Topanga Authors’ Group ventures into new territory with a series of three presentations in April.
Topanga Authors’ Group (TAG) ushers in the spring season by exploring the vast realms of storytelling, from the edges of contemporary poetry to the inner workings of the writer’s practice.
Wednesday, April 5, 7–9 p.m., TAG at the Library presents an experiential lecture, “Finding Flow in Your Writing Practice,” with Paula Perlman, who invites the audience to learn and experience how emotional, spiritual and cognitive alignment empower us to write, draw, dance, speak, think and create to our fullest potential.
On Saturday, April 15, 1– 4 p.m., Perlman facilitates the Finding Flow workshop in the library meeting room for those who want to learn more about stimulating flow through successive, simultaneous, and sequential movements, grounding yourself through the body, and using your breathe to help you find flow. Space is limited for this free workshop and registration is required at www.topangaauthorsgroup.com/workshops.
Perlman is a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified dance therapist, and creativity specialist. A Topanga resident, she maintains a private practice in Santa Monica and teaches dance at Inner-City Arts in downtown Los Angeles.
The lecture is free and open to the public. No RSVP required. Complimentary refreshments provided by Friends of the Topanga Library.
On Saturday, April 29, from 2–4 p.m., TAG and Topanga Library co-present the first of the “Loose Lips” poetry reading series. Curated by Millicent Borges-Accardi and Jean Colonomos, Loose Lips is dedicated to bringing a diverse array of the best contemporary poets to Topanga, providing audiences and authors with a poetic forum and community, and to delivering literary events that are edgy, spiritual, inspiring, and at times irreverent.
The lecture is free and open to the public. No RSVP required. Complimentary refreshments provided by Friends of the Topanga Library.
The featured poet is Luivette Resto, a mother, teacher, poet, and Wonder Woman fanatic, who was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico but proudly raised in the Bronx. Her two books of poetry Unfinished Portrait and Ascension are published by Tia Chucha Press (founded by the 2014 Los Angeles Poet Laureate Luis Rodriguez). She is a CantoMundo fellow. Some of her latest work can be read in Entropy magazine, Coiled Serpent, Altadena Anthology (2015 & 2016), and a forthcoming anthology of Afro-Latino poetry titled ¡Manteca! (Arte Público Press). She lives in the Los Angeles area with her three children.
Jean Colonomos is an award-winning playwright and published poet whose works can be seen online and in print. Colonomos danced with the Martha Graham Dance Company in the 1960s, and in February 2017, five Graham alumni dancers performed the staged reading of her play, Third From the Left, which was written about the 1964 revival of Graham’s masterpiece, “Primitive Mysteries.” Current company members followed the reading with a performance of this historic work.
Millicent Borges Accardi’s awards include Fulbright, National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), CantoMundo, and California Arts Council fellowships. She is the author of four books, most recently, ”Only More So” (Salmon Poetry 2016), and has been a featured writer at the Austin Poetry Festival, Lisbon University, Brown University, UMass Dartmouth, the Carr Reading series in Illinois, and others.