Chavisa Woods

Chavisa Woods is a New York based fiction writer, poet and performance artist.

Biography

Chavisa Woods is the author of "Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind." This work of full-length fiction was released in 2008 by Fly By Night Press. The book explores the rural American landscape and the experiences of working class women in the U.S., addressing issues of lesbian identity, race relations, and cycles of abuse both domestic and societal. The book also explores psychological and metaphysical themes, combining realism with meta-fiction, creating what some have called ‘magical realism.’ This book is both a short fiction collection and a novel. The ‘chapters’ are interconnected short stories written in varying styles that follow two characters, a mother and daughter, throughout their childhoods into adulthood. The identities of the characters are sometimes abstracted within the contexts of the stories.

Woods was born and raised in Sandoval, Illinois. Her performance art, spoken word and poetry have been featured in multiple venues in New York City and abroad, including the Whitney Museum as part of Butch Morris' Chorus of Poets, the New York Vision Festival, Quimby's Bookstore Chicago, Hot Festival at the Dixon Place Theater NYC , The Howl festival NYC, The Brecht Forum, Pink Pony Reading Series, Blue Stockings Bookstore NYC, The Fresh Fruit Festival, Slam Poetry in St. Louis and the National Poetry Slam. ^[1]

Her first full-length book of fiction, Lo

During 2008 she collaborated with a contemporary video artist and animator to produce abstract animations to accompany the stories from Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind.

Awards

Chavisa Woods was the 2008 recipient of the Jerome Foundation Travel Grant/Award for Literature.

Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind is a current finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Debut Fiction.

Publications

Poetry

Woods has published poetry in a number of magazines, including:

• Union Station Magazine http://unionstationmag.com/2011/05/poem-chavisa-woods/
• The Evergreen Review http://www.evergreenreview.com/123/remembering-what-it-was-like.html
• Danse Macabre- Stonewall Issue, 2009 http://dansemacabre.art.officelive.com/stonewall.aspx
• Poetz.com Green Issue, 2008
• Blue Fog Journal, 2007
• Cake Poetry, 2007
• Tribes Magazine, 2007
• The Red Doll (chapbook) – 2006
• Matador, 2006
• The BARD Gay and Lesbian Poetry Review, 2006
• Chronogram, 2006
• Conversations with the Other Woman (chapbook), 2006
• Where We Live, 2005,
• Calling the Red, Chapbook, 2005
• Xanadou, 2004
• Wildflowers, 2004
• In The Fray, 2004

Fiction

• Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind, Fly By Night Press, 2008
• "The Smallest Actions", The Fiction Circus, 2008
• "The Bell Tower", Prima Materia, 2006
• Short story in Fuzion 1003, 2004

Nonfiction

• Autonomedia, "Worst Book I Ever Read" (essay), 2008
• Sotheby’s Catalogue, May 2008
• Aganzia Catalogue (art review), 2006
• A Gathering of the Tribes Webmag, "Borat Receives Memo"

Documentaries

• Rhapsodists, 2004

Book Reviews

• Pedestal Magazine [1]
• The Brooklyn Rail
• GO! Magazine
• The Fiction Circus
• The Short Review
• The Feminist Review
• The Feminist Review (2)
• GO! Mag
• Small Press Distribution Books

References

1. ^ Cotter, Holland (2007-08-17). "Bird Flew Exhibition". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/arts/design/17gall.html. Retrieved 22 December 2008. 

External links

• www.chavisawoods.net Author Homepage
• Tribes Online -
• Interview at The Short Review
• Interview with KDHX literature for The Halibut
• Go Magazine review

Persondata
Name	Woods, Chavisa
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth	Sandoval, Illinois
Date of death
Place of death