KGB Bar

Rebecca Gayle Howell is a poet, translator, and documentarian. She is the recipient of the Jules Chametzky Prize in Literary Translation, a poetry fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center, and longterm support from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Her latest book, Amal al-Jubouri’s Hagar Before the Occupation/Hagar After the Occupation (Alice James Books Translation Series, 2011) was listed by the Library Journal as a best book of 2011 and a finalist for Three Percent’s Best Translated Book Award. Her poems appear in Ninth Letter, Ecotone, 32 Poems, storySouth, Indiana Review and others. Howell received her MFA in poetry and poetry in translation from Drew University and is currently a PhD candidate at Texas Tech University.

Irina Mashinski is a bilingual poet and translator, the author of eight books of poetry in Russian, and the recipient of Russian America (2001) and Maximilian Voloshin (2003) First Prizes. Mashinski’s work has appeared in a variety of literary publications, including Poetry International, Fulcrum, Zeek, The London Magazine, and An Anthology of Contemporary Russian Women Poets (University of Iowa Press, 2005). She is the co-editor (with Robert Chandler) of the forthcoming Anthology of Russian Poetry from Pushkin to Brodsky (Penguin, 2014), as well as the co-founder (with the late Oleg Woolf) and co-editor (with Robert Chandler and Oleg Woolf) of Cardinal Points literary journal (www.StoSvet.net), published in the U.S. in both English and Russian. Irina Mashinski holds a Ph.D. in Physical Geography and Paleoclimatology from Lomonosov Moscow State University and an M.F.A. in poetry from New England College.

Roy Nathanson is a saxophonist/composer/poet, who combines text and music in a variety of ways.  The co-founder (with trombonist Curtis Fowlkes) of “The Jazz Passengers,” Nathanson has co/written songs for artists such as Elvis Costello, Debbie Harry, Jeff Buckley, and Mavis Staples. More recently, his song cycle ”The Fire at Keaton’s Bar and Grille” premiered at Saint Anne’s Warehouse and was performed at the Royal festival Hall in London (filmed by the British Arts Channel).  In 2003 his Radio Play “You’re the Fool,” a story of how Nathanson and his Alzheimer’s disabled father communicated through saxaphones, was produced by ”The Next Big Thing” on Public Radio International.  While completing his MFA in poetry at the New England College, he started the band “Sotto Voce,” with the focus of moving between instrument sounds, and human sounds like beat boxing or poetry or singing; he has produced two CD’s with this ensemble. Nathanson is the recipient of A Bessie and Joseph Jefferson Award for composition and two NYFA grants; his commissions include the NEA, The Rockefeller Fund, Meet the Composer, and others.