Mark your calendar for Saturday, October 18, for the next Connecticut Literary Festival!
CT Lit Fest is a fall book festival co-presented by Real Art Ways. A literary hub under one roof, at the center of Connecticut. A day for writers, poets, teachers, students, and readers to discover and connect with new voices. Events run throughout the day. Admission is free. The Fest takes over our five galleries for readings, talks, performances, and an interactive typewriter installation. There will be a book fair to showcase publishers, journals, writing programs, and other arts organizations. Full program, appearances, and updates are announced here. Organizations interested in exhibiting at the book fair can follow these instructions. Space will be limited. Sponsorships are also available. Food trucks that will be onsite are: East West Grille & Salt & Pepper Catering Food Truck —
Full Schedule
RAW CAFE 11:00-Noon: Bach Cello Suites with Zach Sears 12:00-1:00: DJ Gil Gigliotti 1:30-2:20: Reading (Monica Ong, Jacinda Townsend, Scott Frey) 2:30-3:30: DJ Gil Gigliotti 3:30-4:20: Reading (Kristin Bair, Lara Ehrlich, Sasha Hom) 4:30-5:20: Reading (Ciaran Berry, Luisa Caycedo-Kimura, Margot Schilpp) THEATER TALKS 12:00-12:50: CT Anthology Launch Party 1:00-1:50: CT Poet Laureate Reading 2:00-2:50: Amy Bloom (conversation facilitated by Will K. Wilkins, Real Art Ways Executive Director) 4:00-4:50: Robert Dowling (conversation to be recorded live with WNPR’s Catherine Shen) PANEL GALLERY 12:00-12:50: Enter the Zine Zone (Moderated by Rhonda Kauffman; Panelists Olivia Montoya, Alice Prael, Tyasha/Ty) 1:00-1:50: Poetic Justice (Moderated by Aimee Pozorski; Panelists Maggie Dietz, Colin D Halloran, David Sterling Brown) 3:00-3:50: The Immigrant Experience: The Struggle to Become American (Hosted by Sergio Troncoso; Guests Hirsh Sawhney, Christina Chui) 4:00-4:50: Arts Today (City of Hartford Arts, Culture, and Entertainment Director Taneisha Duggan, Hartford Stage Artistic Director, Melia Bensussen, Deborah Goffe, RAW ED Will Wilkins) TINY READING GALLERY 12:00: Patricia Motolla 12:05: Steve Straight 12:10: Victoria Nordlund 12:15: Carol Dowd 12:20: Patrice Mcdermott 12:25: Joseph Reynolds 12:30: Nadab Rana 12:35: Aimee Pozorski 12:40: Steven Ostrowski 12:45: Makenzie Ozycz 1:00-1:50: CT High School Students (Kendyl Brooks, Maleah Hubbard, Mateo Figueroa, Alex O’Loughlin, Mikaela Thorington, Shelley Stoehr-McCarthy, Veronica DaSilva, Ellie Middlebrook, Mateo Melende) 2:00-2:50: CT Poet Laureates Showcase (Allyson McKenna, Elaine Nadal, Versatile Poetiq, Bailey Quinn, James Scrimgeour, Steve Veilleux, Sandra Yannone) 3:00: Jeff Mock 3:05: Elizabeth Gibbs 3:10: Barb Jennes 3:15: Stephanie Nash 3:20: Hannah Dang 3:25: Kiara Koten 3:30: Aram Adler-Smith 3:35: Ryan Krishna 3:40: Silas Mullins 4:00: Kathryn Fitzpatrick 4:05: Violet Scherer 4:10: Lisa Acerbo 4:15: Grace Quilliam 4:20: Callista White 4:25: Jack Reynolds 4:30: Scott Aaron 4:35: Giovanni Mason-Brookes 4:40: Luna Love 4:45: Jason Sabetta 5:00-6:00: Open mic (Sign up with the gallery curator. 5 min slots until 6pm) TYPEWRITER GALLERY A link between the past and present through an interactive installation. This is your chance to pick a table and write-poetry, prose, or grocery lists. When you’re done, hang it on the wall. If you’re stuck, the “Prompt Pond” is available with ideas to get you started. BOOKFAIR Black Lawrence Press, The Yale Review, Grayson Books, Long River Review, CT Council of Poet Laureates, Woodhall Press, WCSU (MFA in Creative & Professional Writing), Willimantic Records, Authors Against Book Bans, Mary Collins, Story Exchange, The Vernacular, The Helix, ECSU (Creative Writing Club) ZINE ZONE With the help of Zinesters, create your very own zine! — This event is made possible with generosity and support from: CT Humanities’ CT Center for the Book, Yale Writers’ Workshop, and Central Connecticut State University, Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens. River Bend Bookshop will be onsite selling books by all confirmed authors. —Donations
To readers, writers, artists, and literary enthusiasts of Connecticut and beyond: We invite you to support the CT Lit Fest and to grow our state’s literary community. Your generous donation will not only help us to provide the best possible showcase for our state’s writers, thinkers, and presses, but it will also allow us to keep the festival accessible to all with free admission. Your donation is essential to our success. If you choose to make your tax-deductible donation anonymously, your name and giving amount will be kept private. Thank you. Donate to the CT Lit Fest “When Hollywood meets humanity, powerful stories emerge. That’s what happens in Caregiving, a new PBS documentary that pushes back the curtain on one of America’s most underrecognized — and essential — roles: family caregivers.” – AARP.com (Read the full story here.) Join Connecticut Public, at Real Art Ways, for a free screening of national documentary, “Caregiving” from Executive Producer, Bradley Cooper! This event will feature excerpts of the film which explores the untold story of caregiving, intertwining intimate personal stories and revealing both the state and the stakes of care in America today. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Connecticut Public’s Senior Health reporter, Sujata Srinivasan. Panelists include:
- Cookie Jones, Family Caregiver
- Johannah Alabi, Certified Nurse Aide
- Laura Mauldin, Associate Professor, Department of Social and Critical Inquiry, University of Connecticut
BURNT SUGAR THE ARKESTRA CHAMBER’S first New England “Toast & Roast the Coast” tour kicks off at Real Art Ways on Friday, June 6, at 7 pm. The tour supports their latest release, If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth Pt. Two, and their latest sonic “play pen,” The Burnt Sugar SmokeHouse! Each Show of “Never Playing Anything the Same Way Once” will be special unto itself.
Funded in part by the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies. This free concert is made possible with generosity from the Evelyn W. Preston Memorial Trust Fund, Bank of America, N.A.,Trustee. Register here to attend.
“Burnt Sugar’s double live opus If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth, first released on two CD-Rs in 2005 and now available on Bandcamp, documents key portions of several gigs from spring and summer 2004, including one — from the Vision Festival, the group’s first appearance there — that I was actually present for. Dubbed “Himatsuri (Fire Festival)” on disc, it’s a roughly 45-minute, slowly evolving performance that balances horns, strings, and some unearthly vocalizing, and the lineup was absolutely stacked, including Matana Roberts on alto sax, Mazz Swift on violin, and Shahzad Ismaily on banjo and bass. It was easily the most exciting thing I saw at the VF that year. Well, now they’ve released a second volume, which features performances recorded in Detroit and Ohio in 2022, plus some studio additions from 2024. Over the years, Burnt Sugar transformed from a genre-less improvising ensemble to a shit-hot funk-rock band with a wild streak. They did shows where they tackled the music of other artists, albeit never becoming a mere “cover band”, and there are versions of Steely Dan’s “Black Cow” and the Ohio Players’ “Pain” (here retitled “Back Pain”, because they’re playing it backwards) that couldn’t be anyone but Burnt Sugar. But it’s the original conduction/composition/
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Playing on June 6th are:
Shelley Nicole – Vocals/Conduction
Miss Olithea – Vocals/Electronics Bruce Mack – Vocals/Conduction Lewis “Flip” Barnes – Trumpet “Moist” Paula Henderson – Bari Sax Leon Gruenbaum – Keyboards/Samchillian/Talk Box Ben Tyree – Electric Guitar Marque Gilmore Tha Inna Most – Trap Drums/Electronics/Conduction Jared Michael Nickerson – Electric Bubble Bass BSAC will be supporting their latest release – If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth, Pt. Two – and will include a “Burnt Sugar SmokeHouse” element in these June New England performances. The “SmokeHouse” is where you’ll find BSAC-member-led bands performing short sizzlin’ hot sets.
Join us on Monday, June 16, 6:00 pm for a reading and conversation with author Reginald Dwayne Betts to celebrate the launch of his new book, Doggerel.
“Doggerel is an apt name for this lovely collection, with the canine hidden in plain sight in its title and coursing through so many of the poems. Betts manages to capture essences of memory, of hope or loss, of oft-overlooked everydayness—in a way that feels surprising and familiar at once.”—Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know With his transcendent collection of poetry, Felon (Norton, 2019), Reginald Dwayne Betts became our foremost chronicler of the ways prison shapes and transforms American masculinity. A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, Betts is also celebrated for his work as a lawyer and the founder and director of Freedom Reads, a first-of-its-kind organization that is radically transforming access to literature in prison. Published on the twentieth anniversary of Betts’s release from prison, DOGGEREL is a majestic new volume of poetry that marks a transformative stage in his life and career. This resplendent tableau ruminates on dogs and the ostensibly trivial joys that transform us—peonies blooming, a “symphony” of wine glasses, father-son bike rides, basketball, seeing and being seen, surrendering to a lover’s touch. Channeling dogs both literally and metaphorically, these poems trace everything from the companionship of Betts’s own Jack Russell Terrier to the ways we are dogged by our deepest desires for connection, love, and repair. On the volume’s title page, Betts offers two definitions of doggerel (DAW-guh-ruhl): 1. of verse: comic, burlesque, and usually composed in irregular rhythm. Also: (of verse or writing) badly composed or expressed; trivial. 2. nah, just a Black man writing poems about his dog, all the dogs he encounters on the street, how having an extra four feet changed his world, then he falls in love. Betts’s poems then pull us into a revelatory lyrical world. Deploying the pantoum, ghazal, and canzone, he excavates companionship and what it means to bear witness. — This event is FREE to the public, but will require advance registration. Books will be sold onsite by River Bend Bookshop, on the day of the event. Concessions will be open and available if guests want to purchase beverages, popcorn, and snacks. — 
Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of three books of poetry, including the best-selling Felon. He is a poet, lawyer, and the founder and CEO of Freedom Reads. (Photo courtesy of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.) The series takes place in person on the second Wednesday of the month from September 2024 through May 2025. Each night typically begins with a poetry reading featuring regionally or nationally known poets, followed by an open mic featuring readers with one poem (one page).
On Wednesday, May 14, at 7 PM, Riverwood Poetry Series @ Real Art Ways will host eight Poets Laureate from Connecticut cities & towns. This is the last installment of the 2024-2025 season! There will not be an open mic this month. Authors’ books will be available to buy for book signing and conversation. Food and drinks will be available for purchase. Bring a friend! This monthly event is free of charge. Ample parking is available via the 56 Arbor parking lot. — Robert Cording, Poet Laureate of Woodstock Patricia Martin, State of Connecticut Beat Poet Laureate Nzima Hutchings, Poet Laureate of Enfield Vikki Nordlund, Poet Laureate of Glastonbury Sharmont ‘Influence’ Little, Poet Laureate of New Haven Steve Straight, Poet Laureat of South Windsor Virginia Shreve, Poet Laureate of Canton Micheal ‘Chief’ Peterson, Poet Laureate of New Britain — About Riverwood Poetry Series The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc. is a non-profit arts organization committed to promoting and appreciating poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. From their Facebook page: “The Riverwood Poetry Series has innovated many programs since our inception, all free to the public. We provide entertaining and thought-provoking poetry in a relaxed atmosphere.”On May 17, we will host award-winning Director Catherine Masud and UConn Law School visiting assistant professor Gaurav Mukherjee in-person for a post-film conversation that explores the film through the framework of legal activism. The main subject of this documentary, Stephen Bingham, will also attend this discussion virtually.
A Double Life unveils the gripping true story of Stephen Bingham, a lawyer accused of passing a gun to prisoners’ rights leader George Jackson in 1971. Forced into a life on the run, Bingham spends 13 years underground, eluding capture while fiercely determined to clear his name.Director’s Statement
This film is as much about Steve/Robert as it is about his times. The turbulent era of civil rights, student rebellion, and state surveillance forms the backdrop of a personal story of a man who remained focused on his values and ideals through multiple disruptions and tragedies. The story is told through the various perspectives of his friends and colleagues in both the US and France, as well as family members, both alive and dead. It is also a generational story, of the tensions that arise when world views collide between parents and their children, mirroring wider societal divides. It is a love story of Steve and Françoise, who had to choose to risk everything. To tell this complex story spanning eras and continents, the narrative weaves back and forth between present and past, through a combination of verité treatments and archival footage, to unveil a drama of racial injustice, state surveillance, family jealousies, and political divides. This story is powerfully relevant in the present era of social unrest and polarization, when our constitutional rights and the rule of law are under threat from within, even as our nation struggles to come to terms with the truth of our dark past. In this contemporary climate, we have much to learn from the life stories of people like Stephen Bingham and other lawyers of his generation who, in dark times, stepped forward in defense of justice and equality. It is not only a film of his time, but also a film for our times.
Photo of Catherine Masud by Peter Morenus/UConn
Director’s Bio
Catherine Masud is an award-winning filmmaker with over 30 years of experience producing, directing, and editing, working in documentary and fictional genres. She produced and co-wrote the acclaimed feature MATIR MOINA (The Clay Bird), which won the International Critics’ Prize at Cannes and became the first Bangladeshi film to compete in the Oscars. Thematically, many of her movies address social justice issues and the conflict between religious and cultural identity. Her films have screened at major festivals, been theatrically released in many countries, and broadcast on such outlets as Turner Classic Movies, Channel 4 (UK), TV Ontario, and SBS (Australia). An American citizen by birth, Catherine spent much of her adult life in Dhaka, Bangladesh, working with her late husband and filmmaking partner Tareque Masud. Since relocating back to the US in 2015, she has divided her time between teaching, writing, and filmmaking. She currently teaches documentary and human rights at the University of Connecticut.
Gaurav Mukherjee is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law, where he writes about how constitutional law shapes and is shaped by democratic politics. He is a frequent commentator on Connecticut politics, and his newer work explores how the arts respond to moments of constitutional and human rights crises. Among others, his writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the California Law Review, BYU Law Review, and the Oxford Handbook of Economic and Social Rights. The series takes place in person on the second Wednesday of the month from September 2024 through May 2025. Each night typically begins with a poetry reading featuring regionally or nationally known poets, followed by an open mic featuring readers with one poem (one page).
On Wednesday, April 9, at 7 PM, Riverwood Poetry Series @ Real Art Ways will host Pat Mottola and James Finnegan. Authors’ books will be available to buy for book signing and conversation. Food and drinks will be available for purchase. Bring a friend! This monthly event is free of charge. Ample parking is available via the 56 Arbor parking lot. —Pat Mottola teaches Creative Writing at Southern Connecticut State University, where she earned an M.S. in Art Education and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. An award-winning poet and Pushcart Prize nominee, her work is published nationwide in War, Literature & the Arts, Connecticut Review, Main Street Rag, San Pedro River Review, VietNow Magazine, and Paterson Literary Review. Pat is the President of the Connecticut Poetry Society. She served as editor of Connecticut River Review from 2012–2017. On a global scale, she mentors Afghan women writers living in Afghanistan and beyond. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Under the Red Dress, After Hours, and A Town Like That. Pat was the recipient of the prestigious CSCU system-wide Board of Regents Outstanding Teacher Award in 2019, as well as the J. Philip Smith Outstanding Teacher Award in 2021. Pat is the Poet Laureate of Cheshire, CT.
James Finnegan has published poems in Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, as well as in the anthologies Good Poems: American Places edited by Garrison Keillor; Laureates of Connecticut; Shadows of Unfinished Things; Imagining Vesalius; Waking Up to the Earth; and Of Hartford in Many Lights. For a decade, he served as president of the Friends & Enemies of Wallace Stevens (stevenspoetry.org). He posts aphoristic ars poetica on the blog ursprache: https://ursprache.blogspot.com/.
— About Riverwood Poetry Series The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc. is a non-profit arts organization committed to promoting and appreciating poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. From their Facebook page: “The Riverwood Poetry Series has innovated many programs since our inception, all free to the public. We provide entertaining and thought-provoking poetry in a relaxed atmosphere.”Experience music imagined and created in real-time. This series runs from September 2024 to May 2025. Check out the full schedule here!
May 4 Performance:
Larry Ochs-tenor, soprano saxophone Larry Ochs works on and breathes music. He composes. He plays saxophone. He looks for adventurous ideas to take on and for other artists – musicians and friends in other art mediums – to take them on with him.
Ochs is primarily found in the worlds of “avant-garde” or “improvised music.” That means that he composes music for “structured improvisation” in general, and in particular for musicians steeped in the art of improvisation, an art form that has really only come into its own in Western music in the past 50 years, primarily thanks to the development of jazz as influenced by the blues and then by Western art music, as well as to the increased exposure of Western musicians to the music of Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. But any artists in the visual arts or other performance-based arts that have an interest in taking chances are welcomed in. Thus, for example, he has worked with Shinichi Iova Koga and his dance group inkBoat; he and Rova have collaborated with We Players, a very cool theater company in the Bay Area, and has toured and recorded with Korean performance artist and vocalist Dohee Lee.
Learn more about Larry here.
Avram Fefer/Sean Conly/Michael Wimberly
Sound It Out NYC, November 10, 2018
Joe Morris-bass Joe Morris is a composer/improviser multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, double bass, mandolin, banjo, banjouke electric bass and drums. He is also a recording artist, educator, record producer, concert producer/curator and author. His is considered to be one of the most original and important improvising musicians of our time. Down Beat magazine called him “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in The Wire magazine called him “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.” He is originally from New Haven, Connecticut. At the age of 12 he took lessons on the trumpet for one year. He started on guitar in 1969 at the age of 14. He played his first professional gig later that year. With the exception of a few lessons he is self-taught. The influence of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists of that period led him to concentrate on learning to play the blues. Soon thereafter his sister gave him a copy of John Coltrane’s OM, which inspired him to learn about Jazz and New Music. From age 15 to 17 he attended The Unschool, a student-run alternative high school near the campus of Yale University in downtown New Haven. Taking advantage of the open learning style of the school he spent much of his time playing music with other students, listening to ethnic folk, blues, jazz, and classical music on record at the public library and attending the various concerts and recitals on the Yale campus, including performances by Wadada Leo Smith. He worked to establish his own voice on guitar in a free jazz context from the age of 17, drawing on the influence of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor,Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman as well as the AACM, BAG, and the many European improvisers of the ’70s. Later he would draw influence from traditional West African string music, Messian, Ives, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Lyons, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins. After high school he performed in rock bands, rehearsed in jazz bands and played totally improvised music with friends until 1975 when he moved to Boston. Learn more about Joe here. Join us Thursday, May 15, from 6 to 9 PM for our Creative Cocktail Hour.
Admission is free.
We’ll have music, a food truck, custom cocktails, hands-on art-making activities, and exhibitions on view!
But most importantly, you’ll be there!
Solo Exhibitions:
“After Progress” Adam Viens “Distant Bystander” Priya N. GreenMusic
Miss Olithea and J. Bubble (Electro drum & bass) Fresh out of the Burnt Sugar SmokeHouse comes “Miss Olithea & J Bubble.” Olithea Anglin & Jared Michael Nickerson’s groovaliciously avant groidd party-like-it’s-1999 electro drum & bass duo.
Check them out here! Food:
East West GrilleIn celebration of Earth Day, meet us at George Day Park (across from 56 Arbor Street) from 9 am – 1 pm on Friday, April 25, for a clean-up of the Park and our local Parkville neighborhood.
Help care for your community, meet new people, and prepare the garden. Snacks and lunch will be provided! PLEASE NOTE: Volunteering will include participating in physical activities such as walking, raking, lifting, etc. If you would like to volunteer, please sign up via this form here. We thank you in advance!
Saturday, May 3, we will host Tape Artist Michael Townsend (the main subject of the documentary) and AS220 co-founder and artist Umberto Crenca for a special conversation after the 7:00 pm screening, moderated by our Executive Director, Will K. Wilkins. UPDATE: The director, Jeremy Workman, will not be able to make this screening.
Tickets available here for May 3.Tuesday, May 6, we will host “How We Living: A Q&A on Livability in Hartford w/Taneisha Duggan Director of Arts, Culture and Entertainment and Jeff Auker Director of Development Services.” This special conversation will take place after the 7:00 pm screening. All Hartford artists and creatives are invited to join this discussion. This event is sponsored by the City of Hartford and is free to attend (with registration).
Register here for May 6.
We will be playing this movie every day from Friday, May 2 to Thursday, May 8. Advance tickets are available for all other showtimes here. — “Compelling…. Jeremy Workman’s documentary looks back at a project that may sound like a joke but had serious underpinnings.” -Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times “Upon first glance, Jeremy Workman’s Secret Mall Apartment tells a bizarre story about artists who created and lived in an apartment in their local mall. But at its core, the film offers unique insights into gentrification, consumerism, and the impermanence of art.” – The Austin Chronicle “A hugely entertaining and insightful doc about issues/art that will force you to think while you laugh.” – Ken Burns 100% on Rotten Tomatoes —
Imagine living rent-free in a mall for four years—hidden in plain sight, just beyond the food court. That’s what a group of artists pulled off in the early 2000s. Director Jeremy Workman brings their astonishing true story to the screen in Secret Mall Apartment.
Workman—an Emmy-nominated, Academy Award-shortlisted, SXWS Jury Grand Prize-winning director and filmmaker—has edited multiple Oscar montages and Lifetime Achievements tributes and has featured some of his films on Netflix.
Produced by actor and fellow filmmaker Jesse Eisenberg, Secret Mall Apartment chronicles the covert creation of a fully functional living space inside a Rhode Island mall, a subversive experiment in urban squatting and artistic rebellion.
Presenting in partnership with the Hartford Public Library…Please join us on Saturday, April 26, 4:00 pm for a conversation with author Dr. Maria Sirois to celebrate the launch of her new book, The Generous Exchange: How Attention to Beauty, Goodness, and Excellence Restores Us and Our World.
“Maria Sirois is a healer, of people and of communities. And when she turns her attention and voice to healing our global village, I feel more optimistic about what lies ahead. This profound book is a gift to you and to our shared future.” – Tal Ben Shahar, Ph.D, author of Happier, No Matter What — PROGRAM: 4:00 PM: Interview with the author 4:30 PM: Interactive audience activity 4:45 PM: Q&A 5:15 PM: Book Signing — This event is FREE to the public and requires advance registration. Books will be sold onsite on the day of the event, courtesy of River Bend Bookshop. Concessions will be open and available if guests want to purchase beverages, popcorn, and snacks. — 
Maria Sirois, Psy.D. has spent more than three decades in the board rooms of businesses, the bedsides of the dying, and everywhere in between – to do one thing: offer the data, stories, tools and perspectives that enable us to cultivate resilience, health, wisdom and a greater capacity to lead ourselves and others well – no matter the strain or suffering of the moment. As a resilience expert, positive psychologist and international consultant, she is known for her authenticity, wisdom and compassion. She is the author of three books: the newly released, The Generous Exchange: How Attention to Beauty, Goodness and Excellence Restores Us and Our World, A Short Course in Happiness After Loss (And Other Dark, Difficult Times) and Every Day Counts. Learn more about Maria Sirois here. “One red square can change your entire perception of the world.” – Science.org
In his new documentary, OBSERVER, filmmaker Ian Cheney (THE ARC OF OBLIVION, KING CORN, THE SEARCH FOR GENERAL TSO, THE CITY DARK) embarks on an experiment in which he brings a series of keen eyed observers – scientists, artists, a hunter – to a range of locations around the world, often without telling them where they are going, and asks them simply to describe what they see.
What unfolds is a deep exploration and celebration of the power of observation: What happens when you find new ways to sense and perceive the world around you?
With customary whimsy and a small painted red square that Cheney brings on every journey, the film is an invitation for viewers to find beauty and meaning in even the most quotidian of locales.
— You’re invited to join us on Sunday, April 27, 12:30 pm for a one-of-a-kind screening and experience. We will host the screening in our cinema, and Trinity College Professor Susan Masino will lead an outdoor activity after the movie. Event toolkits will be provided for ticket holders who purchased the full experience package. A bus will transport the group to an offsite location near the UConn School of Law campus. Real Art Ways is one of several select theaters participating in this screening and event series nationwide. We are thrilled to offer this experience, especially as it coincides with the 2025 City Nature Challenge!
We are proudly presenting this screening as part of Science on Screen, an initiative of the Coolidge Corner Theatre, in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science on Screen® is a film series that features “creative pairings of classic, cult, and documentary films with lively introductions by notable figures from the world of science, technology, and medicine.”
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ABOUT IAN CHENEY (DIRECTOR) Ian Cheney received bachelor’s & master’s degrees from Yale and an MFA in filmmaking from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. His twelve feature-length films prior to Observer (2025) include King Corn (2007), The City Dark (2010), The Search for General Tso (2014), The Most Unknown (2018), Picture a Scientist (2020), The Arc of Oblivion (2023), and Shelf Life (2024). He has helmed Wicked Delicate Films since 2003. A former MacDowell Fellow & Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, he has taught at Yale College and the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy, but is not a very focused teacher. He lives in Maine. IAN CHENEY FILMOGRAPHY King Corn (2007), The Greening of Southie (2008), Big River (2009), Truck Farm (2010), The City Dark (2011), World Fair (2012), The Melungeons (2013), The Search for General Tso (2014), Moon Mirrors (2015), Bluespace (2015), The Smog of the Sea (2016), The Measure of a Fog (2017), The Most Unknown (2018), The Emoji Story (2019), Thirteen Ways (2019), Picture a Scientist (2020), The Long Coast (2020), The Arc of Oblivion (2023), Shelf Life (2024), Observer (2025) — Learn more about Observer: https://www.observerfilm.org/ Meet the Observers Join us Thursday, April 17, from 6 to 9 PM for our Creative Cocktail Hour.
Admission is free.
We’ll have music, a food truck, custom cocktails, hands-on art-making activities, and exhibitions on view!
But most importantly, you’ll be there!
Solo Exhibitions:
Thin Ice by Joseph Slominski Distant Bystander by Priya N. Green Shadows Taller Than Our Souls by Christa WhittenOn View:
Real Wall: Bethani Blake False/Idle by Doug Beattie (2FL 56 Arbor) DJ (6:00 -7:30 PM) Kasey Cortez
Live Music (7:30 – 9:00 PM)
Evan Wood & The Blueprint
Food:
Fuego PicanteSaturday, March 15, at 7 pm – Real Art Ways, in partnership with the Greater Hartford Arts Council, Hartford Jazz Society, Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz, Artists Collective, WWUH, Jackie McLean Institute at The Hartt School, and Hartford Public Library, presents a concert and community celebration featuring the Curtis Brothers & Friends!
On February 2, 2025, pianist-composer Zaccai Curtis, along with his bandmates Luques Curtis, Willie Martinez, Camilo Molina and Reinaldo De Jesus, achieved their first-ever GRAMMY® win for Zaccai Curtis’ album Cubop Lives! in the Best Latin Jazz Album category. Released on Truth Revolution Recording Collective last May, Cubop Lives! is a vibrant homage to the Afro-Cuban Jazz and Bebop tradition, performed by the renowned rising star. This award represents a significant milestone in Zaccai’s career, and we are incredibly proud of these superb musicians.Performing on Saturday, March 15, are:
Zaccai Curtis – piano Luques Curtis – bass Reinaldo De Jesus – percussion Willie Martinez – timbales Marcos Torres – percussion Special guest Jeremy Bosch – fluteDamian Curtis & Friends:
Damian Curtis – piano Benny Velasquez – bass Miguel Rios – drums Nelson Bello – congas Ray Gonzalez – trumpet Anthony De Leon – trombone
This event is made possible with generous support from the Greater Hartford Arts Council. WWUH is the official media sponsor for the event. 
Zaccai Curtis is an acclaimed recording artist and producer, recently honored with the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album. He leads his own groups, the Zaccai Curtis Quintet and Sonido Solar, and after five successful releases, is set to drop his new album Sonoluminescence in 2025. Together with his brother, Luques, Zaccai co-founded the record label TRRcollective, a collaborative space for musicians to produce and release their own music. He is proud to have produced the Grammy-nominated album Entre Colegas by Andy González (2016).
A native of Connecticut, Zaccai moved to New York City in 2005, where he has performed with renowned artists including Christian Scott, Donald Harrison, Santana, Cindy Blackman, Eddie Palmieri, Brian Lynch, the Mambo Legends, and Avery Sharpe. In addition to his performance career, Zaccai is a respected educator, teaching at the University of Hartford’s Jackie McLean Jazz Studies Division and Western Connecticut State University. He is also an author, having written two instructional books: Art of the Guajeo and Theory of the Common Voicing, which support students in their Jazz and Latin Jazz studies.
A three-time ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award winner, Zaccai is a prolific composer and arranger for his own groups, as well as artists like Little Johnny Rivero, Steve Kroon, and Sonido Solar. His quartet was chosen by the U.S. State Department for the American Music Abroad (Jazz Ambassadors) program twice, touring South Asia in 2006. In 2007, he received the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism’s Artist Fellowship for original composition. In 2017, he was awarded the Chamber Music America’s New Jazz Works grant, and in 2020, he was named Rising Star in the DownBeat Critics Poll.
Join us on Friday, March 14, 6:30 pm for a conversation with author Ethan Rutherford to celebrate the launch of his new book, North Sun, or the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther.
“NORTH SUN is a deeply wonderful, strange and magnificent book. I swam through its unique pages with glee and horror and joy and came up for air gasping at what a deeply brilliant writer Ethan Rutherford is. The novel is completely exhilarating.”- Edward Carey, author of Little, The Swallowed Man, and Edith Holler: A Novel “This book is bonkers and I loved every rollicking, awkward, solemn, gorgeously written, isolated, melancholic, beautiful moment I spent with Arnold Lovejoy, his thoughts, his crew, the unending ice, and the sea, the empty-not-so-empty sea. Ethan Rutherford’s NORTH SUN is a damn harrowing sorrowful delight.”—Manuel Gonzales, author of The Miniature Wife and The Regional Office is Under Attack! “Haunting, hallucinatory, and unrelentingly gorgeous, NORTH SUN feels as real as a history and as strange as a myth. The depths of Rutherford’s imagination left me enraptured and unsettled. This is the kind of book that will keep talking to you long after you’ve finished reading.” – Jennifer duBois, author of The Last Language “I don’t know how, but Ethan Rutherford did it: He wrote Moby Dick for our times.”- Emily Barton, author of Brookland and The Book of Esther “The evocative first novel from Rutherford (after the story collection Farthest South) depicts the end of the whaling era in the late 1870s. Worn-out captain Arnold Lovejoy is tasked by whaling baron Mr. Ashley with retrieving his son-in-law, Benjamin Leander, who’s gone native on the Alaskan coast after his ship was crushed by the ice, leaving his wife Sarah and their frail child behind. Accompanying Captain Lovejoy aboard the whaleship Esther are two others with tasks of their own: mysterious passenger Edmund Thule and a presence unseen by most, a seabird-man spirit named Old Sorrel who begins to haunt the crew halfway through the voyage. As Lovejoy sails the Esther to the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska in search of Leander, his crew hunts whales for oil and sport. Chronicling in brisk and poetic prose their numerous travails, needless deaths, and hidden perversions, Rutherford plumbs the depths men will sink to in extracting what they desire from nature and their fellow man. This harsh and stark ballad of a bygone time will move readers.” – Publishers Weekly — PROGRAM: 6:00 – Doors Open 6:30 – 6:45 – Poet Clare Rossini will open the program 6:45 – 7:15 – Ethan will show a short presentation and read an excerpt from North Sun 7:15 – 8:00 PM – Book signing Music courtesy of Sinan Bakir — This event is FREE to the public, but will require advance registration. Books will be sold onsite by River Bend Bookshop, on the day of the event. Concessions will be open and available if guests want to purchase beverages, popcorn, and snacks. — 
(Photo of Ethan Rutherford by Lou Russo) Ethan Rutherford is the author of two story collections—Farthest South and The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories—and for these works has been named a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, a finalist for the John Leonard Prize and CLMP’s Firecracker Award, received honorable mention for the PEN/Hemingway Award, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and was the winner of a Minnesota Book Award. North Sun, or the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther is his first novel. The series takes place in person on the second Wednesday of the month from September 2024 through May 2025. Each night typically begins with a poetry reading featuring regionally or nationally known poets, followed by an open mic featuring readers with one poem (one page).
On Wednesday, March 12, at 7 PM, Riverwood Poetry Series @ Real Art Ways will host Julie Choffel and Richard Michelson. Authors’ books will be available to buy for book signing and conversation. Food and drinks will be available for purchase. Bring a friend! This monthly event is free of charge. Ample parking is available via the 56 Arbor parking lot. —
Richard Michelson’s poetry collections include More Money than God, Battles and Lullabies, and Tap Dancing for the Relatives. He wrote the libretto for the off-Broadway musical theater piece Dear Edvard, and his children’s books have been on the top ten lists of The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and The New Yorker. Michelson has received a National Jewish Book Award. He is the owner of R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, Massachusetts.
— About Riverwood Poetry Series The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc. is a non-profit arts organization committed to promoting and appreciating poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. From their Facebook page: “The Riverwood Poetry Series has innovated many programs since our inception, all free to the public. We provide entertaining and thought-provoking poetry in a relaxed atmosphere.”Join us on Saturday, February 22, 4:00 pm for a conversation with author Kent Dunlap to celebrate the launch of his new book, The Neck: A Natural and Cultural History.
“Attitude and attention, thought and speech, movement and sensation, air and sustenance, they all depend on the neck….Mr. Dunlap’s fascinating discourse travels through anatomy, paleontology, anthropology, the arts, the zoo, museums, medicine, murder and more.” – WSJ A 300-million-year tour of the prominent role of the neck in animal evolution and human culture. Humans give a lot of attention to the neck. We decorate it with jewelry and ties, kiss it passionately, and use it to express ourselves in words and songs. Yet, at the neck, people have also shackled their prisoners, executed their opponents, and slain their victims. Beyond the drama of human culture, animals have evolved their necks into various shapes and uses vital to their lifestyles. The Neck delves into evolutionary time to solve a living paradox—why is our neck so central to our survival and culture but so vulnerable to injury and disease? Biologist Kent Dunlap shows how the neck’s vulnerability is not simply an unfortunate quirk of evolution. Its weaknesses are intimately connected to the vessels, pipes, and glands that make it vital to existence. Fun and far-reaching, The Neck explores the diversity of forms and functions of the neck in humans and other animals and shows how this small anatomical transition zone has been a locus of incredible evolutionary and cultural creativity. — PROGRAM: 4:00 – 4:30 – Refreshments 4:30 – 5:00 – Kent will be interviewed by Tema Kaiser Silk from New England Public Media 5:00 – 5:30 – Audience Q&A 5:30 – 6:00 – Book signing — This event is FREE to the public, but will require advance registration. Books will be sold onsite by River Bend Bookshop, on the day of the event. Concessions will be open and available if guests want to purchase beverages, popcorn, and snacks. — 
Photo by Nick Caito Kent Dunlap is a Professor of Biology at Trinity College in Hartford, where he teaches physiology and anatomy and researches the neurobiology and behavior of fish (animals without necks!). In the summers, he makes pottery and sculpts ceramic animals. “Robert Carl’s music, to my ear at least, has always felt like the work of a particularly sensitive sonic observer of the world. Originally a student of history before he refocused his efforts into music, his interest in time, memory, and space are veins running through his compositions, his work more given to conjuring imagery than narrative plot. And whether inspiration is mined in the wake of a seascape or travelers on a speeding bullet train, the resulting music tends to carry a distinct organic beauty and rich, encompassing depth.” – Julia Lu, NewMusicBox Robert Carl has been in Hartford for 40 years, and while he has been all over the world presenting his music, this has been his home base. He’s also had a similarly long relationship with Real Art Ways, going back to the 1980s. This concert celebrates Robert’s time here with a program of five recent pieces. Three were released last year on a CD by Neuma Records, featuring live acoustic instruments with computer-assisted electronic accompaniment. The other two are world premieres! 
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— Program:
1. Updraft (2013) for trombone and electroacoustic accompaniment Matt Russo, trombone 2. Splectar (2021) for electric guitar with Max-computer processing Matt Sargent (co-composer) 3. Infinity Avenue (2015) for open-form ensemble Robert Carl, laptop Steve Bonacci, saxophone Matt Sargent, electric guitar Kyle Grimm, contrabass 4. Wanderers* for extended pianist (2023) Robert Carl, piano 5. Haiku from a Horrible Year* for soprano and five instruments (2020) Texts by William Deatherage Gilda Lyons, soprano Allison Hughes, flute Alex Kollias, clarinet Selah Kwak, violin Roselyn Hobbs, viola Kyle Grimm, contrabass *Premiere —
Robert Carl’s music is performed regularly throughout the US and abroad. It concentrates on solo, chamber, orchestral, vocal, choral, and electroacoustic media. Its aim is to create a sense of space that provides the listener with a sense of freedom and openness. He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters (the 1998 Charles Ives Fellowship as well as a 2106 Arts & Letters Award).
Residencies include MacDowell, Yaddo, UCross, Djerassi, Millay, Bogliasco, Camargo, Copland House, Tokyo Wonder Site, and Bellagio. He lived in Japan for three months as an Asian Cultural Council Fellow in 2007.
New World Records has released three CDs of his works (music for strings; electroacoustic pieces inspired by Japan; and large ensemble/orchestral). Neuma has just released a two-disc retrospective featuring music in precise tuning with technological extensions. In 2021, an all-orchestral CD was released by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project; and Harmony, an opera based on the meeting of Charles Ives and Mark Twain, with libretto by Russell Banks, premiered in August 2021.
Robert writes regularly on new music in a variety of forums and magazines and is the author of Terry Riley’s In C (Oxford University Press). In 2016, Bloomsbury Press released Jonathan Kramer’s posthumous text Postmodern Music, Postmodern Listening, which Mr. Carl edited. In fall 2020, Bloomsbury also published a book of his essays titled Music Composition in the 21st Century: A Practical Guide to the New Common Practice.
He was chair of Composition at The Hartt School, University of Hartford, from 1992-2022. In Fall 2022, he was Slee Professor of Music at the University at Buffalo.
Learn more about Robert here: http://www.robertcarlcomposer.com