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AREA Friends:
Please Join us(Sat dec 6th) for 2 important events. In the afternoon there will be a release party for the 7th issue of AREA Chicago at the Hull House Museum from 1-4pm (800 S. Halsted, in the "Residents Dining Room"). This is the first time an AREA release has featured speakers/performers who contributed to the issue so please be there promptly by 2pm for the exciting program. This event is free. For details see
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://areachicago.org%2Fb%2Farea-news%2Ftwo-area-events-december-6th-2008%2F

Then in the evening from 7-11pm we will have an auction and dance party (@ CAMPO - 511 N Noble). This is the 2nd edition of our annual "Wants and Needs" auction where AREA contributors offer up their services to other friends of AREA. Ranging in cost from $10-$90, the services range from bodywork sessions to help with school/job applications to building a small custom greenhouse in your home. Please bring your checkbooks, cash or we even take credit cards for the auction. Please come ready for booze and dancing with Jeff Parker (Tortoise) and Charlie Vinz doing the djing. This event costs a $10 Donation or $20 for admission and an AREA t-shirt. For details on the services see this link. http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://docs.google.com%2FDoc%3Fid%3Ddggvvxw_297fk7v3vdb

And for a good article about AREA in this week's Timeout Chicago see
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.timeout.com%2Fchicago%2Farticles%2Fart-design%2F69354%2Fnews-worthies

We look forward to seeing you on Saturday at one or both of the events.
If you are looking for other things to do this weekend or in coming weeks, then please check out events celendar for December (with some corrections in the formatting from last week):
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://areachicago.org%2Fb%2Fanother-chicago%2F29-december-2008-events%2F

Directions to the Auction/Party Sat Night
The party is at 511 N Noble (In a carriage house just behind the Italian restaurant on the NE corner of Grand and Noble).

   * From the Jane Addams Hull House Museum, simply hop on the Halsted #8 Bus going North, then get off at Grand and either walk west to Noble or take the #65 bus going west. You will have enough time between the events to grab some italian food in the Grand/Noble area.
   * From north or south, this location is extremely accessibly from the #9 Ashland Bus. Simply get off at Ashland and Grand and walk east on Grand 3 blocks to Noble.
   * If you are coming from the Blue Line, simply walk 9 blocks west of the Grand stop on the blue line, or take a #65 westbound bus.
   * From the Kennedy Expressway, simply exit at Ogden/Exit 50A, merge onto N Racine, turn right on W Erie, and turn left and N Noble.

WORDSLINGERS
Poet Somara Zwick and I will spend an entire hour discussing the finer intellectual implications behind the Christmas song The Three Little Dwarves aka Hardrock Coco & Joe  Suszie Snowflake  and other roasting chestnuts with Mcgruder like ambition. Probing questions include the mystery reason behind Joe always getting hit with a snow ball. What was Hardrock's link to Area 51? Was there any truth to the rumor that Suzie Snowflake had an affair with a Salvation Army Santa she met standing in front of Woolworth's  and secretly gave birth in a public housing project to Earl'Gooseneck' Snowflake much to the chagrin of the Clauses and cousin Frosty who cast her out.And what's behind Santa's fascination with Rudoph anyway?   Oh did I mention Somara Zwick is an excellent poet as well? Pleasse tune in from 8-9 pm 88.7fm WLUW and streaming live www.wluw.org      
Wordslingers airs on the first and third Sunday evenings from 8 to 9 pm. on 88.7 fm WLUW Loyola University Community Radio and streaming live on www.wluw.org Archives of past shows can be discovered  on Wordslingers.org in the Vox Cafe.
Wordslingers is all about poetry and providing an outlet for poets to be heard.  No gossip. No drama. Just the word, the rhythm, the vibe and vision of poetic expressions.
Tell your friends to tell their friends and we can be friends.

WomanMade Gallery Reading:
Icons - from Mary to Marilyn
December 7, 2008   2 - 4 pm.
WomanMade Gallery 685 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago

From Mary to Marilyn, from religious paintings to those little pictures on our computer screens, icons are images that strongly resonate with meaning. And because "icon" in its most literal sense means "an image, simile or symbol," icons are an essential part of what poetry is all about. This reading will present work that engages Iconic figures ranging from the classical to pop culture, in incarnations that range from elegaic to the highly compromised.

Hosted by Nina Corwin, readers include Maureen Tolman Flannery, Arielle Greenberg, Becca Klaver, Donna Pucciani, Erin Teegarden, and Rachel Jamison Webster. The poetry reading on Sunday, December 7 from 2 to 4 p.m. is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served.
http://www.womanmade.org/poetry.html

The Molly Malone's Open Mic with your hosts Nina Corwin and Al DeGenova invites you to be part of one of the longest running and most highly respected open mics in the Chicago area.  .
Monday, December 8, join us in welcoming poet (and lawyer, yes another one) Rachel Contreni Flynn
Born outside Paris, Rachel Contreni Flynn grew up in a small Indiana farming town and now teaches poetry and practices law near Chicago. In 2005, her first book, Ice, Mouth, Song, was published by Tupelo Press. She received a 2007 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Flynn's work appears widely in magazines and journals such as Barrow Street, Washington Square, Spoon River Review, Oxford Magazine, and Epoch.
Molly Malone's Irish Pub
7652 Madison Street
Forest Park, IL
708-366-8073
$5 if you can, $3 if you can't
7:00 -- open mic sign-up begins
7:30 -- open mic
8:45 -- featured reader
9:15 -- open mic continues if necessary
Poetry/fiction at Molly's is the second Monday of every month.  
Feel free to forward this notice to your writing pals...we love new faces with new voices.

TUESDAY, DEC 9TH @THE CAFÉ-BOB KATZMAN!  & I don't have to come up with any promo cuz BK did it hissownsef!  Dig...
Dear Café Poetry (and Prose) Fans,
I'm Chicago writer Bob Katzman.
This person (below) wrote the forward to my 2nd book. I believe she is as good a voice as any to concisely describe my true stories.  I'll be the feature there, at 5115 n. Lincoln, on Tuesday, Dec. 9th, 2008, so please come and bring a friend. 
I'll read two non-fiction short stories called Caldwell Vigilante and Snowflake, both about the South Side of Chicago in 1962 and 1966, respectively.  One's about war and the other's about love.  I'll also have all four of my published books there, if anyone wants to buy some.
To find out more about the smart professional woman who wrote the forward, or about my books, or even me, please go to www.FightingWordsPubco.com. The lady's name (Gela) is pronounced 'hay-lah'
To read any of the many gritty, urban and true stories published on my blog, go to: www.DifferentSlants.com
Please come to The Café, and support Charlie Newman's effort to give a voice to Chicago writers seeking a civilized forum.  He respects the beauty of the written, or spoken, word.
Thanks,
Bob
Forward to Escaping and Embracing the Cops of Chicago
By Gela Altman

"Bob Katzman is a late bloomer. It took him close to fifty years to realize his writing gift and it has only been in the last four years that he has evolved into a passionate and prolific writer of non-fiction. He concentrates on his own complex and often violent life, repeatedly leaving the reader pondering how an individual could survive so much pain and anguish and still turn out to be a caring and compassionate human being.
His narrative style has a clear and distinct speaking voice which he uses with great skill and precision. His intensity is portrayed in the episodes of abuse and violence dating back to an early age and spanning subsequent years of his life. One need only begin reading a chapter in one of his books to appreciate the deeper meaning that his powerful words convey. His are words of wisdom and intuition, of experience and solutions. His language is simple and frequently beautiful--almost poetic in its delivery.
There is genuineness and candor in his writings giving us an opportunity to become part of his world from the first page of one of his stories. We become so involved in fact that we begin to feel that areas of our lives are enhanced by experiencing what he experienced; by vicariously participating in his life events. We grow to be the protagonist of his own survival and the effect of such transformation can be truly monumental for those of us who feel less than adequate in our own lives.
The sheer strength of character and conviction of Bob Katzman's writings leave people, men and women, wanting more. Yearning for more ways to deal with controlling and overwhelming external forces that affect our lives the way his life has been affected, while addressing our own fears, our anger, and our own inability to cope.
In the end one is left with a glorious feeling of triumph over extraordinary circumstances that could have shattered a man who would not let it happen to him.
A man who would not be destroyed."
Gotta love it when the feature makes it easy on my old noggin!
BE THERE!
The Cafe
5115 N. Lincoln
Great poetry, great drinks, great googlie-mooglie!
Open mike & feature every Tuesday...8:00-10:00
$2 Admission! 
(And we do pass the Crown Royal bag for voluntary feature financial enhancement.)
 The Café is a Poetry Green Zone. 

The Danny's Reading Series
Wednesday, December 10th
7:30PM Sharp

Poetry by:

James Shea, Laura Goldstein, and Jason Bredle

James Shea is the author of Star in the Eye, selected by Nick Flynn as the
winner of the 2008 Fence Modern Poets Series. His poems have appeared in
various journals, including American Letters and Commentary, Boston Review,
Mrs. Maybe, and Verse. He currently teaches at Columbia College Chicago and
DePaul University.

Laura Goldstein currently teaches Writing and Literature at the School of
the Art Institute and Loyola University. She has performed her work in
Chicago at venues such as the Poet's Theater at Links Hall, the Elastic Arts
Foundation and the Red Rover Reading Series, and in New York at the Bowery
Poetry Cafe. Recent poetry, reviews and essays can be found in How2,
Text/Sound, Rabbit Light Movies, Otoliths, Stoning the Devil, PFS Post,
CutBank Reviews, Moria, and The Little Magazine. Her first chapbook, Ice in
Intervals, published by Hex Press, is available on Etsy.com.

Jason Bredle is the author of Standing in Line for the Beast, winner of the
2006 New Issues Poetry Prize, and A Twelve Step Guide, winner of the 2004
New Michigan Press chapbook contest. His most recent book, Pain Fantasy, is
available from Red Morning Press. He lives in Chicago.

Danny's Tavern is located at 1951 W. Dickens (near the corner of Armitage
and Damen). 21+, please bring ID. 773-489-6457

www.noslander.com/dannys.html
The Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, hosts TallGrass Writers Guild members presenting "Home for the Holidays," a themed reading of original poetry and stories that is FREE and open to the public. Featured presenters include
Amy Crawford
Robert Lawrence
Whitney Scott. 
Show time this Friday's at 7p at this lovely venue featuring French press coffee, a variety of teas, desserts, soups and entrees...and comfy, overstuffed armchairs. This independent book store with its wide selection of children's and adult books has hosted TallGrass Writers Guild themed reading for years. Come celebrate the seasonal lights shining into the windows as we explore what it means to be "home for the holidays" this holiday season.
For details, reply to this email or telephone 219-322-7270