Silent Auction Items

Still haven’t bought a ticket to our joint benefit with MoCADA this Thursday? If the readings by acclaimed writers Cathy Park Hong, Kiese Laymon, Mahogany Browne, and Saeed Jones, the installation by artist Shantell Martin, and being among the first to get your copy of Apogee Issue 3, isn’t motivation enough, then check out our silent auction items.  (Oh, and if you have bought your ticket, maybe you should start thinking strategically about how to have your name last on the list when the auction closes…) Silent Auction Items: GOTHAM WRITERS WORKSHOP ONE DAY WRITING INTENSIVE Admission to a One- Day Intensive with Gotham Writers Workshop, New York City’s leading private creative writing school. Intensives are fun, fast-paced immersions in a genre of writing of your choice. Ideal for both the beginner and someone wanting a quick refresher course. Value, $150 each (2 for auction) ENTRANCE FOR TWO TO THE NEW YORK WRITERS’ COALITION WRITE-A-THON Two tickets to the New York Writers’ Coalition Write-A-Thon, New York City’s most popular marathon writing event, to be held on November 1st 2014. Value, $300 THE DEVIL IN SILVER AND BIG MACHINE, BY VICTOR LaVALLE Signed, hard cover editions of two novels by acclaimed fiction writer...
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Gray Matter: Reading into Ageism

By Lisa Peet “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” This, for those who’ve never seen it, was the caption to Peter Steiner’s now-famous 1993 New Yorker cartoon. Even though the Internet had barely hit public consciousness at that point, the line struck a nerve. And no wonder: one of the great wonders of online life, in those days, was its anonymity. On the Internet, nobody knew what you looked like, how much you earned, where you grew up, or your level of education; nobody knew you were sitting home in your pajamas; and—famously—nobody knew you were a straight white guy. The Internet of the mid-’90s freed you to become anyone you wanted; it was the liberation of the keyboard. Writers, of course, have long appreciated the protection of being preceded by their words; the term nom de plume first showed up in the 19th century, a good 150 years before we had such things as user names. Many of them were women competing in a man’s world: the Georges Sand and Eliot, the Brontë sisters before they hit their stride, science fiction writer James Tiptree, Jr.—born Alice Bradley Shelton. And who (of a certain age) doesn’t remember the...
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