Black Mountain Institute

IN THREE WEEKS: Please join us for a reading with BMI City of Asylum fellow Maryam Ala Amjadi. Following the reading, she will be in conversation with novelist and UNLV professor Douglas Unger.

RSVP: https://tinyurl.com/BMIMaryamAlaAmjadi

Maryam Ala Amjadi is an Iranian writer, translator, and researcher. She is the author of two poetry collections, a poetry chapbook, and has translated a selection of Raymond Carver’s poems into Persian. Her short story “The Ice Seller of Hell” won the 2024 Elizabeth Alexander Award and will be published in the Meridians journal. Ala Amjadi was previously a writer for the Tehran Times Daily, where she founded and wrote a weekly page dedicated to the socio-cultural nuances of Iran. Her most recent book of poems, Where Is the Mouth of That Word? was published by Poetrywala in 2022.

Douglas Unger is the author of five novels, including Leaving the Land, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, his newest, Dream City, and short fiction, Looking for War and Other Stories. He is co-founder of the Creative Writing International program at UNLV and serves on the executive board of Words Without Borders.

This City of Asylum fellowship is supported by The Eleanor Kagi Foundation – A Lynn M. Bennett Legacy. This program is also supported in part by a grant from the Amazon Literary Partnership.

MEET OUR INTERNS

Please welcome our new fall semester interns! Terrell and Alexandria have jumped right in to offer important support for BMI’s staff and programs. If you come by our offices (please do!), they’ll be happy to assist you.

Join Jessica Oreck, filmmaker and curator of the Office of Collecting and Design, for a non-credit, graduate-level exploration of how to think about narrative. This free in-person workshop is for students or alumni at the graduate level of study who are interested in storytelling structure — geologists, historians, physicists, architects, creative writers, filmmakers, and any other discipline you can imagine.

Applications close on Monday, September 16. We will advise you of your admission status no later than Friday, September 20.

🗺️: https://tinyurl.com/BMINarrativeCartography

Coming 9/19: The State of Comics Publishing Virtual Event with Fantagraphics! 💥

This panel features Eric Reynolds, VP/Associate Publisher of Fantagraphics, Megan Kelso, author and comics conference organizer, and comics legend Diana Schutz. They will discuss the past, present, and future of comics in the US in a conversation moderated by UNLV Creative Writing Program alum, Charlie Joy.

Click here for free registration: https://tinyurl.com/BMIFantagraphics1

SPOTTED IN THE LIBRARY: It’s our new Shearing Fellows Monica Macansantos and Alejandro Heredia! We’re so happy to have these incredible writers — both Aquarians! — here in Las Vegas for the academic year.

We encourage you to say hello and pick their brains during their weekly drop-in hours:

♒️ Alejandro Heredia: Thursdays 10am-3pm
🏺 Monica Macansantos: Wednesdays 11am-4pm

JUST ANNOUNCED: Oliver de la Paz, author of The Diaspora Sonnets, will be in conversation with 2024-25 Shearing Fellow Monica Macansantos on March 5, 2025 at UNLV RLL 101.

This free in-person event is part of Kwentuhan at Chikahan, an event series and book club celebrating Filipino storytellers.

RSVP: https://tinyurl.com/BMIOliverdelaPaz

We are thrilled to introduce BMI’s new graduate student assistants for the academic year:

🌼 Delight Ejiaka
🌺 Sabrina Shie
🌻 Sada Malumfashi
🌸 Destiny Pinder-Buckley

You will be seeing a lot of these writers at in-person events, virtual programs, and around the BMI office. Welcome to the team!

👋 Hello fall semester!

(Photo: /UNLV)

This morning, we shared waffles and ghost stories with BMI’s PhD fellows. Now we’re questioning every sound we hear in the office. 😨

To our new and returning fellows, welcome to the fall semester!

JUST ANNOUNCED: Grace Talusan, author of The Body Papers, will be in conversation with 2024-25 Shearing Fellow Monica Macansantos on December 3 at UNLV RLL 101.

This free in-person event is part of Kwentuhan at Chikahan, an event series and book club celebrating Filipino storytellers.

RSVP: https://tinyurl.com/BMIGraceTalusan

JUST ANNOUNCED: Mia Alvar, author of the award-winning short story collection In the Country, will be in conversation with 2024-25 Shearing Fellow Monica Macansantos on October 29.

This virtual event is part of Kwentuhan at Chikahan, an event series and book club celebrating Filipino storytellers.

Click here to register: https://tinyurl.com/BMIMiaAlvar

Black Mountain Institute has been named Nevada's Literary Landmark by Literary Hub!

"A dedicated hub for writers and literary activism, with special emphasis on lifting up underrepresented voices. Catch a reading while you’re in town."

Read the full "Literary Road Trip Across America" below:

A Literary Road Trip Across America Literary Hub and Wildsam present: a literary road trip across America. Happy travels! Illustrations by Mike McKeogh Alabama • Alaska • Arizona • Arkansas • California • Colorado • Connecticut • Del…

ICYMI: our events fridge is stocked and ready for snacking. As always, just because there’s food at home doesn’t mean we won’t order delivery from time to time.

[Translation: our 2024-25 events are live. We’ll be announcing more soon. Visit https://blackmountaininstitute.org/live-experiences/ for details.]

🖼️ by our BMI summer intern Brooklyn Mumford

Our February reading and conversation at The Beverly Theater with Spring 2024 Shearing Fellow Julián Delgado Lopera is now available on our YouTube channel.

Julián Delgado Lopera: A Reading + Conversation 03-06-2024 Julián Delgado Lopera is the author of The New York Times acclaimed novel Fiebre Tropical (Feminist Press 2020), the Winner of the 2021 Ferro Grumley Award a...

Avantpop Bookstore is excited to announce our new writing project, STTAR (Storytelling with Tarot), a 5-part hybrid workshop series for experienced writers guided by April Ursula Fox.

Learn how to use the timeless wisdom of tarot for character and plot development.

10 writers will be selected to participate at no cost. Each participant will receive a free tarot deck and resources. By the end of the series, participants will complete a 3,000-5,000 word short story that will be published in an ebook anthology. At the conclusion of the series, we will have a live reading and ebook release party on Dec. 14th.

We invite all experienced writers to apply and require a 500-1000 word writing sample to be considered.

APPLY NOW
http://avantpopbooks.com/sttar
(link in bio)

Applications close on August 9th at 8:00pm Pacific Time

Questions? Please email [email protected]

Storytelling with Tarot (STTAR) is supported in part by the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV Black Mountain Institute

BMI would like to wish Professor and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka a very happy 90th birthday today. Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist who was the first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. A former Elias Ghanem Chair in Creative Writing in UNLV’s Department of English, he played a critical role in the founding of BMI alongside President Emerita Carol C. Harter and Professor Richard Wiley and was instrumental in the City of Asylum fellowship program in Las Vegas.

Spring 2024 Shearing Fellow Julián Delgado Lopera reflects on the continuing importance of gay bars in the June issue of Desert Companion:

Lightning Strikes, Maybe Twice The revival of pioneering club Gipsy enters a very different LGBTQ+ nightlife scene than the one it ushers in 43 years ago. But the more things change, the more they stay the same

Join us at The Writer's Block starting in October for Libros & Chisme (formerly the Latinx Book Club), a bilingual (ENG/SP) book club hosted by BMI associate director of development Kim Treviño.

📚: https://mailchi.mp/unlv/bmibookclubs

BMI has been named a 2024 Amazon Literary Partnership grant recipient! This support from Amazon will go toward our City of Asylum fellowship program. To learn more about the Amazon Literary Partnership program visit: www.amazonliterarypartnership.com

Our Community Partnership form is closing on June 30th. Visit the link below to tell us about your arts & culture-based project. Selected projects will receive up to $1,500 in support from BMI.

Learn more: https://forms.gle/uRhwwqifHVdNUUaRA

Are you interested in collaborating with BMI on an event, program, or project? We are currently considering project proposals that reflect one or more priorities in the BMI mission statement for funding in an amount of up to $1,500.

Applications are open until June 30, 2024, for queries relating to programs that will take place between August 1, 2024 and December, 31, 2024. Applicants will be notified of their status in July.

(Note: if you are a grad student in the UNLV Creative Writing program, BMI will open a separate partnership form specifically for your proposals in August.)

BMI Community Partnerships Query Form Are you interested in collaborating with The Beverly Rogers, Carol C Harter Black Mountain Institute on an event, program, or project? If you're looking to partner on a community-driven event or program that serves audiences in Las Vegas or Southern Nevada, you've come to the right place! We are alw...

BMI is pleased to welcome our two new Shearing Fellows: Alejandro Heredia and Monica Macansantos. They will join us in Las Vegas for a FULL academic year beginning in August.

✨Alejandro Heredia✨

Alejandro Heredia is a q***r Afro-Dominican writer, educator, and community organizer from The Bronx. His debut novel, Loca, will be published by Simon and Schuster Spring 2025. He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary, VONA, and CUNY Dominican Studies Institute. His work has been featured in Teen Vogue, The Offing, LitHub, and elsewhere. Heredia received an MFA in fiction from Hunter College.

✨Monica Macansantos✨

Monica Macansantos holds an MFA from the Michener Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and a PhD from the International Institute of Modern Letters at the Victoria University of Wellington. She is the author of the forthcoming essay collection Returning to My Father’s Kitchen, and the story collection Love and Other Rituals. Her work has been recognized as Notable in the Best American Essays 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2016. She has received fellowships from Hedgebrook, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, the I-Park Foundation, and others.

Taking a moment to appreciate the intricate beauty and detail of the jingle dresses worn by the Nuwu Wonumeegah dancers. We are grateful for their powerful performance as we are grateful for the opportunity to study, learn, work, and be in community on traditional Nuwu, Southern Paiute homelands.

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