Who are you?

I was born and raised in Fayetteville, graduated from FHS in 1995. My parents, Monte and Faye Alter, still live and work in town. My dad’s company, Monte Alter Construction, has been around for years and he is always busy building someone the house of their dreams. My mom is semi-retired, but spends a lot of time designing costumes for Arts Live.

I left Arkansas after high school to attend college at a small liberal arts school called The College of Santa Fe, where I graduated with a double major in theater and English literature. Immediately after graduation in 1999, I moved to New York City and began my career in the entertainment business. I did everything from Off-Broadway Theater, to working for an agent at William Morris Agency, to being a manager for several TV, film and Broadway stars. After seven years, I decided to move back to the south and found myself in Austin, Texas, working in film production.

Tell us about your work. What exactly do you do?

I do … well everything or anything. I mostly produce or work as a production coordinator, although I have also worked as an AD (assistant director) and in the art department. I love organizing and budgeting, so the producing role is a great fit for me. While it is challenging, it plays to my strengths.

How long have you been working in film?

It’s been about 2.5 years of actual production work, but over 10 years in the “business.”

Favorite project to date?

And I’m not just saying this, but “Cook County” for sure. It was my first feature film. I learned so much and got to work with some unbelievably talented people. And the final product, well come see the film, it speaks for itself.  I’m so proud of this film and what we were able to accomplish on such a limited budget and schedule. Meth addiction is a very relevant issue in small cities and towns all over the U.S. “Cook County” tells one family’s story and it’s a heartbreaking one. I think it sheds light on a very serious problem. And the actors’ performances in the film are incredible. Anson Mount, who stars as “Bump,” was a former client of mine in New York. I have known him for years and his performance was so good, so believable, that he scared me.

Muse?

I don’t know that I have a single “muse” or influence. I want to make my parents proud though. They have been so supportive of me. I’m very lucky.

Advice for those who want to break into the industry?

Be prepared to work your butt off. If you don’t absolutely LOVE it, go find something else to do, because there are a million people who are willing to sacrifice it all to be in the business. Be a sponge. The best education comes from the people you will work with. So stop and observe.

What’s happening now? What’s next?

David Pomes, the writer/director, is taking “Cook County” out on a multi-city tour. It’s a new trend in independent film making, self-distribution. We want people to see the movie, so he is taking it out there. We’re very excited to see what comes of this tour. David is working on the next script that we are hoping to raise money for and shoot within the next couple of years.

Why do you do what you do?

Oh, I have tried to leave the business many times and it keeps pulling me back in. So I guess I do what I do, because it’s what I’m supposed to do.

Favorite actor?

Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Leonardo Dicaprio

Favorite director?

Baz Luhrmann (and David Pomes of course!).

What do you do in your spare time?

Hang out with my dogs! I have two, Roxie, a Jack Russell mix, who I have had for a couple of years and Frankie, a Boxer mix puppy who has just joined the family. My boyfriend and I love to travel and are planning a trip to Europe this fall. I’m also a diehard Arkansas Razorback fan and can’t wait for football season to start! GO HOGS!

By Ginny Masullo

Matthew and Katy Henriksen

Photo by Max Greenstreet

August is Arkansas’s hottest month and this month’s readers, Katy and Matthew Henriksen, are most likely to be the hottest readers of the Ozark Poets and Writers Collective’s 2009 line-up. They will read at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Hammontree’s in Nightbird Books on Dickson Street.

Trying to describe the energy of the Henriksen’s might be akin to attempting to graphically depict the speed of light. Matthew is co-editor of Typo, an online poetry magazine, teaches six college level classes in writing or literature, and is co-creator, with Katy, of the Burning Chair poetry reading series. Katy works full-time at the University of Arkansas Press and runs with Matthew, out of their home, the small press Cannibal, which specializes in handmade poetry books. They have a baby due. The two parents say they’ll quickly teach her to fold pages for their press.

Katy and Matthew, who both hold master’s degrees from the University of Arkansas, met at an MFA party in Fayetteville, but the Dickson Street Bookstore is where they really connected. When Katy went to Germany, Matthew took over her job at the bookstore. When she returned they went to New York where he had a New York City Teaching Fellowship to teach seventh and eighth graders in Harlem from 2004 to 2006. That stint, which Matthew describes as probably the most fulfilling teaching he’ll ever do, was blighted by the murder of one of his students.

Katy worked at the famous Strand bookstore and later at a publishing house as a publisher’s assistant.

Typo was founded and is run by Adam Clay and Matthew. Both are UA MFA creative writing graduates. They began the online poetry magazine in Arkansas and continued it even after Adam moved to Michigan, and Matthew moved to New York.

The Burning Chair poetry readings began in Manhattan in 2005. Matthew and Katy had attended poetry readings such as the Poetry Project, KGB and the 11th Street Bar in New York. They observed that each of the readings’ participants did not attend the others’ readings. They wanted to start a series that built bridges between these poetic communities. And, they wanted an audience full of non-poets to prevent the incest that can occur in the poetry world.

Having a large pool of contributors to the now quite reputable Typo who were more than glad to travel to New York to read, Katy and Matthew found their first venue in the Cloister Cafe complete with a stained-glass backdrop. They invited poets from each of the poetry communities in New York and Burning Chair began to roar like a well-fed furnace.

Burning Chair hosted offsite readings at the 2007 and 2008 Association of Writers and Writing Programs and continues now in Fayetteville. With introductory readings at the Four Square Gallery and the Fayetteville Underground, the series will begin in earnest in 2010.

Cannibal began as a literary journal of the arts and has expanded into publishing poetry books. Matthew chooses the content and the design is done primarily by Katy. Each book is painstakingly handmade by Matthew, Katy and a bevy of friends.

Cannibal, Typo and the Burning Chair are all manifestations of the rare and generous spirits of these two writers. Both write and publish but they obviously care as much about other people’s work as they do about their own.

While in New York they pulled poets from all over the country to read in the city. Now, because of their energy and focused efforts, Fayetteville, already the cultural oasis that it is, is likely to become something of a new Mecca for poets.

Matthew has a chapbook, Is Holy, from horse less press. His poems have appeared in various journals including Absent Magazine and Agricultural Reader.

Katy writes in several genres including poetry. Her musical reviews are published in the Brooklyn Rail and Venus.

The Cannibal Books blog can be found at http://flesheatingpoems.blogspot.com.

The reading begins at 7 p.m. and is preceded and followed by an open mic with a 4-minute time limit for each reader. Sip a cold beer, have a grilled cheese at Hammontree’s and listen to this striking duo of poetic substance read from their original work.

By Ginny Masullo

Ozark Poets and Writers Collective monthly readings, held the last Tuesday of every month, are now held in the wonderful Hammontree’s Grilled Cheese restaurant located inside Nightbird Books on Dickson Street.

Chad Hammontree just opened the delightful cafe at the end of June. The offerings include a refreshing menu of grilled cheese sandwiches, soups and salads. These are not your run-of-the-mill grilled cheese sandwiches. There is a Caprese Melt with fresh mozzarella, pesto and basil just to name one of several succulently inviting items on the menu.

Hammontree’s is a welcome addition to the poetry readings. Now you can eat and sip wine or your favorite beer while listening to the likes of poets such as this Tuesday’s reader Terry Wright.

Wright, a writing professor at the University of Central Arkansas, will read from his latest work “The Confrontations.” With five books of poetry and work that has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including “Rolling Stone,” Wright is known as being on the cutting edge of experimental art and poetry, combining his original fractal art with poetry.

Declaring himself to be “a long a frustrated painter,” Wright says he was just waiting for the right tools to come along to allow his self-expression in visual art. These tools came in the way of fractal art.

“Fractal Art,” as defined by Alice Kelly “is mathematical art, literally the visual expression of equations, created on a computer with specially written fractal programs. In 1975, Benoit Mandelbrot introduced the term “fractal” to describe irregular objects, like the surface of a mountain. If you look at a mountain from a distance, you see its overall shape. As you approach it, you see it’s made up of details like ravines and outcroppings. As you get even closer, you see the details within the details, right down to the smallest rocks that make up the surface. If you examine the small rocks, you see that they too are made up of smaller shapes, right down to the molecular level and beyond. Each successively smaller detail also shows self-similarity, which is a key fractal component: the rough uneven surface of a rock mirrors in miniature the rough uneven surface of the mountain itself.”

Wright mixes poems directly with his fractal-digital art. These creations can be viewed on his Web site titled “Rooms with a View.” Wright’s work as a writer both contributes and combines with his visual art. His pieces, with and without the obvious poem imposed over the art, tell stories. This is no small order for what most would call abstract art.

In Wright’s fractal poetry he uses a variation of William S. Burroughs “cutup” method, where two existing blocks of text are run through a virtual cut-up machine set on random settings. The resulting text is then reorganized, without changing any existing words or phrase patterns into a new “found text.” This process loosely mirrors fractal theory by making something out of chaos and by finding self-similar patterns within an existing structure.

Wright, who is the only Arkansas writer to receive both the poetry and the fiction prize from WORDS — The Arkansas Literary Society, is more than a seasoned performer bringing his experience as a rock musician (he played with the Mauls) to the poetry podium. If you want a view of poetry that incorporates every facet of seeing, hearing and feeling, make your way to Hammontree’s at Nightbird Books this Tuesday at 7 p.m. Prepare to be moved, prepare to feel cool.

Open mic with a four-minute limit precedes and follows Terry Wright.