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BCCC’s Wordsmiths Reading Series Continues September 22
The Wordsmiths Reading Series, one of the longest-running cultural events at Newtown-based Bucks County Community College, continues its proud tradition of live readings with three exciting gatherings for the fall 2023 season.
On Friday, September 22, at 7:30 p.m., poets Joanna Fuhrman and Lynn Levin will read selected poems in room 142 of the historic Tyler Hall on the Newtown campus.
Fuhrman, an assistant teaching professor in creative writing at Rutgers University, is the author of six books of poetry, most recently To a New Era (Hanging Loose Press, 2021). Fuhrman’s next book Data Mind, a collection of prose poems about the internet, is forthcoming from Curbstone/ Northwestern University Press in 2024. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming on The Slowdown podcast and in The Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Poetry 2023. Last year, Fuhrman became a co-editor of Hanging Loose Press after publishing with them since she was a teenager.
Levin, a poet and writer, is the author of nine books, most recently House Parties (Spuyten Duyvil), her debut collection of short fiction. Philadelphia Magazine calls the stories “vivid, funny, and quietly powerful” and says, “House Parties may break your heart, but it’ll never do it the same way twice.”
A Bucks County poet laureate and winner of the Bucks County Short Fiction Contest, Levin has published stories, poems, essays, and translations in Valparaiso Fiction Review, Elm Leaves Journal, Cleaver, Boulevard, Southwest Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Mandorla, and other places. She lives in Southampton, Pennsylvania and teaches at Drexel University.
The next reading in the fall series, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, October 20, will feature poets Patricia Smith and Hayden Saunier.
The final reading for the fall comes on Sunday, November 12, at 1 p.m. when poet Courtney Bambrick and the still-to-be-chosen 2023 Bucks County Poet Laureate will read selected works.
Dr. Ethel Rackin, a Language and Literature professor at the College, is the director of the Wordsmiths Reading Series and Poet Laureate Program. Dr. Rackin has been organizing these public collaborations since 2010, shortly after she began her teaching career at Bucks.
The first Wordsmiths reading was in the 1960s, and featured Allen Ginsburg strumming on his guitar, and chanting verses to the audience as they swayed sitting on top of cushions on the floor. Since then, the series has featured dozens of outstanding and respected poets over the years. In recent years, the series has also featured renowned fiction writers. Poets featured in the series have won a host of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book award, and the PEN Literary Award.
For more information on the Wordsmiths Reading Series, contact Dr. Rackin at Ethel.Rackin@bucks.edu.
Bucks County Short Fiction Contest is Open for Entries
The Fall 2023 Bucks County Short Fiction Contest is open for entries from Bucks County residents who are 18 or older and are not employees of Bucks County Community College. The deadline for submissions is 12 p.m. on Thursday, October 19, 2023.
The top three winners will receive gift cards of $200, $100, and $50, and will share their work at a celebratory reading in November with this fall’s final judge, writer Emma Copley Eisenberg, attending.
Stories must be previously unpublished, including in blogs and online platforms, and must be submitted online. Complete rules and the submissions link are available on the Bucks County Short Fiction Contest page.
Eisenberg’s first book, “The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia,” is a work of hybrid nonfiction that mixes memoir, cultural criticism, and reporting. It was named a New York Times Notable Book and Editor’s Choice of 2020. Her debut novel, “Housemates,” will be released by Hogarth Books, a division of Random House, in June of 2024.
She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Wesleyan University, and has taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr College, Temple University, and the University of Virginia, where she received her MFA in fiction. Raised in New York City, she lives in Philadelphia, where she co-founded and now serves on the board of Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts.
The Bucks County Short Fiction Contest receives funding and administrative support from the Department of Language and Literature at Bucks County Community College. For further information, contact the contest director, Professor Elizabeth Luciano, at elizabeth.luciano@bucks.edu.
BCCC’s Brewing & Fermentation Science Program Partners With Moss Mill Brewing
BCCC’s Brewing & Fermentation Science Program Partners With Moss Mill Brewing Company to Release Centurion Ale
The STEM Department at Bucks County Community College is excited to announce the release of Centurion Ale, an exploratory beer release made possible by a collaboration between Bucks County Community College’s Brewing & Fermentation Science Program and Moss Mill Brewing Company in Huntingdon Valley, PA.
Centurion Ale, named after the College’s mascot and sports teams, was made with several malted barley grains from Proximity Malt; German Tettnang hops; and a German ale yeast strain. It has a deep amber color with an ABV of about 5.5%. The flavor is one of malt (biscuit) with just enough hop bitterness producing a well-balanced beer. Amber in color, Centurion Ale is available now on tap at Moss Mill Brewing Company as well as in canned 4-packs to-go. The artwork for the can was selected via a county-wide contest and the winner was Susan Alexander of Quakertown.
The College offers an associate of applied science degree in Brewing & Fermentation Science—the only brewing science associate degree in the Philadelphia metro area—to prepare students for employment within the brewing and/or fermentation industries. Students must be at least 21 years of age prior to registering for courses involving beer production. To learn more about the 60-65 credit program, visit the Brewing & Fermentation Science page.
Bucks County Community College and Moss Mill Brewing Company anticipate that this will be an ongoing partnership, with each new Brewing & Fermentation Science cohort having the opportunity to be a part of the brewing process.
Moss Mill is located at 109 Pike Circle, Unit D, Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006, and is open Wednesday and Thursday from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sunday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
BCCC Hosted Its Second Annual President’s New Student Convocation
Continuing the tradition launched last year, Bucks County Community College (BCCC) held the Second Annual President’s New Student Convocation on Thursday, August 31 at the Newtown Campus (275 Swamp Road, Newtown, PA 18940) in the Gymnasium. Convocation is the official introduction to academic life at the College and welcomes new students and their families with a ceremony to mark the milestone.
BCCC’s president, Dr. Felicia Ganther, introduced the inaugural event in 2022. “The start of our students’ academic journeys is an exciting time for them and for the College— it’s a new beginning, the next step on their pathway to their educational and life goals—and the entire college community is happy to celebrate the occasion.”
This year’s keynote speaker was Bucks County native Karen Gross, founder of She Rocked It, a media and mentorship platform, who was accompanied by acclaimed musician Tim Motzer. Together, the duo presented the Rock-It Roadmap™, a series of six lessons for a courageous life, education, and career. Through words and music, Gross energized the new students to raise their unique voices, follow their audacious dreams, and build a supportive community at Bucks.
“We’re proud to keep this tradition going for our new students and really let them know how monumental this moment is in their academic careers,” said Dr. Rodney Altemose, Interim Associate Vice President of Student Affairs at BCCC. “The start of a new academic year is always an exciting time, and we’re celebrating in true Bucks style.”
BCCC Launches 47th Bucks County Poet Laureate Competition
The search is on for the 47th annual Bucks County Poet Laureate, according to Bucks County Community College (BCCC) Professor Ethel Rackin, Ph.D., director of the longest-running poet laureate program in Pennsylvania.
The contest is open to Bucks County residents over the age of 18 who have not previously served as poet laureate, said Rackin, who teaches language and literature at BCCC, where the program is based.
Each entrant must submit 10 original poems of any style or length along with an entry form to the college’s Language and Literature Department. Entries must be submitted online by Friday, September 8, 2023. The winner receives a $500 honorarium, a proclamation from the Bucks County Commissioners, and will be featured at a Fall reading and reception at Bucks County Community College with the previous year’s poet laureate, Tom Mallouk.
Poetry of any kind is welcome. The entry requires 10 poems, any style, form, or length. All work must be original, published or unpublished, typewritten or word-processed, one poem per page, in black ink. The poems and entry form must be submitted online. There is no charge to enter the contest, but there is a limit of one entry per person.
Two judges will blindly select the winner. The preliminary judge will narrow the entries down to a few dozen for the final judge, who will choose the winner and three runners-up from the pool of finalists.
The 2023 final judge will be Joanna Fuhrman. Fuhrman, an assistant teaching professor in creative writing at Rutgers University, is the author of six books of poetry, most recently To a New Era (Hanging Loose Press, 2021). Fuhrman's next book Data Mind, a collection of prose poems about the internet, is forthcoming from Curbstone/ Northwestern University Press in 2024. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming on The Slowdown podcast and in The Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Poetry 2023. Last year—after publishing with them since she was a teenager, Fuhrman became a co-editor of Hanging Loose Press.
The preliminary judge will be Courtney Bambrick. Bambrick is poetry editor at Philadelphia Stories. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Inkwell, Invisible City, New York Quarterly, Beyond Words, The Fanzine, Philadelphia Poets, Apiary, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Mad Poets Review, and Certain Circuits. She teaches writing at Thomas Jefferson University’s East Falls campus in Philadelphia.
The Bucks Poet Laureate Program is one of the oldest in the country. It also holds a High School Poet Contest every spring, yet another way that Bucks County Community College contributes to the cultural heritage of the region.
For more information, contact Ethel Rackin at ethel.rackin@bucks.edu.
Evolve Arrives to Sculpture Walk on Newtown Campus
The Hicks Art Center Gallery is thrilled to announce the recent addition of Wendy Liss’ Evolve to the Sculpture Walk on the Newtown Campus of Bucks County Community College. Evolve by Wendy Liss is the latest addition to the Sculpture Walk on the Newtown Campus of Bucks County Community College. In the fall of 2022, Clifford Eberly, Exhibitions Associate at the Hicks Art Center Gallery began a conversation with Liss and invited her to create an original piece for the site after researching sculptors in the region and seeing a video of her discussing her site-specific installation at Sculpture in the Glen III, located in Gladwyne outside Philadelphia in the fall 2021.
Eberly explained, “What struck me about Wendy’s approach to placing her sculpture, Presence, was how she responded to the environment by finding a tree trunk in situ for the base and adding moss to make it appear as though the clay body was born out of the ground.”
In her studio, Liss and Eberly discussed the location and scale of the campus site, and Liss set about making drawings and creating maquettes for the piece after several site visits. She collaborated with Tom Ransom, a metal fabricator, who created the steel support portal that is bolted to the salvaged base of the sculpture. Evolve is a site-specific work and is brilliantly positioned so when viewed from a distance or up close, the steel ring shifts its visual volume from a thick curving ribbon to a thin encircling orange line contrasting with the sky while framing the rhythmic organic shape of the ceramic elements within.
Inspired by nature and the human figure, Liss works out of her studio in the suburbs of Philadelphia where her creative process is driven by the energy and environment that surrounds her.
Liss earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (‘84) and an Art Education Certification (‘85) from Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, PA. Her work is shown throughout the Mid-Atlantic region and is available through InLiquid, The Art Shop at Moore College of Art and Design, and Parisa Rugs & Decor in Old City, Philadelphia. Currently she is exhibiting in Claybash at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, NJ on view until September 3. On First Friday in October 2023 her work will be featured at Parisa Rugs & Decor in Old City, Philadelphia.
The community is invited to view Evolve 24 hours a day, 7 days a week located along Linden Lane on the Newtown Campus of Bucks County Community College. To schedule a free Sculpture Walk tour, email Clifford Eberly at gallery@bucks.edu.
