For Immediate Release

Contact:
City Art Director Joel Long: joeltlong@yahoo.com

Jean Howard and Rebecca Mae to perform at City Art

Salt Lake Public Library Main Branch
210 East 400 South
Salt Lake City UT 84111

Wednesday November 19th, 7:00—9:00 P.M.
 
           
Poets Jean Howard and Rebecca Mae will read from their works on Wednesday, November 19th at 7:00 p.m. at the Salt Lake City Public Library as part of the City Art Reading Series.  This event is free and open to the public.
 
After living in Chicago for 22 years, performance poet, Jean Howard, returned to her hometown, Salt Lake City, Utah in 1999. Her poetry has appeared in Harper's Magazine, The Burning World, Spoon River Review, Chicago Tribune, Spoken Work Revolution, and over one hundred other literary publications.
 
A participant in the original development of the internationally acclaimed "Poetry Slam”, she was awarded two grants for the publication of her book, Dancing In Your Mother's Skin (Tia Chucha Press), a collaborative work with photographer, Alice Hargrave.
 
Howard has performed her poetry at hundreds of venues nationwide, with such diversity as Chicago’s Big Goddess Powwow, the Guggenheim’s  “Art of the Motorcycle Exhibit” at the Field Museum, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, The Harold Washington Cultural Center, the Salt Lake Arts Festival, Utah Humanities Book Festival, as well as churches, coffee shops, mortuaries, art galleries, pet shops, festivals, biker bars and of course the infamous Green Mill where the “Slam” began.
 
 Currently, Jean has served on the Board of Brolly Arts and the Advisory Board of Utah Arts Alliance. She organized the annual National Poetry Video Festival in Chicago for eight years, with her own award-winning video poems airing on PBS, cable TV, and festivals around the nation
 
Rebecca Mae has made a habit of staying alive since 1993. She plans on keeping this healthy habit until it no longer seems necessary. When she is not drinking coffee or smoking cigarettes Rebeca spends her time writing poetry and furiously yelling at walls. This has worked out well for her, Rebeca has represented Salt Lake City in the 2012 Woman of the World Poetry Competition and was a member of the 2013 National Poetry Slam Team. In hopes of finding more poems to write and more walls to yell at Rebeca became the President of the Non-Profit organization The Wasatch Wordsmiths who strive to share the art of spoken word where ever there are walls.
 
City Art is Salt Lake’s longest-running reading series and provides a unique forum for the literary arts during their weekly programs on each of the first three Wednesdays of the month from September to May at the Salt Lake City Public Library.
 
City Art is sponsored by the Utah Arts Council, Catalyst, the Salt Lake City Public Library, Xmission, and the Zoo, Arts, and Park Fund.  This reading is also sponsored by the Utah Humanities Council as part of the Utah Humanities Book Festival. 
 
 
 
 
Joel Long