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Writing workshop

YOUNGSTOWN — A writing workshop will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Pig Iron Literary and Art Works, 26 N. Phelps St.

STATE

Signing will accompany museum’s African exhibit

CLEVELAND — Constantine Petridis, curator of African art for the Cleveland Museum of Art, will sign copies of his exhibition catalog, “Art and Power in the Central African Savanna” after his free public lectures Wednesday and April 29.

His catalog was awarded the Midwest Art History Society Award for Outstanding Catalog for 2008.

The signing Wednesday will follow his 6:30 p.m. lecture, “From ‘Fetish’ to Power Figure,” in which he will discuss the history of the discovery of power objects.

The April 29 signing will follow his lecture at 6:30 p.m. about “Nkishi and Bwanga among Luba, Songye, and Luluwa Peoples.”

“Art and Power in the Central African Savanna,” the namesake of the catalog, is an original exhibit on display through May 31.

The museum is at 11150 East Blvd.

AWARDS

Poetry Foundation Prizes

NEW YORK — Sixty-eight-year-old poet Fanny Howe, whose collections include “On the Ground” and “The Lyrics,” was awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

The $100,000 prize, which is given to a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition, was announced last week by the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation.

The foundation also awarded the $10,000 Randall Jarrell Award for criticism to 39-year-old Ange Mlinko, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker and The Nation and on the Poetry Foundation’s Web site.

Hot off the presses

Ramone’s estate executor files lawsuit over tell-all

NEW YORK — The executor of Dee Dee Ramone’s estate has gone to court to stop publication of a book about the late punk rocker by his first wife.

Ira Herzog says Vera Davie of Port St. Lucie, Fla., violated an agreement to let him review and change anything she wrote about the bassist.

Herzog’s lawsuit in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court uses Ramone’s real name, Douglas Glenn Colvin. Colvin was with the Ramones from their creation in 1974 until 1989. He died in June 2002 at age 50 in Los Angeles.

Davie’s book is “Poisoned Heart: I Married Dee Dee Ramone,” published by Phoenix Books of Beverly Hills under the pen name Vera Ramone King.

Phoenix Books didn’t immediately return a call to comment.

Vindicator staff/wire report