chapbook Contest Award for their chapbook A Study in Spring which was released by Rabbit Catastrophe Press in fall 2015. Her book, The Deeply Flawed Human, was released by Deadly Chaps Press in summer 2016; in summer 2017, Finishing Line Press published Downtown, and in Spring 2018 Aging was released from YES Poetry. Her latest project, Translucence, is a dual-language cross-cultural collaboration with Palestinian poet Samar Jaber Abdel (Indolent 2018). The Assistant Director and a Senior Language Lecturer at New York University's Tandon School of Engineering, Nicole frequently collaborates with artists and actors throughout New York City.