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IAWA Welcomes Rosalie Contino, from Stage to Page and Poet, Mike Graves, Host of Phoenix Reading Series Saturday, June 9, 2012

IAWA Welcomes Rosalie Contino, from Stage to Page and Poet, Mike Graves, Host of Phoenix Reading Series Saturday, June 9, 2012

IAWA . (May 23, 2012)
Contino's book, Born to Create chronicles her transition from being a seventh-grade English teacher to a new-found career in the arts.

The Italian American Writers Association (IAWA) presents Rosalie Contino who is an author and costumer, and Mike Graves, poet, scholar and host of the Phoenix Reading Series on Saturday, June 9, 2012.

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While most 40-year-old professionals are busy building upon the foundation that several years of hard work, Rosalie H. Contino, Ph.D decided to pursue her passion to create. A teacher, motivator, author, playwright, costumer and co-founder of the U.F.T. Players, Contino was a Teaching Fellow for the Program in Educational Theatre at NYU. 


    Her dissertation was on Patricia Zipprodt, the noted Costume Designer for Fiddler on the Roof, Pippin, Cabaret, Sunday in the Park with George, and 1776. Since then, Contino has written plays, short stories, and poems published by IdeaGems.com Her off-off Broadway costume credits include:  Cabaret, Our Town, Company, the NYC Premier – The Frogs, Dracula, Dracula the Musical, and The Hairy Ape.
    Her plays, Transitions, Lights Out! Twixt ‘n’ Tween have received Honorable Mention from the Writers Digest Playwriting Contest and Runner Up status from the Robert J. Pickering Award.    Her latest plays -- TIME ENDS: AS IS, “Is that all there is?” (one act) premiered at the Jan Hus P. Church Playhouse. 
    Her book, Born to Create (Dorrance Publishing Company) chronicles Contino's professional transition from being a seventh-grade English teacher to a new-found career in the arts.
    Michael Graves is the author of two full-length collections of poems, Adam and Cain (2006) and his latest, In Fragility,  (both published by Black Buzzard ) and two chapbooks, Illegal Border Crosser (Cervana Barva, 2008) and Outside St. Jude’s (R. E. M. Press, 1990). 
    He received a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation in 2004. He has published thirteen (13) poems in the James Joyce Quarterly and read from them and others of his poems influenced by Joyce to a gathering of the Joyce Society at the Gotham Book Mart.
    Graves says his work is for “Everybody who's interested in poetry. Everybody who doesn't say, ‘I hate Biblical themes on principle.’ Everybody who doesn't say there must be no difficulty in poetry.”
   He has taught full-time for Pennsylvania State University, has been an adjunct for various branches of the City University of New York including New York City Technical College and is a reader for a faculty member at New Jersey City University with impaired vision.
    He hosts the Phoenix Literary Reading Series at Scali Caffe, 245 Bleecker Street every Sunday afternoon at Scalinatella, 245 Bleecker Street (west of Carmine), from 4-6 p.m.
    To view an in-depth performance and interview with co-producer George Spencer, visit the Poetry Thin Air Interview - Michael Graves.
    The reading takes place Saturday, June 9, 2011, 5:45 p.m. to 7:45 p.m., at the Cornelia St. Café, 29 Cornelia Street, NYC, (212-989-9319). The evening starts with Open Mic readings of five minutes each. Since 1991, the organization has given voice to writers through its Open Reading series at Cornelia St. Café every month. For membership information, visit www.iawa.net

Contact: Maria Lisella
 (718-777-1178)
Authors Available for Interviews



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