The Digital Bard Returns To Stamford

Poet/storyteller, teacher, business consultant and multifarious cyberspace denizen, John F. McMullen (aka "johnmac the bard") returns to the Stamford area this evening at Curley's to share selections from his newest title, Live At The Freight House, his eighth book featuring material read last February at the historic cafe of the title, located in Mahopic, New York.

In 2009 "Cashing A Check," which won third place in the Writer's Place National Poetry Contest that year, became the title of the first of six poetry collections, followed by A Writing

In My Head (CreateSpace, 2009), offering ruminations on the famous Hudson River Country Store, Guinan's (a favorite watering hole), religion and other topics. The Inwood Book (johnmac Press), an omnibus of poetry, short stories and Offering It Up, a novel—all situated in Manhattan's Inwood section—appeared the following year.

A graduate of Iona College with two Master's degrees from Marist College, John has taught at Monroe College among several other institutions and was named Poet Laureate of Yorktown, New York in 2017.

Coleen Rowley

As John's busy and remarkably varied platform www.johnmac13.com demonstrates, he has fulfilled for himself the potential of the personal computer as a powerful social, informational and creative accelerant (scrolling through the voluminous archive for his Internet radio show alone showcases interviews with the likes of FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, angel investor/cosmonaut Esther Dyson and cartoonist MG Lord), first heralded with the publication of Microcomputer Communications--A Window on the World (John Wiley & Sons), co-authored with his wife Barbara back in 1984.

Serving both the consumer and trade markets since then, John has contributed innumerable stories, articles and columns to The Chicago Tribune, PC Magazine, Computer Shopper, Lear’s, InfoWorld, Government Executive and the National Review.

He is a member of the Association for Computing, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Freelancers Union and lives in Jefferson Valley, New York with his wife (who frequently edits his books). You can find out more about John's other collections and activities here, as well via his Facebook fan page.

Frank Chambers: The Spoken Word "Against The Howling Mob"

As president of the Fairfield County branch of the Connecticut Poetry Society (now, in its forty-fourth year and spanning ten chapters with the addition of Farmington Valley), tomorrow’s featured poet at Curley’s is Frank Chambers, who will be reciting material drawn mainly from his commitment to his family and, in particular, what he terms affectionately as “the four young muses masquerading as children”.

Frank’s Open Mic program, which he has facilitated faithfully for many years each month at the Stamford Barnes & Noble, has been a valuable venue for expressions of hope, humor, honest outrage and humanity by poets and essayists, not just from the immediate vicinity, but from as far as across the nation and the world.

Situated appropriately enough in the downtown Stamford Town Center retail/office complex (itself, just a few years younger than the CPS, publisher of the annual Connecticut River Review), Open Mic’s regular outpourings of creative observation and dissent make for a grounding counterpoint to a city which has become increasingly dizzy in its repeated submission to the celebrated vapidity of corporatized culture, a widespread trend dramatized to disturbing effect in this video version of progressive metal trio Rush's 1993 song "Nobody's Hero":

 

You can revisit the details of past speakers here, here and here.

Frank has placed poetry in such publications as PostScript, Poetry Emerging, Long River Run (the members-only magazine of the CPS), A First Tuesday in Wilton and the 2006 PoemAlley anthology Wednesdays at Curley’s (Turn of River Press).  

Open Mic Poetry begins at 7:15 pm on the second Monday of each month in the DVD and Music section on the main floor of the bookstore in the Stamford Town Center mall:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place, Suite H009
Stamford, CT 06906