The Body's River
A poem for Sunday
I was born for betrayal—
When my mother left me in the orphanage,
I invented love with strangers.
And if it wasn't there, I made it be there,
until the crash, the revelation.
They say blues is three chords and the truth—
And poetry is long-lined lies and a deep dive
into the body's costly river.
The Atlantic Published February 2023

Jan Beatty talks about The Warhol

Jan Beatty's Warhol Museum billboard

Jan Beatty and Sandra Cisneros at the Miami Book Fair, November 17, 2021

Book Launch! "American Bastard" by Jan Beatty
(w/ Ed Ochester and 8th Street Rox)
Lotenero Art Studio
Saturday October 23, 2021 - 7:00pm - 9:00pm
White Whale Bookstore is honored to host the launch of American Bastard, the new memoir by local award-winning writer and poet Jan Beatty! She'll be joined by Nancy Kirkwood for a reading of Ed Ochester's poetry, and by local band 8th Street Rox for some tunes. As some of Jan's biggest fans, we can't wait to celebrate her and this book.
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AMERICAN BASTARD
2019 Red Hen Nonfiction Award
Release date: 10/19/21
"I don't think I've ever read a book like this one. I hadn't known some live haunted by their own blood ghosts. It will be medicine for those wounded by their own births; and illuminating for anyone who thought they understood notions of home and kin. It's as if Beatty's lived homesick for herself. American Bastard is as brutal and beautiful as Beatty's poetry. A surgery of the self. Precise and invasive, exploratory and celebratory, debilitating and transformational."
- Sandra Cisneros, House on Mango Street, A House of My Own: Stories from My Life
Jan Beatty's American Bastard starts with a threat - with razor like prose she backs you up against the wall of your naive assumptions. A monumental work of wild innovative storytelling, wholly original, American Bastard would be unbearable in its pain were it not rendered with such exquisite craft and beauty. As a reader you're either in or out, I suggest you stay in for one of the decade's premier memoirs.
- Sapphire, Push, The Kid
American Bastard dares and succeeds at reimaging and redefining memoir as a genre where stream of consciousness meets essay, meets magical realism, meets reportage, meets poetry to create an epic mosaic only possible through the literary genius of Jan Beatty. And as if that weren't enough, an enthralling yet gracious exposé about adoption that confronts and educates us through a voice that is at times tender and broken, at times angry and fierce, but always unflinchingly honest with herself, the people in her life, and her readers.
- Richard Blanco, Presidential Inaugural Poet, The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Memoir
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American Bastard
2019 Red Hen
Nonfiction Award
Release date: 10/19/21
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October 15, 2023
with Sandra Cisneros
Teatro Bilingue de Houston
Houston, TX
September 1, 2023 - 7:00pm
Ragged Edge Coffee House
Gettysburg, PA
August 23, 2023 - 7:00pm
World Above
Stockton University
Noyes Art Garage
Atlantic City
May 12-13, 2023
Pittsburgh Literary Festival
May 2, 2023
University of Delaware
March 8-11, 2023
AWP Writers Conference, Seattle
March 3, 2023
White Whale Bookstore
Lefty Blondie Press Launch with
Christine Stroud
February 17, 2023
University of California Riverside
Writers Week
October 21-22, 2022
Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival
October 13-14, 2022
Workshop and Reading
The Folger Shakespeare Library
Washington, D.C.
September 15, 2022
Aretha's Jazz Cafe
with Allison Adelle Hedge Coke
Detroit
May 14, 2022
Pittsburgh Literary Festival
April 24, 2022 - 2:00-3:00pm
LA Times Book Festival
April 23, 2022
The Poetry Center
Passaic County Community College
April 14, 2022 - 5:00-6:00pm PST (Virtual)
Looking Back, Looking Forward:
A Reading with Jan Beatty and Dana Levin
The women writers who influenced their work.
(Iris Jamahl Dunkle MC)
wnba-sfchapter.org
April 9, 2022 - 6:00-7:00pm EDT (Virtual)
Adoptee Literary Festival
EDT Nonfiction Panel
www.adopteelitfest.com
November 17, 2021
Miami Book Fair
with Sandra Cisneros
November 6, 2021
Red Hen Books
Pasadena, CA
American Bastard Launch
w/Richard Blanco, Lynne Thompson
November 11, 2021 (Virtual)
Poetry Flash
with Peter Kline, C. Dale Young
November 7, 2021
Bazaar Cafe
San Francisco
October 23, 2021
American Bastard Book Launch
Lotenero Art Studio
White Whale Bookstore hosting
October Fall Book Festival
George Mason University, VA
Virtual Reading
October 7-9, 2021
Lit Youngstown Fall Literary Festival
In Person
September 30, 2021
Columbia College Chicago
Virtual Reading
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2022
Skydog Chapbook
Lefty Blondie Press
released May, 2022
2021
Jan Beatty's new book, American Bastard
released Fall 2021
2020
Jan Beatty's The Body Wars released Fall 2020
University of Pittsburgh Press
2019
Jan Beatty wins 2019 Red Hen Nonfiction Award for her memoir, American Bastard
2018
Winner of the 2018 Paterson Poetry Prize
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