There will be plenty of zoom, dynamism, and edge in the multi-media celebration that will launch the latest Words and Images. Contributors to the annual literary journal of the University of Southern Maine will rally all this week at a number of readings, and it all leads up to the main event on Thursday, September 25: “Fast, Powerful, Punk: Obviously a Literary Event,” at SPACE Gallery, at 7 pm. (Admission is free.) The evening brings together practitioners of the musical and visual arts as well as the literary ones, in a night of readings accompanied by Chris Nielson’s art and music by the Portland band Cougars kill Cobras and Brooklyn’s Akudama.A wide spectrum of local writers will contribute to the event’s “marathon” of readings: Mark Melincove, author of Advanced Memories, previously served as director of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance and publisher and editor of Dog Ear Press and Tilbury House. A frequent fiction contributor to Portland Magazine, Dan Domench is author of Hold Me Fast, the acclaimed first book of the Speedway Six Series. Steve Gibbon, the winner of this year’s Words and Images Award for Excellence in Expression, is finishing a BA in English at USM, and readers will also include poets Melissa Crowe and Zachary Mosher.
The literary journal of USM has gone through a number of incarnations since its inception in 1976. This year’s edition also features fiction by Kevin Brockmeier and Michael Kimball, as well as interviews with Richard Russo, Jennifer Egan, and filmmaker Todd Field. It is available at the USM Campus Bookstore and Longfellow Books, and will also be on hand at SPACE this Thursday for the Words and Images pan-literary festivities.
Related:
Promoting human rights at home, Prisoners of politics, In the right field, More 
- Promoting human rights at home
“We have a holier-than-thou” attitude in the United States about human-rights violations abroad, said Bart Carhart, a student organizer of the new Amnesty International chapter at the University of Southern Maine.
- Prisoners of politics
The giant sucking sound that all of Southern Maine heard coming from Forest Avenue last week was not some accidental draining of a huge milk tank at Oakhurst Dairy, but the integrity and independence of Maine’s largest public university going down the toilet. Slideshow: Thomas Manning's exhibit at the University of Southern Maine Brut portraiture: Inmate Manning's art part of outsider tradition. By Ian Paige
- In the right field
In his third year as resident composer and professor at the University of Southern Maine, Daniel Sonenberg is making his mark in the field.
- Divine operas
USM shows off two Puccini one-acts
- Mixing it up with Strauss
Although the works of German composer Richard Strauss rank among my favorites, it was unfair to give him credit last week for Die Fledermaus .
- Our future
Maine’s collegiate Republicans have lately been spinning lies just like the big kids.
- Changing worlds
On the USM philosophy department's home page, I noticed Karl Marx’s famous lines from Theses on Feuerbach: “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it.”
- How many USM students does it take to change a light bulb?
The University of Southern Maine, which is conducting several energy-saving initiatives on its Gorham and Portland campuses recently welcomed its first ever Sustainability Squad.
- Fright fix
Is it normal to want to scare people?
- Image-ination
The Phoenix sat down with Jason Read, the film series’s curator and an assistant professor of philosophy at USM, to discuss how this revolutionary concept can still influence artistic practice.
- What next for controversial art shows?
The University of Southern Maine will take extra pains to appear neutral when promoting art exhibits university president Richard Pattenaude told a symposium discussing his decision to prematurely close a controversial show in September.
- Less
Topics:
This Just In
, Todd Field, University of Southern Maine, Michael Kimball
