Hello CW friends!<br><br>I have been working with Gaby to investigate possibilities of off-campus readings & other types of opportunities for students with community institutions.<br><br>Here is an update (& more to come hopefully):
<br><u><br>COFFEE DEPOT:</u><br><div class="gmail_quote">** I talked to Jeff, the owner of the Coffee Depot. He's very nice, is a poet himself & open to doing something at the space which currently does not consistently have a poetry night. The rooms where they have events are usually -- a room downstairs which is pretty big where bands play & then a smaller room upstairs. He rents them out but also is open to not charging especially for stuff like poetry events. But the caveat is that the organizers would have to fill the place with their own people (downstairs' capacity is 45 people who buy drinks) & the upstairs is smaller. We were talking a more regular type of ongoing program, but he might be open in doing something on a non-regular basis too. I don't have the capacity to run a regular type of reading series & open mic, but if anybody is interested, let me know & I can put you in touch with him. He told me that his schedule (especially for the room downstairs) fills up pretty quickly, mostly used for music events.
<br><br><u>RIVERSIDE PUBLIC LIBRARY:</u><br>** I had a meeting with Marion, who does cultural programming at the Riverside Public Library, much of through the Inlandia Institute, which is a collaboration between Heyday Books and the library and promotes Inland Empire authors & literature/arts having to do with the Inland Empire.
<br><br>A few possibilities/opportunities --<br>** internships:<br>-- working with producing online content for the Inlandia blog (entailing working with other local writers, also possibly an online writers' workshop, doing recordings of local writers etc)
<br>-- she's interested in producing some type of writers' drop-in space or having some type of writers' type gathering (Also, they<br>have an auditorium with AV equipment so I suggested to her that it might be a good space to do a multi-genre type of open mic/gathering, with the option of incorporating film etc)
<br><br>** CRATE:<br>The library currently does a night of readings with MUSE, the literary journal at RCC. She sounded interested in doing a night with CRATE as a way to promote emerging writers from UCR. There might be other opportunities to plug in emerging writers, but that's about as far as we got during the meeting. They're open, but the schedule does fill up in advance (the calendar is programming through next spring right now).
<br><br>** There might also be opportunities to work with the teen programming department, especially around working with the youth there.<br><br>>> Please let me know especially if you're interested in interning or CRATE people & I can pass on her contact info.
<br><br>That's about as far as I got this quarter, but next quarter, I'm looking to connect with some other institutions.<br><br>Hope everyone is well!<br><br>xoxo,<br>Ching-In<br></div>