All posts by Kara Krauze

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About Kara Krauze

http://karakrauze.com Kara Krauze is a writer, consultant, and educator. Kara has worked in publishing, financial services, the mental health field, and community organizing. Her essays have been published in Quarterly West, Center: A Journal of the Literary Arts, Highbrow Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She has a B.A. from Vassar College in International Studies and a M.A. in Literary Cultures from New York University. She has participated in workshops in New York City, Prague, and France, studied in Moscow and lived in London. Her writing, including a memoir and novels, engages with the subjects of war, loss, and memory. She grew up in Ohio and currently lives in New York City. Kara founded Voices From War, offering writing workshops for veterans, in 2013. http://VoicesFromWar.org

Thank you on #GivingTuesday

Giving_Tues_Voices_bannerTues., Dec. 2nd, 2014

To our Voices from War extended community:

Dear Friends,

First, THANK YOU to each of you for your part in making Voices from War a successful reality, whether you are a veteran participating in our weekly writing workshops or an engaged civilian, veteran, or veteran service provider receiving our updates – and listening for more veteran stories. Perhaps you were able to attend our recent event, “Journeys in Stories,” in collaboration with non-profit arts organization Veteran Artist Program. The Voices from War Literary Showcase, which was followed by another powerful ensemble performance by The Telling Project, was a fantastic success – engaging, thoughtful, thought-provoking – with an audience of over 200! We can’t wait to tell you about each of the exciting projects we are working on, with the Voices from War writing workshop always at our core; a place to write, to reflect, to engage, in a community of fellow veterans, writing.

I am writing to you today to ask for your ongoing support on this “Giving Tuesday.” Our writing workshops continue because of your support.

We are launching our first Voices from War crowdfunding campaign next week through Indiegogo – and we need your support, whether in the form of a modest contribution, help spreading the word, or both!

Voices from War, from our start in 2013, has relied on word-of-mouth support, whether through participants in our writing workshops, friends and colleagues, veterans, or others who work closely with veterans. And we take pride in building community through you – whether you are a veteran, or a civilian, or a military family member. Whether you are a reader or a writer. Whether you work actively with or for a veteran service organization or are in the military, or whether you are not even sure if you know a recent veteran, yet.

All of us count on the capable hands and minds of veterans, their strength and resilience, and their service. Their return to civilian society and the richness of their ongoing contributions matter deeply to each of us, to history, and to our literature. Whether someone served recently in Iraq or Afghanistan, or decades earlier in Vietnam, whether in Korea or Europe, or in regions and conflicts to which we have paid less heed – their stories matter, their voices matter. Without them, we know far less of the firsthand realities of war and military life – the camaraderie found in struggle, the pain of violent loss, and so much in between. Their stories are human stories; and from war stories, we understand more of ourselves.

Stories deepen our humanity. Telling stories, sometimes just for ourselves, sometimes for a wider audience, brings us closer – to ourselves, to understanding complex experience, and to others. Writers and readers. Veterans and civilians. People.

I am asking you today to take a moment, to consider all of these stories, how much our own stories matter to us; how much the stories of others – whether told through the truths of memory or the different truth of fiction – enrich our lives.

Please share in Voices from War’s work, and in our future, in these simple ways—

Your attention matters; and in this season of giving and giving thanks, your gift, however small, makes a difference.

Whether you can give $1, $10, or $100 – even if you find you cannot make a contribution at all right now – please share our campaign and please share in the work of Voices from War. We could not do it without you.

Want to know more about Voices from War and what we do?

We are concluding our third season of writing workshops for veterans at the 14th Street Y in New York City, and getting ready for our next season, Winter-Spring 2015. We just held a fantastically successful Literary Showcase, part of the 2nd Annual VAP Veterans Week Showcase, in collaboration with veteran-arts non-profit Veteran Artist Program – “Journeys in Stories: From the Front to the Home Front in Words” – and we are finishing editorial work on our first Voices from War literary journal – Volume 1 of writing from workshop participants! We can’t wait to share work from these fine writers – fiction and non-fiction from veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and even Korea.

Please visit our website, and check back on the site, the Voices from War blog, and our Facebook page for more updates!

And, again, thank you for all you give – by listening, by writing, by contributing however much or little you are able, and by sharing in the importance of our work; by sharing in valuing the importance of these voices.

Warmly,

Kara
Kara Krauze
Director, Voices from War

email: info@VoicesfromWar.org
VoicesfromWar.org

Giving_Tues_Voices__compactYou can make a PLEDGE to our upcoming Indiegogo Fundraising campaign (tax-deductible, see below) with this simple online form. (We will remind you later!)

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Thank You!

Voices from War is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Voices from War must be made payable to Fractured Atlas only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Or Donate Now – through Fractured Atlas, our fiscal sponsor.

https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/images/logo.png

THANK YOU for supporting Voices from War!

Our Workshops for Veterans – and the New VOICES from WAR Logo!

Today, we want to use this space to respond to a question in our Comments section. Our response covers topics that might interest other visitors to the Voices from War site. And don’t miss details about our upcoming collaboration “JOURNEYS IN STORIES” at the end of this post!

THANK YOU to a veteran-writer in Illinois for prompting us. Here is his QUESTION:

“I live in Illinois and cannot attend a workshop. Is there a webinar plan for future workshops? Also, do I have to attend a workshop in order to submit my work for consideration? Thanks.”

And our REPLY:

Hi, Thanks for your inquiry and your interest in Voices from War. We are aware of interest outside of our local base in New York City. Webinars are one future possibility; another is establishing other workshops in areas with interested veterans and a qualified writer, whom we would train. If you think you have a group of interested participants, please feel free to email — info@voicesfromwar.org — and we will explore possibilities when we have expanded capacity.

At the moment, we are only including writing from the Voices from War workshops in our upcoming publication Voices from War, Volume 1. We may offer other publication opportunities in the future. Please sign up to receive occasional newsletter updates and follow the blog.

Upcoming blog posts will cover some strategies and information sources for submitting work to other publications, some with a specific interest in veterans’ stories and some more generally looking for good stories (fiction and non-fiction) on a variety of topics — which we know should include stories from war and those who served.

In our Voices from War workshops, we focus attention on reading as well as writing. Reading offers inspiration and reminds writers of different ways to tell a story. We also post occasional quotations and reading selections we recommend — both here on the website and on the Voices from War Facebook page. (If you are a Facebook user, please “Like” the Voices from War Facebook page to receive those updates in your news feed.)

Please do keep writing — or just begin if you are new to it. And stay engaged here for tips, suggestions, and updates.

Good luck in telling your stories.

Kara & the Voices from War team

Voices from War_Pen-Paper

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◊◊  THANK YOU to Designer eperez for the new Voices from War LOGO!  ◊◊

Voices from War - Logo

** A huge THANK YOU to Poets & Writers and The New York State Council on the Arts for their help in supporting another season of Voices from War, A Writing Workshop for Veterans. And an ongoing THANK YOU to the 14th Street Y, supporter and host, welcoming the workshop and its participants each week. **

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SAVE THE DATE!   SUNDAY, NOV 9thJOURNEYS in STORIES – From the Front to the Home Front in Words
PRESENTED by: Veteran Artist Program (VAP) w/ Voices from War

FEATURING:  National Book Award Nominee PHIL KLAY with poet, librettist, playwright, MAURICE DECAUL, poet and educator LAREN MCCLUNG, and essayist (first-hand from Afghanistan) and fiction writer, NATHAN BRADLEY BETHEA.

Moderated by Kara Krauze (Founder, Voices from War)
Sunday, November 9th, in FIT’s Katie Murphy Amphitheatre – NYC –

Followed by THE TELLING PROJECT – Don’t miss this incredible ensemble performance by veterans sharing their experiences of war, live on stage.

 Ticketing – AVAILABLE Now

via the EVENT PAGE

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*  Voices from War is now a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.  Please visit the sidebar or bottom of this page for details and to make a secure online donation.  *

 ♦♦ Check back for more information about our first Voices from War publication and NYC Reading. We look forward to introducing more readers to these talented writers!  ♦♦

Start telling your story.

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Voices from War’s Writing Workshop for Veterans in NYC – FALL 2014 is running now.
Come work on your story in a supportive community of fellow vets.
Space Limited.
Next Class (#4 of Season 3): Oct. 7th.
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Voices_from_War__Flyer__FALL_2014
Voices_V+Pen_logo-image

On writing—and war stories we want to read

Redepolyment & The Bosnia ListToday, some words of wisdom from wonderful writer and former U.S. Marine Phil Klay, author of the acclaimed new short story collection Redeployment.

“When I came back I had all these questions to think about that were interesting or important for me, and writing the book was one way for me to grapple with both what the experience meant to me and what the war in Iraq meant to our country and culture.”

        – Phil Klay, author of Redeployment

*interviewed by Kirkus Reviews (Megan Labrise)

Redeployment powerfully encompasses multiple perspectives and experiences of war. The collection recently received a fabulous review (an engaging read in itself, while informative about the qualities that recommend the review’s subject), by Dexter Filkins, author of The Forever War, in the New York Times Book Review.

~  ~  ~

In April, The Center for Fiction, in midtown Manhattan, near Grand Central, hosts Phil Klay on Redeployment and Jennifer Vanderbes, whose new book The Secret of Raven Point, is about a brother and sister, soldier and nurse, stationed in Europe during World War II.

That’s April 10th at 7:00 p.m. in NYC.

~ ~ ~

War literature is also coming up at Franklin Park’s Reading Series. You can catch Jennifer Percy, author of Demon Camp, about a returning Afghanistan veteran, along with Kenan Trebincevic and Susan Shapiro, writing about Trebincevic’s experiences as a Bosnian émigré and his trip back after the war in The Bosnia List, plus Liza Monroy, author of The Marriage Act, and essayist Melynda Fuller.

That’s this coming Monday, March 24th at 8:00pmFranklin Park Bar and Beer Garden.

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** A huge THANK YOU to Poets & Writers and The New York State Council on the Arts for supporting another season of Voices from War, A Writing Workshop for Veterans. And an ongoing THANK YOU to the 14th Street Y, supporter and sponsor, welcoming the workshop and its participants each week; and building Voices from War. **

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Start telling your story.

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Voices from War’s Writing Workshop for Veterans – Winter-Spring 2014 is running now.
Stay tuned for summer options.
Come work on your story in a supportive community of fellow vets.
Space Limited.
Next Class (#6 of Season 2): March 23rd.
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A decade of war—stories shape history

Who should tell us about the experiences of a decade of war? Veteran voices need to be part of the national dialogue, cultural and literary, on what it means to go to war; reminding all of us of the multiple perspectives, complex feelings and experiences of serving and fighting.

History is shaped by the accounts that emerge in the living years following historic events, including events we may perceive as less ‘historic’—individual accounts of departing, serving, waiting (whether a spouse back home or a soldier waiting for deployment), and return.

Stories—whether true accounts in the form of essays or memoir, or fictional narratives born of lived truths—shape how all of us see, how we remember. Stories create bridges of understanding, among veterans and between veterans and civilians.

“The autumn countryside around them felt gloomy and forlorn at this hour. The train which was to take both Masha and Ivanov to their homes was somewhere far off in grey space. There was nothing to divert or comfort a human heart except another human heart.”

        – Andrey Platonov, “The Return” *

From the past, we learn about the present; and from the present we inform the future.

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 *"The Return," by Andrey Platonov, from The Return and Other Stories, by Andrey Platonov, transl. by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler and Angela Livingstone; reprinted in Let's Call the Whole Thing Off: Love Quarrels from Anton Chekhov to ZZ Packer, selected by Kasia Boddy, Ali Smith, and Sarah Wood, © 2009.

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** A huge THANK YOU to Poets & Writers and The New York State Council on the Arts for supporting another season of Voices from War, A Writing Workshop for Veterans. And an ongoing THANK YOU to the 14th Street Y, supporter and sponsor, welcoming the workshop and its participants each week; and building Voices from War. **

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Start telling your story.

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REGISTRATION open for Voices from War’s Writing Workshop for Veterans – Winter-Spring 2014.
Come work on your story in a supportive community of fellow vets.
Space Limited.
Next Class (#3 of Season 2): Feb. 23rd.
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Telling a true story—through facts or fiction

Writing things down, telling a true story or turning it into fiction, helps us make sense of complex or fragmented memories and experiences. By looking back, writers are moving forward. Sharing experiences opens up possibilities for dialogue, between individuals and more broadly, in communities and nationally.

Whether we write for ourselves, our friends and family, or with the intent of reaching a wider audience, putting words on paper matters. We are communicating; we are building community; we are acknowledging the past and building the future.

“From the events of war he had wrested the lonely elements of maturity. He wanted, now, discoveries to which he sensed himself accessible; that would alter him, as one is altered, involuntarily, by a great work of art or an effusion of silent knowledge.”

        – Shirley Hazzard

From The Great Fire, by Shirley Hazzard, ©2003

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Start telling your story.

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OPEN HOUSE— SUNDAY, JANUARY 26th—NYC
4:00-6:00pm
RSVP – info@voicesfromwar.org
344 East 14th Street, NYC
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REGISTRATION open for Voices from War’s Writing Workshop for Veterans – Winter-Spring 2014.
Come work on your story in a supportive community of fellow vets.
__________

Writing about war—history became personal

Historian and World War II veteran William Manchester writes about the urge to revisit his own memories of service during World War II, after working and writing as a historian of the era for years:

“The dreams started after I flung my pistol into the Connecticut River. It was mine to fling: I was, I suppose, the only World War II Marine who had had to buy his own weapon.”
“For years I had been trying to write about the war, always in vain. It lay too deep; I couldn’t reach it. But I had known it must be there. A man is all the people he has been. …[L]ike most of my countrymen, I am prone to search for meaning in the unconsummated past.”
“…I couldn’t define what I sought….”

– William Manchester

From Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War, ©1979

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What’s your story?

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REGISTRATION open for Voices from War’s Writing Workshop for Veterans – Winter-Spring 2014.
Come work on your story in a supportive community of fellow vets.
__________

Reading, Writing & Talking War—more event details

“READING, WRITING & TALKING WAR”

Coming up on Friday, November 8th, at 8:00 p.m., in FIT’s Katie Murphy Amphitheatre in NYC.

Check out the exciting writers participating below!

Scaled ticketing available: $10, $15, $25 (open seating).
Free tickets available for veterans and students, and reserved comp tickets on request.
For any complimentary ticketing, please contact…

jordan@veteranartistprogram.org

                                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stories act as a powerful bridge between civilians and veteran experience. On November 8th, through the readings and panel in “Reading, Writing & Talking War,” literary discussions will intersect with veteran discussions – an occasion for readers and writers, civilians and veterans.

Illustrious writer Roxana Robinson, author of deeply engaged and affecting novels like Cost, about a family facing a son’s heroin addiction, and her new work Sparta, drawing us into the life of a soldier just returned from Iraq, will be reading alongside four amazing writers who are veterans.

Maurice Decaul served in Iraq and went on to get a B.A. in History from Columbia and is now pursuing his MFA in Poetry at NYU. In addition to being a powerful poet, he is a major contributor to Vijay Iyer (2013 MacArthur winner) and Mike Ladd’s new album, Holding It Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project, an intoxicating  fusion of jazz and hip-hop.

Mariette Kalinowski, completing her MFA at Hunter and instructing a new crop of writers, is a probing writer of short fiction, on display in her story “The Train,” included in the anthology Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War. She deployed twice to Iraq and is at work on what will surely be an amazing novel, illuminating the female veteran experience.

J.A. Moad II, a former Air Force pilot, who continues to fly commercially from his home base in Minnesota, has been a professor of war literature, educating fellow soldiers and veterans in the power of literature to enlighten and inform. While at work on an exciting novel, he also serves as fiction editor with War, Literature and the Arts, actively engaged in presenting new voices on the complicated subject of war.

Jacob Siegel, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, who continues to serve in the National Guard, is editor of The Hero Project at The Daily Beast, a singular and important voice for dialogue on veterans, national politics, heroes and literature. His own prose, tightly crafted and powerful in its evocation of veteran experience, will be on display in his novel-in-progress, and has already appeared in national publications and in the story “Smile, There are IEDs Everywhere” in Fire and Forget, which he co-edited. Jake co-teaches Voices from War, a writing workshop for veterans, with writer and educator…

Kara Krauze, who will be moderating the discussion with these five diverse voices during our evening of “Reading, Writing & Talking War.”

Follow this link to go straight to online details and ticketing:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/446813

Be sure to check out the full week of events, veteran-focused and arts-focused, during the Veteran Artist Program’s Arts & Service Celebration, November 2nd – 9th:
http://vap-nyc.org/

AND, come RSVP on FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/events/663154410384776/


                           Event brought to you by…  http://vap-nyc.org
Veteran Artist Program

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Don’t miss the stories. Don’t miss the dialogue.

If you are a veteran, and want to work on your own stories…

REGISTER for Voices from War’s Writing Workshop for Veterans, team-taught by Kara Krauze and Jake Siegel.
Come work on your story in a supportive community of fellow vets.

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Don’t miss…

Reading, Writing & Talking War
on November 8th

Scaled ticketing available: $10, $15, $25 (open seating).
Block comp tickets available for veterans and students, and reserved comp tickets on request.
For any complimentary ticketing, please contact…

jordan@veteranartistprogram.org

Facebook Event page

Flyer__READING_WRITING_and_TALKING_WAR_Nov_8_2013 _picREADING, WRITING & TALKING WAR

For other exciting events the week of November 2nd – 9th…visit the Veteran Artist Program at http://vap-nyc.org

Don’t miss the stories. Don’t miss the dialogue.

If you are a veteran, and want to work on your own stories…

REGISTRATION open for Voices from War’s Writing Workshop for Veterans.
Come work on your story in a supportive community of fellow vets.
__________

A poem with a story of war—and after

Today, a poem from Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000), which encapsulates transitions from childhood to war to the pain of after, ending on a note of possibility:

Autobiography, 1952

  • My father built over me a worry big as a shipyard
  • and I left it once, before I was finished,
  • and he remained there with his big, empty worry.
  • and my mother was like a tree on the shore
  • between her arms that stretched out toward me.
  •  
  • And in ’31 my hands were joyous and small
  • and in ’41 they learned to use a gun
  • and when I first fell in love
  • my thoughts were like a bunch of colored balloons
  • and the girl’s white hand held them all
  • by a thin string—then let them fly away.
  •  
  • And in ’51 the motion of my life
  • was like the motion of many slaves chained to a ship,
  • and my father’s face like the headlight on the front of a train
  • growing smaller and smaller in the distance,
  • and my mother closed all the many clouds inside her brown closet,
  • and as I walked up my street
  • the twentieth century was the blood in my veins,
  •  blood that wanted to get out in many wars
  • and through many openings,
  • that’s why it knocks against my head from the inside
  • and reaches my heart in angry waves.
  •  
  • But now, in the spring of ’52, I see
  • that more birds have returned than left last winter.
  • And I walk back down the hill to my house.
  • And in my room: the woman, whose body is heavy
  • and filled with time.

Yehuda Amichai

From The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, ©1986, 1996

Translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell

What’s your story?

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REGISTRATION open for Voices from War’s Writing Workshop for Veterans – Fall 2013.
Come work on your story in a supportive community of fellow vets.
__________

War and music and poetry—Iraq veteran Maurice Decaul

Poet and veteran Maurice Decaul is partnered up with musicians Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd for their new album, Holding It Down, which received four (of four) stars in the LA Times last week. Critic Chris Barton writes,

“An exposed nerve on the edge of madness, ‘Shush’ may be one of the most haunting songs of the year. With Decaul repeating, like a mantra, ‘I’ve been talking in my sleep again,’ he conjures muzzle flashes, burning diesel and ‘sandbag eyes, large like dish plates, scared.’ As Iyer’s flickering piano hurtles behind him, Decaul builds to a matter-of-fact admission so raw it burns: ‘I prayed to die in Iraq.'”

Barton writes on the possibilities of music and the album’s combination of jazz, hip-hop, and oral history:

“At their best, hip-hop and jazz remain most adept at breaking the mold, and the footprints of both genres can be heard on Vijay Iyer’s and Mike Ladd’s inspiring new album. An ambitious collaboration between one of the most celebrated jazz pianists today in Iyer and poet-MC Ladd, who has worked with a host of underground rap acts including El-P’s Company Flow and Saul Williams, ‘Holding It Down’ is the duo’s third in a series of unclassifiable blends of music, theater and spoken word that paint a vivid oral history of post-9/11 America.”

What’s your story? What’s your dream?
You can also hear Maurice Decaul read his haunting poem, “Shush” online at The Daily Beast.
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REGISTRATION open for Voices from War’s Writing Workshop for Veterans – Fall 2013.
Come work on your story in a supportive community of fellow vets.
__________