Events

You are invited to attend a reading by our summer resident, Rachel Kolman, who will be reading selections from her work, Rachel will also answer questions about her work and writing process. The reading is free, but please bring something to drink if you like and join us in the house where Jack Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums.

Rachel Kolman is a nonfiction writer and freelancer currently living in Philadelphia. Her essays and articles have been published widely across the web, appearing in Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Bustle, Her Story, Autofocus, Sinkhole, Tech Viral, and others. She also has fiction in Ghost Parachute, Other Orlandos, Whiskey Paper, Bodega Literary Magazine, and Unmanned Press. Rachel is an editor, teacher, and literary community enthusiast, participating in as many events, readings, conferences, guest lectures, and seminars as she can, sharing her writing and experience building a freelancing career over the last eight years. In addition to editing work for clients and publishing freelance pieces across the web, she teaches in the First Year Writing Program at Drexel University, as well as writing classes at the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University. She has her MFA in fiction from the University of Central Florida and an MFA in nonfiction from Rosemont College.

You are invited to join us in welcoming Kerouac House Fall resident Jennifer Worley. This event is a potluck dinner, so please bring something to eat and/or drink and share.

Jennifer Worley is the author of Neon Girls: A Stripper’s Education in Protest and Power(HarperCollins, 2020), a memoir about her work as a peep-show dancer, union organizer, and instigator of the successful stripper takeover of San Francisco’s Lusty Lady Theater. For its exploration of sex, labor struggles, and feminism, Neon Girlswas named an NPR Best Book of 2020 and earned starred reviews in Kirkus and Library Journal. Jenny also authored and led a popular bicycle tour/street theater play in which audiences cycled among the sites of San Francisco’s bygone and extant red-light districts and brothels, where they watched costumed docents bring to life the secret history of San Francisco’s infamous madams, parlor girls, fan-dancers, and drag artists. Her documentary film about the project, Sex on Wheels has screened at festivals and universities worldwide. Jenny’s writing on sex work and LGBT history and literary culture has been featured in Bitch, Captive Genders, Invisible Suburbs, the Queerist, Journal of the History of Sexuality, and on PRI’s Outright Radio. Currently at work on a memoir/manifesto about women’s resistance to reproductive norms and maternal mandates, Jenny teaches English at City College of San Francisco, grows her own tomatoes, and has won prizes for writing, swimming, mechanical bull riding, and euchre.

You are invited to attend a reading by our winter resident, Nita Noveno, who will be reading selections from her work, Nita will also answer questions about her work and writing process. The reading is free, but please bring something to drink if you like and join us in the house where Jack Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums.

Nita Noveno is a writer and educator in NYC. She is a graduate of The New School MFA Creative Writing Program and the founder and host of Sunday Salon, a long-running reading series in the Big Apple (and online:sundaysalon.com). She is also the founder and editor of the literary journal, SalonZine. Her work has appeared inThe Hunger, Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s Open City and The Margins, The Seventh Wave, About Place Journal, and Kweli. Born in Southeast Alaska to immigrant parents from the Philippines, Nita writes about memory, culture, identity, and immigrant lives. She teaches composition and literature at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York.

In honor of Jack Kerouac’s 100th birthday, the Kerouac Project is hosting a “Bad” Beat Poetry Reading/Open Mic. You are invited to attend, hopefully in Beat garb, ready to read some Bad Beat poetry you’ve written. A panel will judge the poems and award prizes for the first, second, and third worst poems!

This event will be held at The Nook on Robinson, 2432 E. Robinson Street, Orlando. So come on out to celebrate Jack Kerouac and the Beats with us.

You are invited to join us in welcoming Kerouac House Spring resident Jo-Ann Yeoh. This event is a potluck dinner, so please bring something to eat and/or drink and share.

Jo-Ann Yeoh grew up in Malaysia and lives in Singapore. Her first novel, Impractical Uses of Cake, won the Epigram Books Fiction Prize 2018 and in 2020, her story Dog Tiger Horse won the Boston Review’s Aura Estrada Short Story Contest. She is currently working on her second novel and a collection of short stories on the theme of family and food in Southeast Asia.

You are invited to attend a reading by our spring resident, Jo-Ann Yeoh, who will be reading selections from her work. Jo-Ann will also answer questions about her work and writing process. The reading is free, but please bring something to drink if you like and join us in the house where Jack Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums.

Jo-Ann Yeoh grew up in Malaysia and lives in Singapore. Her first novel, Impractical Uses of Cake, won the Epigram Books Fiction Prize 2018 and in 2020, her story Dog Tiger Horse won the Boston Review’s Aura Estrada Short Story Contest. She is currently working on her second novel and a collection of short stories on the theme of family and food in Southeast Asia.

Come celebrate Kerouac Project board member and UCF professor Rochelle Hurt’s new book of poetry, The J Girls: A Reality Show (Indiana University Press, 2022). This event will feature a short reading from the book, and copies will be available for purchase. Light snacks and wine will be provided, but guests are encouraged to bring their own drinks. 

You are invited to join us in welcoming Kerouac House Summer resident Rachel Kolman. This event is a potluck dinner, so please bring something to eat and/or drink and share.

Rachel Kolman is a nonfiction writer and freelancer currently living in Philadelphia. Her essays and articles have been published widely across the web, appearing in Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Bustle, Her Story, Autofocus, Sinkhole, Tech Viral, and others. She also has fiction in Ghost Parachute, Other Orlandos, Whiskey Paper, Bodega Literary Magazine, and Unmanned Press. Rachel is an editor, teacher, and literary community enthusiast, participating in as many events, readings, conferences, guest lectures, and seminars as she can, sharing her writing and experience building a freelancing career over the last eight years. In addition to editing work for clients and publishing freelance pieces across the web, she teaches in the First Year Writing Program at Drexel University, as well as writing classes at the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University. She has her MFA in fiction from the University of Central Florida and an MFA in nonfiction from Rosemont College.

You are invited to join us in welcoming Kerouac House Fall resident David Morgan O’Connor. This event is a potluck dinner, so please bring something to eat and/or drink and share.

David Morgan O’Connor is an Irish-Canadian writer based in Barcelona. He has an MFA from University College Dublin & the University of New Mexico. A contributing reviewer for Rhino Poetry and fiction editor at Bending Genres, his work has appeared in Splonk, A New Ulster, Crannog, Opossum, The New Quarterly, The Irish Times, Best New British & Irish Poets, The Guardian, and others. He is the recipient of the 2021 Cuirt International Award for Fiction, the Tom Gallon Award, and extremely thrilled to be the Fall 2021 Kerouac Project Fellow.

You are invited to attend a reading by our summer resident, Tanya Grae. Tanya will be reading from her poetry collection and work she has been writing while at the Kerouac House. She will also answer questions about her writing process.

**Due to the resurgence of the Covid-19 pandemic in Florida, the reading will be held online on Zoom. Please click HERE to be connected to Zoom to join the reading at 7:30 P.M. on Saturday, August 14.**

Tanya Grae is the debut author of Undol  (YesYes Books, 2019), a National Poetry Series finalist. Her awards include the Florida Book Award, a Kingsbury Fellowship, the Academy of American Poets Prize, and the Tennessee Williams Poetry Prize, selected by Yusef Komunyakaa. Her poems and essays appear in American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, Missouri Review, Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Tallahassee and is currently a PhD candidate at Florida State University.

We look forward to seeing as many of you as can make it to the reading on Zoom.

On Saturday night, October 30, The Kerouac Project will be hosting Mr. Abdelkader Jamoussi, Consul General of the Kingdom of Morocco, at the Kerouac House. As well as being a diplomat, Mr. Jamoussi is a poet and writer, having written several literary and diplomatic books. He believes writing and the arts are a way to bridge cultures and tools to create dialogue and understanding. During the Saturday night event Mr. Jamoussi will read selections of his haiku poetry, other Arabic poetry, and share his thoughts on the haiku of Jack Karouac, of whose writing he is a fan.

During his reading, Mr. Jamoussi will be accompanied by Hassan Hakmoun, one of the notable figures in contemporary Moroccan music. He has performed at Lincoln Center in New York City and became a regular fixture in New York’s rock, jazz, and fusion scenes.

Haiku master and poet, Stanford Forrester, will also be reading at the event. As well as mastering Haiku and other Japanese poetry forms, Stanford is an expert on Jack Kerouac, the Beats, and American Haiku.

Also participating in the event will be current Kerouac House resident, David Morgan O’Connor, who will read selections for his work.

This reading event will be held outside on the front lawn of the Kerouac House.

Wine will be served during the event and while some seating will be provided, you are encouraged to bring you own comfortable lawn chairs or blanket to sit on as you enjoy this wonderful literary night under the starts at the Kerouac House.

The Kerouac House is located at 1418 Clouser Avenue, Orlando 32804, at the corner of Clouser Avenue and Shady Lane Drive.

 

 

You are invited to attend a reading by our fall resident, David Morgan O’Connor. Along with other pieces, David will be reading some of the work he’s been writing while living in the house. He will also answer questions about his work. The reading is free, but please bring something to drink if you like and join us in the house where Jack Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums.

David Morgan O’Connor is an Irish-Canadian writer based in Barcelona. He has an MFA from University College Dublin & the University of New Mexico. A contributing reviewer for Rhino Poetry and fiction editor at Bending Genres, his work has appeared in Splonk, A New Ulster, Crannog, Opossum, The New Quarterly, The Irish Times, Best New British & Irish Poets, The Guardian, and others. He is the recipient of the 2021 Cuirt International Award for Fiction, the Tom Gallon Award, and extremely thrilled to be the Fall 2021 Kerouac Project Fellow.

You are invited to join us in welcoming Kerouac House Winter resident Nita Noveno. This event is a potluck dinner, so please bring something to eat and/or drink and share.

Nita Noveno is a writer and educator in NYC. She is a graduate of The New School MFA Creative Writing Program and the founder and host of Sunday Salon, a long-running reading series in the Big Apple (and online:sundaysalon.com). She is also the founder and editor of the literary journal, SalonZine. Her work has appeared inThe Hunger, Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s Open City and The Margins, The Seventh Wave, About Place Journal, and Kweli. Born in Southeast Alaska to immigrant parents from the Philippines, Nita writes about memory, culture, identity, and immigrant lives. She teaches composition and literature at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York.

You are invited to attend a reading by our winter resident, Gwen Mullins. Gwen will be reading work she has been writing while at the Kerouac House and answering questions about her writing process.

**Due to the covid-19 pandemic, the reading will be held outside on the Kerouac House lawn. The event will be capped at 40 attendees to ensure social distancing. Patrons will be required to wear masks during the event. Those attending are asked to bring their own chairs or blankets, and to sit a minimum 6 feet apart. Patrons are welcome to bring along wine or beer to consume personally during the reading (if they desire to do so). Since the reading cannot be transferred inside because of these pandemic conditions, should the weather be inclement, the reading will be cancelled. There will also be no tours inside the Kerouac House during the event. Thank you for your cooperation while we ensure the safety of our writers and visitors.**

Gwen Mullins is an essayist, novelist, and short story writer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in African American Review, The Bitter Southerner, PANK, The New Guard, Sixfold, descant (Frank O’Connor Award), Green Mountains Review, Numéro Cinq, and Social Justice Anthologies, among others. Gwen is currently working on her second novel as well as a short story collection. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and she works at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as a writing consultant and tutoring coordinator.

While the reading is free to attend, you do need to register for it through Eventbrite by clicking here.

We look forward to seeing as many of you as can make it to the reading.

You are invited to attend an event at the Kerouac House with our spring 2021 resident Spencer Huffman. During the event a professional staged reading of Spencer’s new play, The Baseball Gods, will be shown. After the screening Spencer will be available to answer questions about the new play, his approach to writing plays, and his stay at the Kerouac House.

**The screening of Spencer’s play will take place indoors while the socializing and mingling before and after will take place outdoors. Masks will be required for the event and we encourage participants to social distance.**

Spencer Huffman is a playwright, actor, and director based in Chicago. His plays include: The Baseball Gods, When We Were Little, Shine Down On Us, The Swamp Play, Like Some Deep Booming, The Vastness of the North,and If Only We Were Ghosts. His plays have earned finalist and semi-finalist nominations from The National Playwrights Conference, American Stage’s 21st Century Voices New Play Festival, Landing Theatre Co. New American Voices Festival, and Southwest Theatre Production’s Rising Artists Playwriting Competition, among others. His plays have received staged readings from Broken Bell Reads (Chicago, IL), Three Cat Productions (Chicago, IL), and Relative Theatrics (Laramie, WY). He has been a writer-in-residence at The Millay Colony and The Marble House Project. As a director, Spencer’s work includes site-specific, guerilla productions of Jerusalemby Jez Butterworth, Bug by Tracy Letts, and Aaslt by Duncan McLean and Pol Heyvaert. Spencer graduated from the School at Steppenwolf in 2019. BA: Kenyon College.

While the reading is free to attend, you do need to register for it through Eventbrite by clicking here.

We look forward to seeing as many of you as can make it to view this staged reading.

The Ghost Parachute team is very excited to invite you to the launch of our anthology, Ghost Parachute: 105 Flash Fiction Stories, at the Jack Kerouac House in Orlando, FL. This is an in-person and online event. There is a limited capacity as we will be following CDC guidelines. Social distancing and masks are required to attend the event in-person. A livestream of the reading portion of the event will be available to authors and attendees who prefer to attended virtually or who are unable to attend the event in-person. More information on access to the livestream will be provided soon. Printed copies of the anthology will be available for purchase at the event for $20. Please note that there is only a limited number of copies available, so be sure to get yours early! Bonus: wine and snacks will be provided as well.

The Kerouac Project is delighted to welcome this event to the Kerouac House and hope as many of you as possible can make it to the event.

Check out the invite here on Facebook for more details.

You are invited to join us in welcoming Kerouac House Spring resident Sara Batkie. This event is a potluck dinner, so please bring something to eat and/or drink and share.

Sara Batkie is the author of the story collection Better Times, which won the 2017 Prairie Schooner Prize and is forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press in September 2018. She received her MFA from New York University. Stories of hers have been honored with a 2017 Pushcart Prize and a notable mention in the 2011 edition of Best American Short Stories. She was born in Bellevue, Washington and grew up mostly in Iowa, but currently makes her home in Brooklyn where she works as the Writing Programs Director for The Center for Fiction.

#txtshow—one of Brian Feldman’s most famous performances and the longest running independent production in D.C. theater history—returns to the venue it originated, the Kerouac House, exactly 10 years to the day.

For this completely interactive performance, all audience members will keep their phones “on”—as a mysterious character named txt (pronounced ‘text’) recites anonymous real-time tweets written by YOU, live and in-person.

Audience members are instructed to bring their smartphones, ideally fully-charged, and actively use them during the show’s 45 minute duration. It is not necessary to have a Twitter account in order to participate, as everyone in attendance is randomly assigned a protected and anonymous account for their use.

Based entirely upon what the audience writes in anonymity, #txtshow may contain mature themes, profane language, and explicit sexual content.

All tickets include one complimentary Frutisse—a new, fruit tea infusion beverage made in Orlando with love and without preservatives, high-fructose corn syrup, or colorings.

When:
Five performances!
• Sunday, February 24 at 3:00 PM
• Monday, February 25 at 7:00 PM
• Tuesday, February 26 at 7:00 PM (10th Anniversary date)
• Wednesday, February 27 at 7:00 PM
• Thursday, February 28 at 7:00 PM

Ticket Prices:
$15 advance, $20 at the door

To purchase tickets and for more information click here.

Come celebrate the poetry of Jack Kerouac accompanied by jazz at the house where Jack lived. This event will feature Orlando writers reading from Jack’s poems, BBQ, and other surprises, too. $20 cover, which comes with a ticket for a free glass of wine plus food.

You are invited to attend a reading by our winter resident, Chad Anderson. Chad will be reading some of the work he’s been writing while in the house and answering questions about his work. The reading is free, but please bring something to drink if you like and join us in the house where Jack Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums.

Chad B. Anderson is a writer and editor living in Washington, D.C. Born and raised in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, he earned a B.A. from University of Virginia and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Indiana University, where he served as fiction editor for Indiana Review. He has been a resident at the Ledig House International Writers’ Colony, and his fiction is published in Salamander Review, Black Warrior Review, Nimrod International Journal, The Best American Short Stories 2017, and Clockhouse (forthcoming, July 2018). He has also published an essay with The Hairsplitter as well as several articles and reports on higher education through various academic periodicals and organizations.

Theatrical philosopher, Banks Helfrich began experimenting with reality and performance over two years ago. Black Cow Jumps—Orlando’s Experimental Theatre Project formed pushing the boundaries of theatrical structure through multi-vignettes that place the human into humanity. This exploration of reality through life coupled with a willingness to see ourselves in others creates a mindful and sometimes comedic portrayal of the characters we play, as we try on the shoes of maturity. Black Cow Jumps is soup. Life’s Soup.

Come join us at the Kerouac House for this exciting and insightful free performance.

Bring something to nosh on and/or sip and share.

You are invited to attend a reading by our spring resident, Sara Batkie. Sara will be reading some of the work she’s been writing while living in the house and answering questions about her work. The reading is free, but please bring something to drink if you like and join us in the house where Jack Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums.

Sara Batkie is the author of the story collection Better Times, which won the 2017 Prairie Schooner Prize and is forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press in September 2018. She received her MFA from New York University. Stories of hers have been honored with a 2017 Pushcart Prize and a notable mention in the 2011 edition of Best American Short Stories. She was born in Bellevue, Washington and grew up mostly in Iowa, but currently makes her home in Brooklyn where she works as the Writing Programs Director for The Center for Fiction.

You are invited to join us in welcoming Kerouac House Winter resident Chad Anderson. This event is a potluck dinner, so please bring something to eat and/or drink and share.

Chad B. Anderson is a writer and editor living in Washington, D.C. Born and raised in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, he earned his B.A. from University of Virginia and his M.F.A. in creative writing from Indiana University, where he served as fiction editor for Indiana Review. He has been a resident at the Ledig House International Writers’ Colony, and his fiction is published in Salamander Review, Black Warrior Review, Nimrod International Journal, The Best American Short Stories 2017, and Clockhouse. He has also published an essay with The Hairsplitter as well as several articles and reports on higher education through various academic periodicals and organizations. 

Come celebrate the 60th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums in the house where he wrote it. This event will feature Orlando writers reading from the book, John King in conversation with historian Bob Kealing (who discovered the Kerouac House), and other surprises, too. $10 cover, which comes with a ticket for a free glass of wine.

You are invited to join us in welcoming Kerouac House Fall resident Eleanor Matthews. This event is a potluck dinner, so please bring something to eat and/or drink and share.

Eleanor Matthews is a fiction writer based in Bristol (UK). Her short stories have appeared in print and online, in magazines such as Popshot, Litro, Unsung, Prole, Haverthorn and Elbow Room. In 2017, she was selected for a Penguin WriteNow insight day. She also featured on BBC Radio 4’s Tweet of the Day program, talking about magpies and the writing process. To support her creative projects, Eleanor has worked as a professional editor for various universities and charities.