Irene OGarden - Risking the Rapids

Published: Feb. 21, 2019, 2:11 a.m.

b'Risking the Rapids: How My Wilderness Adventure Healed My Childhood with Irene O\\u2019Garden

Aired Wednesday, 20 February 2019 at 4:00 PM EST / 1:00 PM PST

Irene O\\u2019Garden has won or been nominated for prizes in nearly every writing category from stage to e-screen, hardcovers, children\\u2019s books as well as literary magazines and anthologies. Her critically-acclaimed play Women on Fire (Samuel French), starring Judith Ivey, played to sold-out houses at Off-Broadway\\u2019s Cherry Lane Theatre, and was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award. Her new play, Little Heart, won her a Berilla Kerr Playwriting Fellowship and was awarded full development at the New Harmony Play Project. O\\u2019Garden was awarded a Pushcart Prize for her lyric essay \\u201cGlad to Be Human,\\u201d (Untreed Reads.) Harper published her first memoir Fat Girl and Nirala Press recently published Fulcrum: Selected Poems, which contains her prize-winning poem \\u201cNonfiction.\\u201d On January 31, 2019 O\\u2019Garden\\u2019s upcoming memoir, Risking the Rapids: How My Wilderness Adventure Healed My Childhood is being published by Mango Publishing.

O\\u2019Garden\\u2019s poems and essays have been featured in dozens of literary journals and award- winning anthologies (including A Slant of Light, USA Book award Best Anthology), and she has been honored with an Alice Desmond Award and an Oppenheimer for her children\\u2019s books.

A seasoned and entertaining presenter both on stage and video, O\\u2019Garden has appeared at top literary venues: including The Player\\u2019s Club, the Bowery Poetry Club, Nuyorican Poetry Caf\\xe9, and KGB in Manhattan; The Poetry Caf\\xe9, Mycennae House and Vinyl Deptford in London, and all throughout the Hudson Valley. She\\u2019s a regular contributor to 650\\u2015Where Writers Read, in New York City and Sarah Lawrence College and has received several grants from Poets and Writers. Irene also presents to an audience of hundreds annually at the Global Seth Conference.

O\\u2019Garden has presented at children\\u2019s literature conferences at Vassar and NYU and teaches poetry workshops at New York City schools. She is especially pleased to bring the national River Of Words program to Hudson Valley schools under the auspices of The Beacon Institute of Rivers and Estuaries. O\\u2019Garden is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild, The Authors Guild, Actor\\u2019s Equity Association, The Society of Children\\u2019s Book Writers and Illustrators, and The Society of Scribes.

Irene O\\u2019Garden has lived joyfully with her husband John Pielmeier for over 40 years. Pielmeier, who is most known for his play Agnes of God, also writes movies and miniseries for television. In 2018 Scribner published his first novel, Hook\\u2019s Tale, and his stage adaptation of The Exorcist played London\\u2019s West End and will open in New York this year. They live and write in Garrison, NY.

For more info: ireneogarden.com'