In celebration of Frank Gaspar’s new book, The Poems of Renata Ferreira, the publication of the latest issue of No 32 Luso-American Literature and Culture Today and the 46th anniversary of the Portuguese Carnation Revolution, a ground-breaking global virtual literary reading was held on Saturday, April 25th, 2020.
Organized by Professor Christopher Larkosh and sponsored by Tagus Press, the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture and the College of Arts and Sciences (UMass Dartmouth) The LusoDiasporic Literary event featured Luso writers and was broadcast via Zoom.
The scheduled lineup included both established and emerging writers: Antonio Ladeira, Hugo dos Santos, Elaine Avila, PaulA Neves, Amy Sayre Baptista, Carlo Matos, Lara Gularte, Emanuel Melo, Humberto da Silva, Nancy Vieira Couto, Millicent Borges Accardi, Bobby Martinez, Elaine Ávila, Irene Marques, and the featured writer, Frank X Gaspar.
Available here.
In the audience were VIPs like Prof. Frank F. Sousa from UMass Lowell’s Saab Center for Portuguese Studies, Prof. Cristiana Bastos from U. of Lisbon’s Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE), Dr. Damares Barbosa from the University of São Paulo, Dr. Emanuel de Melo from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) in Toronto, Dr. Jo-Anne Ferreira, Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of the West Indies, in St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago, and Dr. Carmen Ramos Villar from the University of Sheffield in the UK.
The event was available free online in its entirety. Writers Antonio Ladeira, Bobby, and Irene Marques read work volume 32 of the Luso-American Literature and Culture Today journal, and Drs. de Melo and Ferreira were assistant editors for the issue to ensure editorial representation from Canada and the Caribbean.
All together, over sixty participants from seven countries, including most of the major Portuguese-American population centers in the US (southern New England, New Jersey, California and Hawaii) and Canada (Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver) turned in to the virtual literary reading.
Available here.
Future Lusoliterary events are being planned at UMass for the last weekend of the fiscal year in June. Being discussed are a morning Luso-Canadian Crossborder Forum with Irene Marquez, Emanuel Melo, a Lusodiasporic Creative Writing Workshop, led by Portuguese-American authors Frank Gaspar and Carlo Matos, a cookout hosted by Chris Larkosh in East Providence, RI, an evening reading at a bookstore in Providence, where Frank and other invitees will read from their literary works, an all-day excursion to Provincetown, where Frank Gaspar’s formal book launch will be held, a guided walk- around tour of Provincetown, highlighting landmarks mentioned in The Poems of Renata Ferreira.
Submitted By Millicent Accardi
