Opening: 4th annual Women Writers Series
Guild Complex
Palestinian-American Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and has also resided in Jerusalem and in San Antonio, Texas. Her poetry collections include Red Suitcase (BOA Editions, 1994) and Words Under Words: Selected Poems (Eighth Mountain Press/Far Corners Books, 1995). Nye?s most recent book is a collection of essays, Never in a Hurry (Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1996).
She is the editor of This Same Sky (Macmillian, 1995), a collection of international poetry, and The Tree is Older that You Are: A Bilingual Gathering of Poems & Stories from Mexico (Simon & Schuster, 1994) received the Jane Addams Children?s Book Award and was named a Best Book of the Year by School Library Journal.
Nye was featured recently on two PBS poetry specials: ?The Language of Life.? With Bill Moyers, and ?The United States of Poetry.?
Award winning playwright Ezzat Goushegir is also a dramaturge, theater critic, essayist, and librarian. Author of the poetry collection Migration in the Sun, (Farabi Publications) and the memoir Travels in Shadegan (War Zone), she also received her B.A. in dramatic literature and playwriting from the College of Dramatic Arts in Iran. Her most recent credits include her full-length play ?Behind the Curtains? premiered at Chicago?s Greenview Arts Center and received the Norman Falton Award. She formerly was the co-director of the New Federal Theater-Zora Neale Hurston in New York.
The evening?s program includes a Persian/Middle Eastern dance performance by Atissa Azar, the founder of the Azar Dance Academy, as well as traditional Persian instrumental accompaniment by Navid Ardakani (santour) and Daria Majzoobi (tobak).
Performers
Naomi Shihab Nye and Ezzat Goushegir