The Betsy and SWWIM (Supporting Women Writers In Miami), created by local poets Catherine Esposito Prescott and Jen Karetnick, present the final reading of the 2017-18 series. Join us for a special evening of poetry from Writer in Residence, Nicole Callihan, who will read with co-author, poet Samar Abdel Jaber. Yaddyra Peralta will represent Miami's poet community. The event is free to attend, but your RSVP is requested.
ABOUT THE POETS
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.
Samar Abdel Jaber is the author of Wa fi rewayaten okhra (And There Are Other Accounts; Malameh Publishing House, 2008); Madha law konna ashbahan (What If We Were Ghosts; Dar Al Ahleyya Publishers, 2013), winner of the Palestinian Young Writer of the Year Award granted by the A.M. Qattan Foundation; and Kawkab mansey (The Forgotten Planet; Dar Al Ahleyya, 2015), published through a grant from SELAT, Links Through the Arts project, organized by A.M. Qattan Foundation and the Prince Claus Fund. Samar participated in the 2008 Arab Female Poets’ Festival in Damascus, Syria. In 2012, she won a prize granted by the Danish Institute in Damascus for the best poems that reflect the status of Arab societies after the Arab Spring and its effect on youth, and thus participated in the Copenhagen Literature Festival that year. In 2016, she participated in the Khan Al Fonoun Festival in Amman, Jordan. Samar holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Beirut Arab University (2008) and is currently working in Dubai.
Yaddyra Peralta is a poet. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Jai-alai, Abe’s Penny, Tigertail, The New Poet, and Hinchas de Poesia.. In 2013 she was a Visiting Writer at the Betsy Hotel’s Writer’s Room in South Miami Beach, Florida and one of six collaborative Helen M. Salzberg Artists in Residence at Florida Atlantic University’s Jaffe Center for the Book Arts where she completed the book Conversation, Too, along with Tom Virgin, John Dufresne, Kari Snyder, Laura Tan and Michael Hettich.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Founded and curated by Miami-based poets and writers, Jen Karetnick and Catherine Esposito Prescott, SWWIM (Supporting Women Writers In Miami) features women and women-identifying writers from South Florida and across the nation. Hosted by The Betsy-South Beach, a philanthropy and arts-driven boutique luxury hotel located on Ocean Drive in the heart of Miami Beach’s Art Deco District, SWWIM produces a year-round readings series and a digital publishing platform, SWWIM Every Day. Learn more at www.swwim.org