A COMMON GROUND

Visual/Performing Artists Health/Disability Conference  

Artists in Transition, an organization that works with artists and performers facing physical and/or mental health issues is having its inaugural conference on Sunday, April 11, 2010 from 12 noon - 5:00 pm at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, CT.

We are co-sponsoring the conference, along with over 100 other local, state and national arts, health and advocacy organizations.

Inspiring architect/sculptor Tom Luckey will be the keynote speaking and awesome entertainment will be provided by Our Time Theatre. There will be outstanding networking opportunities and 15 information-packed breakout sessions on diverse subjects such as healthcare, maximizing employment potential, grant writing, etc., plus speakers will include artists and performers who themselves are dealing with health and disability issues and making their art and lives a creative force!

Please consider attending this informational and inspirational event!

Go to www.artistsintransitionUSA.blogspot.com for registration information.

When: Sunday, April 11, 2010

Time: 12-5pm

Place: Western Connecticut State University

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 Meet the Author: January 30, 2010    7:00pm

C. Coco De Young will speak about her book

A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt,

and in addition, will address the role and responsibilities of an author, and to what extent historical research led to her reign as National Hobo Queen. 

About the author:  C. Coco De Young is an award-winning author, freelance writer, storyteller, and speaker.

 “A LETTER TO MRS. ROOSEVELT” is a heartwarming Depression-era episode around a true family story."    -Kirkus Reviews

"This historic novel is successful in conveying the climate of the times. . . . Margo emerges as an admirable heroine."-Publishers Weekly

A Common Ground, 346 Main Street

(rear of the Elks Club building, red door) Parking is plentiful. 

 Wine and nibbles will be served.

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Tuesday, December 15th, 10:30am

Holiday Sing and Sign Along with Ms. Janine!

in Studio II- City Center Dance

Admission FREE for all! 

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Coming soon! Check back for updates.

 Meet the Author

A Common Ground invites you to the third in a series of evenings with Connecticut authors. 

Another Generation, Almost Forgotten "is the type of book that stops you clear in your tracks and transforms you into another time where you become a witness to a man's struggles and triumphs. The struggles and triumphs are so poignant and shocking at times there is no way any human cannot be deeply moved.”   Amazon.com

 From the night the Ku Klux Klan came to hang his father to the afternoon he received an honorary doctorate in recognition of his life's work, Jeff's memoir is a story of human triumph over adversity, a story of individuals who can and do make a difference in the lives of others. Most of all, his memoir reminds us of the extraordinary stories that often lie below the surface of seemingly ordinary lives. 

About the Author:  Jefferson Wiggins is an author, educator, lecturer, mentor and community leader, born in rural Alabama to sharecropper parents.

A Common Ground, 346 Main Street

(rear of the Elks Club building, red door) 

Parking is plentiful.

 Wine and nibbles will be served.

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Momo Kadous: Middle Eastern Dance Workshop

October 3rd and 4th, A Common Ground, 345 Main St., Danbury, CT 

Momo Kadous was born in El Mahalla, Nile Delta, near the center of the Ghawazee "Sumbat" where he studied dance, drama, choreography, tabla and regie since his early youth. As choreographer of the national folklore group "El Mahalla Lel Fenoun El Shabeyah" he experienced great success during his performances in Egyptian theaters and throughout many Arabian countries. In addition, Momo Kadous is an experienced actor and dancer and has worked in cinema and televisions productions in his native country.

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Friday, September 11th, 7:00pm

Meet the Author

NOVELIST Marnie Mueller was the first Caucasian born in the Tule Lake Japanese American Segregation Camp in northern California where her father, a pacifist, and her mother, a teacher, were working during World War II. In 1963 she joined the Peace Corps, reporting for duty on the very day that President Kennedy was assassinated. She spent two years in Guayaquil, Ecuador living and working in a barrio. Subsequently she served as a community organizer in East Harlem, New York, as the Director of Summer Programming for New York City under Mayor John Lindsay, as a producer of rock and folk concerts, and as the Program Director of Pacifica Radio in New York (WBAI).

Drawing on her Peace Corps experience, Marnie Mueller wrote her widely acclaimed first novel, Green Fires: A Novel of the Ecuadorian Rainforest (Curbstone Press, cloth 1994, paper 1999). It was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers choice in 1994, a New York Times Book Review "New and Noteworthy in Paperback" pick in the spring of 1999, and the recipient of various awards, including: A 1995 American Book Award, a 1995 Maria Thomas Award for Outstanding Fiction, and a 1995 Best Books for the Teenage (New York City Public Library). It was optioned for a feature film by Craig Anderson Productions, L.A. A German translation, Grune Feuer, was published by btb of Goldmann/Bertelsmann, Munich in 1996.

With her second novel, The Climate of the Country, set in the Tule Lake Japanese American Camp, Marnie Mueller once again transformed her remarkable personal experience into fiction. The Climate of the Country was published to acclaim by Curbstone Press in 1999. The novel was extensively reviewed both nationally and internationally in the Far East, England, and Italy, in print as well as on such electronic media outlets such as NPR's "Fresh Air." The San Francisco Chronicle/Examiner called it "A powerful and relevant story of love and faith put to the test." The novel was chosen by Paz & Associates as a recommended book for reading groups, and it has been listed widely on required reading lists at high schools and universities as well as in special interest venues such as the National Archives Course Study recommendations on the Japanese American Internment during W.W.II. The Climate of the Country was one of two finalists in the IPPY Awards 2000, and The Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Awards 2000 awarded it an honorable mention. An Italian translation, L'Aria Che Respiravamo, was published in 1999 by Corbaccio of the Longanesi Group, Milan. It was reissued in paper in 2002 by THEA, also of the Longanesi Group, Milan.

Marnie Mueller lectures at high schools and universities, and in special interest venues on subjects related to her novels-the destruction of the rainforest in the Amazon region and the history of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. As a result of her novel Green Fires, her experience in the Peace Corps, and her long history of political activism, Peter Jennings included her in his ABC documentary The Century and also as a first-person "voice of the twentieth century" in his book of the same title.

Her latest novel, My Mother's Island (Curbstone Press 2002) is set in a small community in Puerto Rico where her family lived for twenty years. Again, it was chosen as a recommended book for reading groups by Paz & Associates and was widely reviewed and featured in electronic and print media. It was a BookSense 76 selection. In 2004, as a result of having read My Mother's Island, Tom Jagninski produced a television documentary, "Marnie Mueller, Novelist," which focuses on all three of her novels. My Mother's Island is currently under development with Karen Arthur Productions for a feature film. Marnie Mueller was a MacDowell Colony Fellow in 2001. She lives in New York City with her husband Fritz Mueller

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 Friday, July 24th, 7:00pm

Meet the Author

Carol Ascher is author of The Flood, a novel; Simone de Beauvoir: A Life of Freedom, a biographical study, and Women in Medicine. 

She is the recipient of numerous research grants and literary awards, and her work has been translated into German, French and Portuguese. 

 “Ascher writes with painful, unsparing honesty about growing up in 1950s America with parents who were both escapees from Hitler's reign of terror. . . . What makes this an uncommon memoir is the raw-boned honesty of hers, the way she works through the shadows to confront her own demons as well as her father's demons." --T.J. Banks,Connecticut Muse

"This is a book best read curled up in a cozy easy chair, preferably with a Mahler symphony playing in the background.  . . . [An] offering to shared resilience, a literary description of grief and healing, a love-filled requiem."--Alejandra Suarez, PsychCRITIQUES

Parking is plentiful. Wine and nibbles will be served.  Suggested donation of $10 will benefit A Common Ground.