Gemini Ink

                    readers and writers

today and tomorrow


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 Click Here for Word Document of Press Release 

Contact:

Lucinda Vela-Wick 

Communications Director

210-734-9673

 

 

Literary Arts Organization Gemini Ink Appoints

Sheila Black as Executive | Artistic Director

 

SAN ANTONIO, TX, June 18, 2012 - Gemini Ink, the literary arts non-profit organization in San Antonio, Texas appoints Sheila Black as its Executive | Artistic Director. As the former Development Director of the Colonias Development Council in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and most recently the Development Officer with the New Mexico State University Foundation, Black will start her new position August 1, 2012.

 

"We are excited to have Sheila come on board," says Eusebio Diaz, Chairman of the Board at Gemini Ink, "The Board believes she possesses the leadership abilities and knowledge, as well as vision and persistence, to carry on the diverse and dynamic programs of Gemini Ink. She will continue the legacy set by Gemini Ink Founder Nan Cuba, as well as Rosemary Catacalos who most recently gave nine years of leadership to the organization."

 

A published poet and author, Black has over nine years of highly successful experience in non-profit management and development. During her tenure with the Colonias Development Council (CDC) the budget of the organization grew from $230,000 to just under $1,000,000 and gained funding from such nationally prestigious grantors as the Ford and Kellogg Foundations. Among her duties at Gemini Ink, Black will oversee artistic design, promotion and quality of all Gemini Ink programs and events. She will be the public face of the organization and assure that Gemini Ink's mission and programs are shared with the community in order to reach new markets and foster collaborations. She will also lead development efforts with active support of the Board, and manage the fiscal health of the organization.

 

"Gemini Ink and its strong relationship with the San Antonio community made it an opportunity that was impossible to pass up," commented Black on accepting the position. "I believe deeply in literature as a part of the fabric of community-not only the necessity of being literate, but the necessity of nurturing strong and passionate readers and writers. The incredible history and wonderful staff at Gemini Ink have created a remarkable legacy of making that happen in San Antonio. This is a legacy I want to honor and build on."

 

As an author with two full-length collections to her credit, and a third due out this fall, Black is a graduate of Barnard College with B.A. in French Literature and received an M.A. in English and M.F.A in Creative Writing (Poetry) from the University of Montana. Her latest book of poetry, Wen Kroy, won the 2011 Orphic Prize in Poetry from the Dream Horse Press and will be available fall 2012. She also co-edited Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability, which was published this year and named a Notable Book for 2012 by the American Library Association (ALA). She was awarded the Frost-Pellicer Frontera Prize in 2000 and the 2012 Witter Bynner Fellowship in Poetry from the Library of Congress.

 

"I tend to be a poet who focuses on memory," Black reflects. "I am interested in what happens to our understanding of ourselves and our histories when we examine and re-examine our memories through the medium of poetry with its rich arsenal of image and metaphor-and how that changes our grasp of present experience."

 

Black is moving to San Antonio with her husband, Duncan, and three children, Annabelle, Walker, and Eliza.

 

Gemini Ink is a grassroots non-profit literary arts center that nurtures readers and writers and builds community through literature and the related arts. For more information on the organization and its programs, contact us at 210.734.9673 or visit us online, www.geminiink.org .

 

 

About Gemini Ink and Its Programs

GEMINI INK nurtures writers and readers and builds community through literature and the related arts. We serve an average of 5,000 patrons annually-from the avid reader to troubled youth, and from the professional writer to the elder who wants to record her family stories. The organization has four key programs:  

 

WRITERS IN COMMUNITIES sends professional writers into diverse community settings-shelters, schools, neighborhood centers, and detention facilities-to work alongside students of all ages, needs, interests, and abilities. These workshops-always free to participants-focus on oral traditions, reading, and creative writing, and because we publish work by each student, represent for many their first acknowledged success with writing.

 

OPEN CLASSROOM, comprising AUTOGRAPH SERIES and the new BREAKTHROUGH THINKERS, presents writers of national and international stature-many of them recipients of major prizes such as the Pulitzer or National Book Award-in free public performances followed by audience Q&A.

 

UNIVERSITY WITHOUT WALLS offers three semesters of fee-based reading groups and workshops and also many free literary events, all led by professional writers, scholars, and interdisciplinary artists. We offer classes with successful, interesting, and thought-provoking writers from all genres.

 

DRAMATIC READERS THEATER is presented in two formats. The original format features professional actors interpreting existing literary works in free performances, often accompanied by original music. The second format, Writers Respond to Art, presents three writers reading their original writing inspired by works of visual art and also highlighted with music.

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Photo Cutline:  

Sheila Black - Gemini Ink
Sheila Black, Gemini Ink Executive | Artistic Director
Gemini Ink, the literary arts non-profit organization in San Antonio, Texas appoints Sheila Black as its Executive | Artistic Director.