Come celebrate Many Mountains Moving: A Literary Journal of Diverse Contemporary Voices, with some of its editors and contributors. MMM was founded by Naomi Horii in 1994 and quickly achieved national recognition. The editors took chances on works that were exciting, brilliant, eccentric, courageous and heartfelt, by unknown and famous writers of all kinds. Work from the journal has appeared in The Best American Poetry and in Pushcart Prize anthologies. This evening’s reading will showcase a range of work from recent issues.

Jeffrey Ethan Lee published identity papers (Ghost Road Press, 2006), a finalist for the Colorado Book Award for poetry. He also published invisible sister (Many Mountains Moving Press, 2004). He also published The Sylf (2003), which won the Sow’s Ear Poetry Review Chapbook prize, and Strangers in a Homeland (Ashland Poetry Press chapbook, 2001). He also created identity papers (2002), a dramatic poem on CD with actress Lori-Nan Engler and percussionist Toshi Makihara. He won the first Tupelo Press Prize for literary fiction for The Autobiography of Somebody Else. He has published poems, stories, and essays in Many Mountains Moving, CrossConnect, North American Review, Crazyhorse, Crab Orchard Review, Washington Square, andAmerican Poetry Review. He has the Ph.D. and MFA from NYU. He is the senior poetry editor for Many Mountains Moving, a journal and small poetry press.

Pedro Ponce teaches fiction writing and contemporary American literature at St. Lawrence University. He is the author of Superstitions of Apartment Life, a chapbook of short fictions (Burnside Review Press) and numerous stories featured in Ploughshares, The Beacon Best of 2001 (edited by Junot Diaz), Hotel St. George, Sleepingfish, DIAGRAM, Quick Fiction, and other publications. He is the recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Project award and a Tara Fellowship for Short Fiction.

Renato Rosaldo writes in English and Spanish. His first book of poetry, Prayer to Spider Woman/Rezo a la mujer ara–a received an American Book Award, 2004. Individual poems have won the El Andar poetry contest, 2000, and theMany Mountains Moving poetry contest, 2005. As a cultural anthropologist at New York University, he is the author ofCulture and Truth.

Thaddeus Rutkowski, current fiction editor of Many Mountains Moving, is the author of the novels Tetched andRoughhouse. Both books were finalists for an Asian American Literary Award. His stories and poems have been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize. He teaches fiction writing at the Writer’s Voice of the West Side YMCA in Manhattan.

Purvi Shah’s first book of poetry, Terrain Tracks (New Rivers Press 2006), won a Many Voices Project prize. Her poetry has been recognized in Asian American and feminist communities and is a counterpart to her social justice advocacy. She serves as Executive Director of Sakhi for South Asian Women, an organization based in New York City which works to end violence against women, and is a board member of the New York Women’s Foundation, a cross-cultural alliance of women helping women funding change. Shah, who earned a Master’s in English from Rutgers University, was recently awarded with a Social Service Achiever of the Year Award from the South Asian Excellence Awards.

$5 suggested donation; open to the public