Featured the first Friday of every month from

7:30 p.m.- 9:30 p.m.

The DC area has no shortage of reading series’ or venues for music, or talented musicians and proficient writers skilled at giving public readings.  What is proposed, though, is a unique regularly scheduled event which combines both the literary and musical and is centered in VisArts in Rockville Town Centre, an ideal location both for serving the immediate community and drawing from the greater DC region.  This will increase awareness of VisArts, broaden its appeal beyond the visual arts and attract a larger public to participate in its activities.

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Schedule for Febuary-June 2008

February 1

Writer: Sean Enright

Sean Enright was born in Washington DC and grew up in Maryland.  He has taught fiction workshops in the MFA graduate creative writing program at the University of Maryland, as well as undergraduate fiction workshops there, and poetry workshops at the Writer's Center in Bethesda.   In 2001 he published a novel, Goof and Other Stories– it was an Editor's Choice in The Baltimore Sun that summer.  His second novel manuscript, How to Disappear Completely, was completed in 2006.  His third novel manuscript, The Playboy of Hoboken, was completed in December of 2007.

His poems, essays and translations have appeared and in TriQuarterly, Threepenny Review, The Sewanee Review, The Kenyon Review, Verse, Tikkun, Provincetown Arts and The Southern Poetry Review, among others.  Enright’s second collection of poems, My People, was a Finalist for the Washington Prize at the Washington Writers Publishing House in  2000.  

Most recently, Enright has completed a full-length black comedy, Home for the Holocaust, a family tragicomedy set in the suburbs about a returning prodigal son and a mysterious bioterrorist plot.   He was named a semi-finalist in the National Playwright’s Contest at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center for his play about the Lincoln assassination called The Third Walking Gentleman.   His one-act play, Atomic Dog, was staged by the Econo-Art Theatre Company of Chicago in 1987 

Enright has an M.F.A from the University of Maryland, and a B.A. from Northwestern University.

Musician: Gary Gibian – Jazz Vibraphone

Gary Gibian has played percussion and piano since childhood.  Most of his professional experience has been as a jazz/dance drummer.  He fell in love with a vibraphone the summer after graduating from high school, and purchased one while in graduate school studying physics.  While in graduate school, he played in a 7-piece combo merging jazz, Latin, and rock.  He is delighted to perform on solo vibraphone at VisArts and hopes that everyone will enjoy the instrument as much as he does.

March 7

Writer: Elisavietta Ritchie

Elisavietta Ritchie’s 14 books and chapbooks include Awaiting Permission to Land; The Spirit of the Walrus; The Arc of the Storm; Elegy for the Other Woman; Tightening The Circle Over Eel Country; Raking The Snow; In Haste I Write You This Note; Flying Time; Wild Garlic: Journal of Maria X.. She is president for fiction, Washington Writers’ Publishing House, edits, translates, and teaches creative writing to adults and students.

We will premiere her newest chapbook, Real Toads, and exhibit selections from Navigational Matters, a collection (“under a publisher's consideration”) of photos by Donald Shomette with her poems superimposed.

Musician: Charles Mokotoff – Guitar

CHARLES MOKOTOFF is returning as a classical guitar recitalist after a 16-year absence from the concert stage. Prior to settling in the Washington, DC area in 1991 Mr. Mokotoff made his home in New England where he was widely recognized as an active guitarist and Renaissance lute player during the 1980s. During that period his career culminated with two Far East tours and a well-received New York City debut at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall in 1987, featuring the Premier of Autumn Elegy by William Coble, written and dedicated to him.
Currently, Charles Mokotoff is employed as an Information Technology Specialist at the National Institutes of Health and pursues classical guitar as a hobby. Mr. Mokotoff has been hearing impaired for a good deal of his life and is a member of the Association of Adult Musicians With Hearing Loss.

April 4

Writer: Susan Coll

Susan Coll is the author of the novels Acceptance, Rockville Pike, and karlmarx.com. She has contributed to publications including the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, and the Asian Wall Street Journal. Susan lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and they are the parents of three college-aged kids. She was born in New York and attended Occidental College in Los Angeles. She teaches occasional fiction workshops at the Bethesda Writer’s Center.

Musician: Bethesda Chamber Singers

The Bethesda Chamber Singers is a small (8 to 12) group of
choristers following a long tradition of making music
by voice unaccompanied by instruments and unassisted by
electronics. Their repertoire is drawn from the past six centuries
and from many nations, including motets, masses, madrigals,
part songs, pops, and doo-wop. They have performed at
The Renaissance Festival in Crownsville, The National Cathedral,
and several other venues.

May 2

Writer: Sibbie O’Sullivan

SIBBIE O’SULLIVAN enjoys writing in many genres, including poetry, fiction and drama. O’Sullivan’s first theatre piece was a 1984 collaboration with director Ruth Maleczech, cofounder of the Mabou Mines Theatre Company of New York, and the Washington Project for the Arts.. Shortly after that, O’Sullivan wrote and directed Isabel-Lee Malone in a one-woman play, THE LANGUAGE OF THE DEAD: A STICHOMYTHIA, which was performed at The Lansburgh’s Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. Other artistic ventures in the l980s included reading with Sabotage Poets, serving as a Humanities Scholar for the D.C. Community Humanities Council, and organizing readings in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Other dramas include VOICES FROM THE STRAW: POEMS AND MONOLOGUES REFERENCING THE GREAT WITCH HUNT, which was performed at the District of Columbia Arts Center (DCAC) in l995. O’Sullivan’s monologue THE BODY received a Works-In-Progress Grant in Play writing from the Maryland State Arts Council and was performed by Sarah Pleydell at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in College Park, MD in 2004. In October 2006, O’Sullivan’s LITTLE WHEEL, a sequence of l6 poems read by 7 different readers with musical accompaniment, was performed as part of the Take Five series at the Kogod Theatre at the University of Maryland, College Park.

O’SULLIVAN’S poems have appeared in many publications, among them West Branch;The Laurel Review; Nimrod; Gargoyle; Dreamworks; South Florida Poetry Review; New Delta Review; Poet and Critic; Calapooya Collage; Westminster Review; Poets On; Apalachee Quarterly; Sou’Wester;Hubbub; Zone 3, and WordWrights.  Awards in poetry include the Mademoiselle College Poetry Prize; the Judith Siegal Pearson Poetry Prize, and the Billee Murray Denny Poetry Prize. For her fiction, she received the l989 ArtScape Literary Arts Award for Fiction from the City of Baltimore, as well as the Grants for fiction, drama and poetry from the Maryland State Arts Council. Her nonfiction essay ”Out of the Loop” was cited as a Notable Essay of the Year in The Best American Essays 200l, Robert Atwan, editor. In 2007 she was invited to record her poem for the Library of Congress series, The Poet and the Poem.

O’SULLIVAN received a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park, in l986. Her academic specialties include the history of American masculinity, the body in literature, and narrative theory. An award-winning teacher, O’Sullivan is a Senior Lecturer for the University Honors Program at the University of Maryland.

Musician: Columbia Recorder Quartet

     Jean Cioffi: music teacher, singer.
     Jane Gentleman: CDC statistician.
     Steve Mullany: Comcast troubleshooter, arranger, composer.
     Richard Shrager, NIH mathematician (ret.), singer, arranger.
     The quartet performs music of many historic periods and styles,
     from Medieval motets to Twentieth Century jazz.

June 6

Writer: Kim Roberts

Kim Roberts is the editor of the on-line journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly. The author of two books of poetry, The Kimnama and The Wishbone Galaxy, individual poems of hers are also included in numerous print anthologies, such as American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon University Press), Cabin Fever (The Word Works, Inc.), Hungry As We Are (Washington Writers Publishing House), Poetic Voices Without Borders (Gival Press), The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel (No Tell Books),  and The First Yes: Poems About Communicating (Dryad Press), as well as on CDs such as 31 Arlington Poets (Paycock Press) and Poetry Alive at Iota (Minimus Productions).  She has published widely in literary journals throughout the US, as well as in Canada, Ireland, France, and Brazil.  Roberts has been the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the DC Commission for the Arts, and the Humanities Council of Washington. She has been awarded writers’ residencies at eleven artist colonies.  For more information on Kim Roberts visit http://www.KimRoberts.org.

Writer: Hiram Larew

Hiram Larew is the author of two books, More Than Anything, and Part Of.  His work has appeared in several journals and books including the washington review, Rhino, Rue Bella, The Cosmos Club Journal, Frantic Egg, Not Just Air, and Echoes. Nominated for a 2006 Pushcart Prize, his poems have been recognized for awards by, among others, Louisiana Literature, Verve, the Allen Ginsberg Awards, and S. S. Calliope.  As an advocate for the diversity of poetic voices, he has read widely across the U.S., and assembled this collection while at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.  As the co-founder of the The Poet Connection, Larew lives in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, and directs international farming programs for the U.S. government. 

Let me know if you want headshots or images of our book covers.  It would be great if you could list this as a Vrzhu Press reading.  (For more information: http://www.vrzhu.com.)

Musician: Sue Dale – Keyboard

Classical, jazz, pop, and spoken word are the ingredients that pianist and singer-songwriter Susan Dale blends to create works that are ethereal, playful, and insightful. Classically trained with additional study in jazz, Susan’s compositions include piano instrumentals, vocal and piano pieces, and poetry set to music.

Susan has composed music for documentary and local cable TV, performed impromptu as the on-camera keyboardist for a local TV comedy/variety show, played organ in period costume on a local TV production of old-time radio plays, and played keyboards in bands ranging from new wave to original rock. Her current focus is composing piano instrumentals.