Two award winning local poets, Brandel France de Bravo and Sandra Beasley, will share their work as a part of the reading series A Space Inside on Wednesday, November 19 at 7 p.m. at Riverby Books on Capitol Hill.
Brandel France de Bravo's first collection of poems, Provenance, won the 2008 Washington Writers' Publishing House poetry prize. Her poems have appeared in Natural Bridge, Fugue, The Kenyon Review, Black Warrior Review, and The American Voice, as well as in anthologies such as The Beacon Best of 1999: Creative Writing by Men and Women of All Colors, Fathers: A Collection of Poems, Outsiders: Poems About Rebels, Exiles and Renegades, and Hunger and Thirst. A graduate of Warren Wilson's MFA Program for Writers, she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was the recipient of a grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Brandel is also co-author of Trees Make the Best Mobiles: Simple Ways to Raise your Child in a Complex World (St. Martin's Press). She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and daughter and is Director of Public Affairs at the National Research Center for Women and Families.
Sandra Beasley (who wrote for the blog about the Sewanee Writers’ Conference here) won the 2007 New Issues Poetry Prize for Theories of Falling, selected by Marie Howe. Her poems have appeared in Verse Daily, Slate, The Believer, and Blackbird, as well as the Black Warrior Review Chapbook Series and many others. Honors for her work include the 2008 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers, the Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, and fellowships to the Sewanee Writers' Conference and Millay Colony. She lives in Washington, D.C., where she works for The American Scholar and writes for the Washington Post Sunday Magazine.
On Wednesday, December 17, fiction writer David A. Taylor will come to A Space Inside, and our fourth year begins in January with a return to poetry featuring local poet Rosemary Winslow.
Now in its third year, A Space Inside provides a space where developing writers, lesser known voices, and the work better-known writers create between books can be heard. Monthly readings alternate between poetry and prose, but all readers are DC-based writers. All readings, which are free and open to the public, are hosted by Riverby Books with a reception following.
Riverby Books is located at 417 East Capitol Street, SE, just north of Eastern Market and four blocks east of the U.S. Capitol. A seller of used and rare books, they are open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and can be reached at (202) 543-4342. Please call for directions, if needed.
