OLLU Literary Benefit III

From Marian Haddad, MFA

OUR LADY OF THE LAKE

LITERARY BENEFIT III

AFTER THE FIRE

FEBRUARY 22, 2009

2:00 p.m.

atOLLU

Providence West Building in

The Providence West Social Room (PWSR)

Entry is free

Suggested donations are: what you can afford

(every dollar helps)

There will be a donation box set up. Your donations are between you and the box.

If you cannot donate monetarily, your presence at this community event

is a most valuable donation.

Less than a month after the fire at OLLU, Naomi Shihab Nye and myself gathered approximately 35 poets and writers to read at a literary benefit for Our Lady of the Lake's English Department, held at The Southwest School of Art & Craft. We had an audience of approximately 200 people and raised some much-needed monies for the English Department.

Carmen Tafolla hosted the second successful benefit reading "at" Our Lady of the Lake in the beautiful quad area underneath the trees in the autumn of 2008 and hosted between 20-25 poets and writers, also for the purpose of a community gathering around a worthy cause and an historic San Antonio institution, The Lake . . . raising monies for some of the departments damaged or entirely lost by the fire.

And now, I am pleased and honored to host the third in the series of readings. I am taking the opportunity to showcase many journalists and non-fiction writers this time around, as well as poets and fiction writers. A dozen SAN ANTONIO-BASED writers and poets (most of which have not read at previous benefits), have agreed to offer their time and talent as readers for this benefit; as a group, all of us are hosting three featured guests who come from nearby surrounding areas and schools such as Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, and all the way down I-35 to the heart of Austin, Texas.

--Marian Haddad, MFA