The Bourgeon Book

The Bourgeon Book is a product of the renowned local nonprofit Day Eight, and draws on dozens of interviews, poems, and essays by artists that originally appeared in Bourgeon, the organization’s literary magazine. The book was originally published in 2013 to praise from local media and former Kennedy Center president Michael Kaiser. A recent grant from the National Endowment for the Arts has allowed Day Eight to produce an expanded e-book version featuring nearly twice as many essays from painters, dancers, authors, sculptors, and poets across D.C.’s vibrant, multicultural arts community—a community that has never been more necessary or mobilized.

Robert Bettmann—Day Eight founder, general editor of The Bourgeon Book, and Brightwood resident—is an artist himself, and a worthy representative for this city’s creative populace. Robert is available for interviews and can speak with eloquence and expertise to some of most pressing issues facing our city today: What role can artists play in modelling community and solidarity, in D.C. and elsewhere? How can collaboration between local artists serve as a model for greater community mobilization? How will D.C.’s arts scene rise to the occasion as the local creative resistance to an arts- and diversity-averse administration?

“While the arts and arts journalism continue to free fall along with the global economy, the model innovated by Bourgeon is clear. Perhaps it is now, as it always was, that the artists will lead the way.” 

                              –from the preface by journalist Leonard Jacobs

Check it out here.