venangago-go: South African awards, Titusville's Panda Lady, and poets in Meadville

After my query regarding what Grammy was won by St Stephen School artist in residence, Clarabelle van Niekerk, intrepid reader and Oil City Arts Champ, Joann Wheeler writes, "...There is a South African Grammy equivalent called the SARIE..." In addition, she found (and translated(!)...this is why she's the Art Champ, people) an article " . . . in Afrikaans.. . . interviewer JK says [to Niekerk], "Your last album, Call of the Angels, appeared in 1993. Isn't the next CD going to appear until 2010?" The 1993 title [of the album] Roep van die Engele appears as a catchword, an mp3 download, etc., so it looks like it was quite well-known in South Africa. She's also listed in a group of famous members of the South African diaspora in an essay."

Greenwood has released the cover of my new book, Masterpieces of Beat Literature . So...bully for me, I guess.

More than a year ago, I asked the question, why don't more people talk about Titusville resident Ruth McCombs Harkness who brought the first panda to the United States for an American zoo? Now someone is. Marilyn Robb, board member of the Crawford County Historical Society, drawing from The Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of the First American Explorer to Bring Back China's Most Exotic Animal , will present “The Panda Lady from Titusville.” Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Barco-Duratz meeting room at the Crawford County Historical Society headquarters on Chestnut Street in Meadville. Access is from the East Street entrance. Parking is available and the room is handicapped accessible.

Daniel L. Baughman, (aka C Wolf), the author of Growing Beneath a Waning Sun ,left a comment suggesting that my post on his book was a little too snarky. If it was, my apologies. He seems like a nice guy, and I look forward to reading his book.

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette profiles Tioneta's Sherman Memorial Lighthouse. I'll admit it - I've seen it, and I don't get it.

Allegheny Prof Kerry Neville Bakken's short story collection, Necessary Lies, has won the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction.

In other Gator news, authors Alessandra Lynch and Eric Schwerer will read from their work at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 16 in the Tillotson Room of Allegheny College's Tippie Alumni Center at Cochran Hall.
Alessandra Lynch is the author of Sails the Wind Left Behind:
from her poem "Where I live":

I live in a past passage of the rageful crow
and its stalkfirst feet;
it has staked my sleep
and forced me to crawl through flamethrown dawn.

I begin my day in slow burn,
the stove unlit and the flower's mouth stuffed
with bribecloth and weep.

I begin stacking wood in a miniature village
wearing the flint of wake and the stone of sleep.

I live in a sleeve of love which won't have me
leaning against moonhay which don't love me
strumming a stack-tune in three-fingered rain.

Eric Schwerer the author of two books of poetry, Whittling Lessons and The Saint of Withdrawal. The program is free and open to the public

The Erie Times News profiles the rejuvinated Meadville Art Council.

The Vindicator announces plans for a student film festival in New Castle: