WHERE I AM READING and/or SPEAKING

in Minneapolis:
READING. TalkingImageConnection: Place Values at the SOAP FACTORY
Thursday, September 23rd at 8pm.
Location:514 2nd St. SE in Minneapolis (near St. Anthony Main and the Stone Arch Bridge).
A reading in connection with A Theory of Values with writers EG Bailey, Barrie Borich, Sha Cage, Tim Nolan, Lynette Reini-Grandell, and Christian Villarroel. The title of the exhibition is borrowed from a short story written by Minnesota-born author Sinclair Lewis, in which the protagonist initially wants not to "rot away in this dull, little town and die unheard of" but instead aspires to transcend his surroundings and "do something in and for the world." In the story, Lewis considers notions of "value" as related to personal and cultural conditions surrounding place and location. The works selected for this exhibition similarly explore place, yet are not bound by regionalism.

and in New York City:
PANEL. Women in the Literary Arts, Friday, October 1st, 2:00 p.m.
Location: NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House, 58 West 10th Street, (between 5th and 6th Avenues).
A new organization for women in the literary arts, VIDA seeks to explore critical and cultural perceptions of writing by women through meaningful conversation and the exchange of ideas among existing and emerging literary communities. Featuring nine founding members: poets Erin Belieu, Cate Marvin, Danielle Pafunda, Ann Townsend, and Amy King; fiction writers Susan Steinberg and Cheryl Strayed; children's author Kekla Magoon; and creative nonfiction writer Barrie Jean Borich. Co-sponsored with VIDA.

and in Iowa City:
The NONFICTIONOW Conference, NOVEMBER 4-6, 2010.
Location: University of Iowa
I will appear on two panels:
PANEL. The Wildness Suite (Barrie Jean Borich, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Paul Lisicky, Cheryl Strayed, Ira Sukrungruang, Lidia Yuknavitch). In this panel-as-segmented-essay, six nonfiction writers ruminate on writing from, to, and on wildness. Whether writing about the actual or figurative wilderness of expansive landscapes, inviting lyric or experimental wildness to break open nonfiction prose form, or essaying from the wilds of the human body, this panel explores the form and content of the uncultivated, uncultured, uninhabited, uncontrolled, and unconstrained.
and
PANEL.What's in a Genre? States of the Art of the Essay (Mary Cappello, Barrie Jean Borich, Judith Kitchen, David Lazar, Patrick Madden).This panel is inspired by current vogues in nonfiction (especially essay writing) ...Rather than work as a corrective to the current categories that govern the field's literary journals, pedagogy, and books, our approach is meant to foster conversation--in fact, to beef up the conversation by offering a view of nonfiction?s influences, generic kin, and still un-tapped possibilities.

and in Los Angeles:
The MLA Conference, January 6-9, 2011.
PANEL.The Currency of the Category "Creative Nonfiction"
Lynn Z. Bloom, Barrie Jean Borich, Steve Heller, Janet Lyon, Donald Morrill, Brian Norman. A roundtable discussion on the role of creative nonfiction in academic departments and in the world--in print and online journalism, and in book publishing--and why the category "creative nonfiction" has such currency (even urgency) in creative writing programs and circles these days.

and in Washington D.C.:
The AWP Conference, February 2-5, 2011.
PANEL. Interviewing In My Underwear: Adventures as a Female Memoirist
Wendy Sumner-Winter, Barrie Jean Borich, Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, Kerry Cohen, Brenda Miller. We've all heard that confession is good for the soul, but how about for a woman living in the real world? Six memoirists discuss the familial, professional, social costs and benefits-and everything in between-of being a woman who writes candidly about her body, her physical life, her sex life, her carnal appetites. We will talk about what it is like to navigate our various social and political worlds having told, literally, the naked truth.
and
PANEL. BODIES POLITIC
Barrie Jean Borich, Judith Barrington, Kekla Magoon, Ann Pancake, Ira Sukrungruang, Brian Teare. The literary body is beloved, is bared, is captive, is container, is hidden, is habitat, is dissenting, is taboo, is pleasure, is change. We make literature out of the body's clashes and communions, and our bodies together create a social mesh we write to maintain and sustain, remake or escape. This panel--a diverse body politic of poets, novelists and essayists, gathering in the political belly of America--will grapple with corporeality, community and claiming the body for the page.