Summer Line Up

The Austin Salon was on hiatus for the winter (hibernation), and has resumed with an extraordinary line-up for the summer and early fall:

May 10th, 2-4pm

Carver Museum

Austin, TX

Featured Artist: Nelly Rosario

Nelly Rosario was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She received a BA in engineering from MIT and an MFA from Columbia University. She has received numerous awards, including a 1999 Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Fellowship, The Bronx Writers' Center Van Lier Literary Fellowship for 1999-2000, two National Arts Club Writing Fellowships, the 1997 Hurston/Wright Award in Fiction, and the 1988 National Teachers in English Writing Award. She was named "Writer on the Verge" by the Village Voice Literary Supplement in 2001. Her debut novel Song of the Water Saints, which traces the lives of three generations of Dominican women, won a PEN Open Book Award in 2002. Currently she teaches at Texas State University in San Marcos.

June 14th, 2-4pm

Carver Museum

Austin, TX

Featured Artist: Amanda Johnston

Cave Canem Fellow and Affrilachian Poet, Amanda Johnston has performed across the country for various causes and events. Honors include a 2003 and 2004 Artists Enrichment grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the 2005 Austin International Poetry Festival's Christina Sergeyevna Award. Currently, Johnston serves on the board of directors for the National Women's Alliance, is an ensemble member of The Austin Project Performance Company (TAPPCo) and is the founding editor of Torch: poetry, prose, and short stories by African American Women. www.torchpoetry.org

July 5th, 2-4pm

Carver Museum

Austin, TX

Featured Artist: A. Van Jordan

A. Van Jordan is the author of Rise and MACNOLIA. Among other awards, Jordan has received the Whiting Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and the Pushcart Prize. Jordan teaches at the University of Texas at Austin and serves on the faculty at the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He lives in Austin, Texas.

August 9th, 2-4pm

Location TBA

Austin, TX

Featured Artist: Samiya Bashir

Samiya Bashir is the author of Where the Apple Falls: poems, editor of Best Black Women's Erotica 2 and co-editor, with Tony Medina and Quraysh Ali Lansana, of Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social & Political Black Literature & Art. She has also published two chapbook poetry collections: Wearing Shorts on the First Day of Spring & American Visa. Her poetry, stories, articles, essays and editorial work have been featured in numerous publications including: Callaloo, Essence, Contemporary American Women Poets, among many others. Bashir is a fellow with Cave Canem and a founding organizer of Fire & Ink, a writer's festival for LGBT writers of African descent. She's currently wrasslin' poetry, paint, stuffed bunnies and sunshine in Austin, Tejas. website: samiyabashir.com