Brian Dempster




Artist resident alumni read poetry at Villa Montalvo

By Shari Kaplan

Five former artist residents are converging at Villa Montalvo for the Alumni Poetry Reading, a free event, on July 16, at 2 p.m. in the Montalvo Carriage House Theatre, 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga.

Brian Komei Dempster, a San Franciscan, holds a master's of fine arts in creative writing from the University of Michigan. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Green Mountain Review, Quarterly West, Crab Orchard Review and The Asian Pacific Journal, the latter earning him a nomination for the Pushcart Prize.

Recently, the California Civil Liberties Education Program and the Zellerbach Family Fund awarded him grants. The grants will enable him to edit and publish an anthology of creative writing by members of the internment- camp-autobiography-writing class, which he teaches at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California.



Joann Gardner




Joann Gardner is an associate professor of English at Florida State University. She is the associate director of Anhinga Press and director of Runaway with Words, a poetry workshop for runaway and homeless youths.

Her poems have appeared in such journals as Seneca Review, Small Press Magazine, Writers' Forum and Tampa Review. She is currently working on her first collection of poetry, titled The Highway Back Home Means Remembering. She plans to read excerpts from this work at the Montalvo event.



Glori Simmons




Another San Franciscan, Glori Simmons, earned her M.F.A. from the same university as Dempster. Her poems have appeared in many literary publications, including Beloit Poetry Journal, Quarterly West and Black Warrior Review.

Simmons' most recent project is completing Manifesto for the Hands--her first poetry collection. Hands are a theme that enters many of Simmons' poems, which explore the work of female hands both literally and metaphorically. Simmons holds the 2000 Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.



Melissa Stein




A multiple award-winner at Villa Montalvo's Biennial Poetry Competition, Melissa Stein was a Montalvo artist resident in 1998 and has just returned from a residency at the MacDowell Colony. A freelance editor and writer, Stein lives in San Francisco. Her poems have appeared in several anthologies and many journals, including American Poetry Review, Calyx, Many Mountains Moving, Faultline, American Literary Review and Blue Mesa Review.



Eileen Tabios




Eileen Tabios recently released her latest book, co-edited by Nick Carbo, titled Babaylan: An Anthology of Filipina and Filipina-American Writers. She is also the author of the poetry collection Beyond Life Sentences, which received the Philippines' National Book Award for Poetry; and a collection of poetry essays and interviews titled Black Lightning, which earned her a Witter Bynner Poetry Grant.

Tabios has also edited The Anchored Angel: Selected Writings of Jose Garcia Villa. Over the next few months, she plans to release a poetry and prose collection called Ecstatic Mutations and a poetry CD project called The Empty Flagpole.

The international, multidisciplinary Artist Residency Program brings up to 30 artists per year to Montalvo. They participate in a working residency for one to three months in a setting that gives them privacy, time for creative reflection and interartist dialogue. During open studios they also are able to meet the public. Montalvo is in the process of building a new Artist Residency complex scheduled to open in 2002. It will house up to 10 artists at one time. Villa Montalvo is at 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga. For more information, call 408.961.5818.

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