Featured writer Peter Covino is an award-winning poet, translator, and editor.  His latest work is his poetry collection, The Right Place to Jump, recently featured on National Public Radio and in Lambda Literary and the Huffington Post.  He is also the author of poetry collection Cut Off the Ears of Winter and chapbook Straight Boyfriend for which he won the Frank O'Hara Poetry Prize.  Among literary prizes are the 2007 PEN American/Osterweil Award for emerging poets and the Paterson Prize for Literary Excellence. His poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, The Paris Review, The Yale Review, and The Penguin Anthology of Italian-American Writing, among other journals.  Covino is associate professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Rhode Island. Visit www.petercovino.com/books.html#jump. 

John J. Trause’s newest poetry chapbook is Eye Candy for Andy from Finishing Line Press.  He is the Director of Oradell Public Library in New Jersey and founder of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative in Rutherford, NJ, where he formerly hosted its monthly reading series. His translations, poetry, and visual work appear internationally in many journals and anthologies, including the artists' periodicalCrossings, the Dada journal Maintenant and the avant-garde art and literary journal Offerta Speciale. Trause is also the author of poetry collections Inside Out, Upside Down, and Round and Round; Seriously Serial;and Latter-Day Litany, the latter staged Off-Off Broadway.   His work was thrice nominated for the Pushcart Poetry Prize.

IAWA’s December reading takes place on December 14 at Sidewalk Café with featured writers Gerry La Femina and Bordighera Prize Winner Joanne Monte.  IAWA’s January reading at Cornelia Street Café will feature writers Linda Baldanzi and Stephen Massimilla.

About Italian American Writers Association (IAWA)

IAWA aims to promote Italian American literature by encouraging the writing, reading, publication, distribution, translation and study of Italian American writing. Since 1991, IAWA has given voice to writers through its Open Reading series held every second Saturday of the month at Cornelia Street Café on odd months and at the Sidewalk Café on even months. For membership information, please visit www.iawa.net.  To learn more about IAWA, also visit the Italian American Writers Cafe blog at http://www.i-italy.org/bloggers/italian-american-writers-cafe  

Contacts:

Maria Lisella, IAWA Board Member and Co-curator

Phone: (718) 777-1178

Email:  [email protected]

Amy Barone, IAWA Board Member

Phone:  (646) 942-4972

Email:  [email protected]