The Dickinson connection again
In newleaf 18, the Pennsylvania connection is particularly strong. Dickinson College, Carlisle PA, is one of the University of Bremen's oldest international partners, and students from Dickinson have increasingly been part of the Creative Writing scene at Bremen over the last few years. newleaf 18 includes work by two Dickinson final-year students, Kevin Stoehr and Kirsten Mazza, both of whom were members of the writing workshop in the summer. Kirsten also did a very successful internship with newleaf last spring and summer, helping organise all the tenth birthday events and also featuring in the newleaf movie. Check out Dickinson publications on our links page.
Contributing to Bremen's Festlicher Studienauftakt
The University of Bremen's Festlicher Studienauftakt took place on Monday 18th October 2004, the first day of the semester, in the main auditorium of the recently renovated Theater am Goetheplatz and was almost sold out. This event, now in its eighth year, is geared to welcoming first-year students of all faculties - and their parents and families - to university life. The universtity presents its "cultural" side - from the University Orchestra, Choir and Big Band through to sketches by The Parlement of Foules and displays by gymnasts and fire-swallowers. As usual, we were well represented: Henrik Schäfer read his popular "About a Frog" story from number 17; and Ole D. Herlyn read two poems about the "Cafete" in GW2, the second aptly entitled "The First Day of the Semester". Steffi Wiechers and Ian Watson had a bookstall beside the bar in the interval and had some interesting conversations with "Erstis" and others. And we also sold a few mags.
The Dickinson connection
There was an international poetry festival 3rd to 6th October 2004 at Dickinson College, Carlisle PA, organised by the tri-lingual magazine Sirena. newleaf was represented, with Bremen authors Michael Augustin and Sujata Bhatt taking 20 copies of no. 17 over for Anja Pätzold to sell.
Bloomsday Centenary: newleaf contributes to the celebrations
"For millions of people, June 16 is an extraordinary day. On that day in 1904, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom each took their epic journeys through Dublin in James Joyce's Ulysses, the world's most highly acclaimed modern novel. 'Bloomsday', as it is now known, has become a tradition for Joyce enthusiasts all over the world. From Tokyo to Sydney, San Francisco to Buffalo, Trieste to Paris, dozens of cities around the globe hold their own Bloomsday festivities." (http://www.rejoycedublin2004.com/)For the centenary celebrations, and as part of our own tenth birthday festivities, newleaf got together with Nordwestradio (NDR/Radio Bremen) on 16 June 2004 to put on an event at the Thalia book shop on Bremen's main shopping drag, Obernstraße in the city centre. Other participants were Nordwestradio's Gudrun Boch, Jürgen Dierking of the Bremer Literaturkontor and a reading from Bremen author Johann Günther König's Irish Pubs travel book (Insel/Suhrkamp). Our contribution was to read texts about and from Ireland which had appeared in past issues of the magazine. The event played to a large audience and Thalia took copies of newleaf 16, 17 and 18 to sell.
Oscar nomination for newleaf movie - not
June 2004 saw the release of the investigative documentary Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About newleaf And Never Dared To Ask, a fischbach76 production directed by Patricia T. Schultz. Anyone wishing to view this short but traumatically explosive movie (described by the Kasachstan Evening Telegraph as "Godzilla meets Four Weddings and a Funeral") on DVD or video CD (rating PG 3½) should contact the editors. Eat your heart out, Michael Moore.