Showing posts with label readings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label readings. Show all posts
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Lit TV: Getting to Know Litmags
Youtube, Vimeo, and the like are loaded with live reading videos, which can be a fun way to get to know literary magazines. This video, sponsored by CLMP and NY Public Library, features members of the editorial staff of several magazines. They make macro comments about each magazine, talk about publication schedule, philosophy, and history, before reading excerpts.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Lit TV. Gaitskill Talks About Reading
If you haven't discovered the Center for Fiction channel at Youtube yet, discover it. They have full videos of their fantastic events, in parts. In this one, for example, Mary Gaitskill talks about the writer's arm. It's very physical, to her, writing, and reading is a sharing of the physical between writer and reader. I love this point of view.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
I'm Reading This Thursday at KGB
If you're in NYC and free, come on by, it's free!
Drunken! Careening! Writers!
Thursday, May 20, 2010, 7pm
KGB Bar, 85 E. 4th St.
FREE
Andrea Alton & Allen Warnock
Jacob Appel
Anne Elliott
"Amazing Points of View"
with your hostess, Kathleen Warnock
Allen Warnock & Andrea Alton as Carl & Shelly
Andrea Alton is a New York based, actor/writer/comedian. She recently finished a commercial run of Carl & Shelly, Best Friends Forever (co-writer/actor with Allen Warnock) which originally premiered at the 2008 NY Fringe Festival. Other favorite theatre credits include The Chiselers and Labor Day Weekend (Emerging Artists Theatre), The Strangest Kind of Romance (Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival), Big Girl, Little World (NY Fringe Festival) and Reckless, She Stoops to Conquer (Kaleidoscope Theatre Company). Andrea performs characters and sketch through out the city and most recently took part in the Miss Fag Pageant at Comix as Miss Park Slope which was a benefit for the Harvey Milk School. www.andreaalton.com.
Allen Warnock: Theatre credits include: The Skin of Our Teeth, A Servant of Two Masters, and WASP (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Off-White Christmas (Manhattan Theatre Source) and Zen and the Art of Doing Nothing (Center Stage, Midtown Int. Theatre Fest '08). Allen co-wrote and appeared in Carl & Shelly, Best Friends Forever which premiered at the '08 NY Fringe Fest and later received a commercial run at Theatre 3 this past February. Film credits: Morning Glory(with Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton, upcoming) and The Wedding Bros. (with Dan Fogler). www.myspace.com/allenwarren.
Anne Elliott Anne Elliott's stories have appeared in Hobart, Pindeldyboz, Opium, FRiGG, 3:AM, and other indie litmags, including the late, great WV. She hails from the Pacific Northwest, and resides now in Brooklyn, where her hobbies include gardening and feral cat management. She has an MFA in visual / performance art from UC San Diego. http://assbackwords.blogspot.com/
Jacob M. Appel Jacob M. Appel's short fiction has appeared in more than 120 leading literary journals. His prose has won the Boston Review Short Fiction Competition, the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Award for the Short Story, the Dana Award, the Arts & Letters Prize for Fiction, the North American Review's Kurt Vonnegut Prize, and many others. Jacob's stage plays have been performed in New York City, regionally and abroad. Jacob has taught most recently at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Gotham Writers' Workshop in New York City. Jacob holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Brown, an M.A. and an M.Phil. from Columbia, an M.D. from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, an M.F.A. from N.Y.U. and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He also publishes in the field of bioethics He currently practices medicine at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. www.jacobmappel.com
Drunken! Careening! Writers!
Thursday, May 20, 2010, 7pm
KGB Bar, 85 E. 4th St.
FREE
Andrea Alton & Allen Warnock
Jacob Appel
Anne Elliott
"Amazing Points of View"
with your hostess, Kathleen Warnock
Allen Warnock & Andrea Alton as Carl & Shelly
Andrea Alton is a New York based, actor/writer/comedian. She recently finished a commercial run of Carl & Shelly, Best Friends Forever (co-writer/actor with Allen Warnock) which originally premiered at the 2008 NY Fringe Festival. Other favorite theatre credits include The Chiselers and Labor Day Weekend (Emerging Artists Theatre), The Strangest Kind of Romance (Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theatre Festival), Big Girl, Little World (NY Fringe Festival) and Reckless, She Stoops to Conquer (Kaleidoscope Theatre Company). Andrea performs characters and sketch through out the city and most recently took part in the Miss Fag Pageant at Comix as Miss Park Slope which was a benefit for the Harvey Milk School. www.andreaalton.com.
Allen Warnock: Theatre credits include: The Skin of Our Teeth, A Servant of Two Masters, and WASP (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Off-White Christmas (Manhattan Theatre Source) and Zen and the Art of Doing Nothing (Center Stage, Midtown Int. Theatre Fest '08). Allen co-wrote and appeared in Carl & Shelly, Best Friends Forever which premiered at the '08 NY Fringe Fest and later received a commercial run at Theatre 3 this past February. Film credits: Morning Glory(with Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton, upcoming) and The Wedding Bros. (with Dan Fogler). www.myspace.com/allenwarren.
Anne Elliott Anne Elliott's stories have appeared in Hobart, Pindeldyboz, Opium, FRiGG, 3:AM, and other indie litmags, including the late, great WV. She hails from the Pacific Northwest, and resides now in Brooklyn, where her hobbies include gardening and feral cat management. She has an MFA in visual / performance art from UC San Diego. http://assbackwords.blogspot.com/
Jacob M. Appel Jacob M. Appel's short fiction has appeared in more than 120 leading literary journals. His prose has won the Boston Review Short Fiction Competition, the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Award for the Short Story, the Dana Award, the Arts & Letters Prize for Fiction, the North American Review's Kurt Vonnegut Prize, and many others. Jacob's stage plays have been performed in New York City, regionally and abroad. Jacob has taught most recently at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Gotham Writers' Workshop in New York City. Jacob holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Brown, an M.A. and an M.Phil. from Columbia, an M.D. from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, an M.F.A. from N.Y.U. and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He also publishes in the field of bioethics He currently practices medicine at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. www.jacobmappel.com
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Write Camp Notes Part One
It's been a couple weeks since I got back from the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore College. Now that I've finally unpacked, I'll share.
First the basics and logistics. It was a four week workshop with the option to attend for only two. I was there for the second half. Many of the students were there on scholarship from grad or undergrad creative writing programs at other schools. Others were teachers using continuing ed grants. Others were serious "hobbyists" like me, who need to play full-time writer for a couple weeks every year, on vacation from otherwise unrelated dayjobs. And there was a handful of retirees, some just starting to write. The mix of age and experience was large (with all the positive and negative aspects one would expect). Most of us stayed in the dorms, in a block of single rooms set aside for writers.
The schedule was less strenous than other conferences. Mornings were unprogrammed. Workshop met Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. Class size ranged from 5 to 16. There were 7 concurrent workshops, so it was possible to learn every single student's name. Some students paid extra for a consultation on a book-length manuscript with an author of note. (Many of them told me it was a shining highlight of the conference.) Tuesday and Thursday afternoons were generic Q&A sessions with visiting writers. (These sessions relied on the students to provide the topics of discussion, which I felt was a weakness relative to other conferences--I would have preferred to hear the authors talk on specific craft-related subjects. Wouldn't you love to hear Russell Banks talk about voice for an hour? Or Charles Simic talk about what one learns from doing translations? But I digress.) Each evening had a reading by two of the faculty or visitors, followed by a reception. There was a good amount of drinking but alcohol was not the main event. Sunday evening had a student reading and barbecue at an old Victorian mansion attached to the school.
But enough with the nuts and bolts, and on to the unique and/or noteworthy aspects. My overall impression was that we were encouraged to delve deeply into the work of others. The nightly faculty readings were long (each author for as much as 45 minutes) and gave more than a taste of a writer's work. Bob Boyers, the director, gave a thorough, thoughtful introduction to each writer, and while the good-natured jokes did fly about the length of his speeches, they were an art form unto themselves, carefully composed (and even, from previous years, compiled in a volume called A BOOK OF COMMON PRAISE), and designed to help us hear new things in the work of authors we thought we already knew.
A word on the faculty and guests. It's an astonishing list of literary heavies, and my reason for going. (My favorite readings were from Charles Simic, Danzy Senna, Nick Delbanco, Rick Moody, and my teachers Amy Hempel and Mary Gaitskill.) Hero worship was definitely in the air. But the faculty, too, seemed committed to passing the baton. It felt (to me) like it was more than a dayjob to them.
This theme of delving deeply extended into the classroom, where we were reading and annotating 30 pages each of student prose. (Most other workshops I have done ask for half that amount.) With a class of 16, plus assigned published works to read, the load added up. I learned what a slow reader I am. I had flash memories of the oppressive weekends of grading papers, back when I used to teach comp. So the "free" mornings in Saratoga Springs turned out to be me with my folder and pencil, changing venue but not activity: to the cafe in town, to the cafeteria, to the library, to my dorm, to the outdoor chair. To work and work some more, this annotating freak went.
The sheer volume of required reading created in me a new impatience for extra verbiage, for explanation of character motive and/or backstory, for wit for wit's sake. I apologize (if you're reading this) to my classmates for the mass of delete marks I put in your pages. It's not you, it's me, and I think I overreached. I encourage you to ignore the unhelpful comments. I'm not one of those people who thinks workshop is about thickening your skin. But it is about sharpening one's taste and editing skills, and I grew a lot in that department. Emphasis on taste, as in that's why there's horseracing.
I kept thinking about what my husband says about a good day up at bat. The pitch might be coming at 80MPH but if you're in the groove, if you've practiced your fundamentals and put on your lucky underwear and said rabbit rabbit rabbit when you got out of bed in the morning, if you are in the best possible shape before you stand at the plate, the ball looks like it's hanging in the air. All you have to do is whack it.
I felt a little of this shift happening in my brain. The long hours spent picking apart other peoples' unfinished work has made it much easier to pick apart my own. The mistakes and missed opportunities jump out faster. I don't have to beg readers to show them all to me.
The other byproduct of the deep-looking emphasis of the conference was a total lack of instruction on how to get published. I found this refreshing. It wasn't a matter of the discussion being premature for the students (it was for some, but not all), but rather, it would almost be in bad taste. This was a conference about writing and reading, but not about sales. Yahoo.
I want to get into more specifics about what I learned in the classroom, but I'll save that for a future post. Just one more thing before I sign off--that sparkly water they have all over Saratoga bubbling from those cute Victorian spigots--delicious! But it contained microbes my body did not know yet. Be warned. Also: racehorses are exciting and gorgeous when they're working out in the morning. They're not wearing all that wacky colorful clothing they wear on race day, and they are not in a big pack, so you can see more of what they're doing. Worth getting up early. Damn, they're fast.
More later! Off to make dinner.
First the basics and logistics. It was a four week workshop with the option to attend for only two. I was there for the second half. Many of the students were there on scholarship from grad or undergrad creative writing programs at other schools. Others were teachers using continuing ed grants. Others were serious "hobbyists" like me, who need to play full-time writer for a couple weeks every year, on vacation from otherwise unrelated dayjobs. And there was a handful of retirees, some just starting to write. The mix of age and experience was large (with all the positive and negative aspects one would expect). Most of us stayed in the dorms, in a block of single rooms set aside for writers.
The schedule was less strenous than other conferences. Mornings were unprogrammed. Workshop met Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. Class size ranged from 5 to 16. There were 7 concurrent workshops, so it was possible to learn every single student's name. Some students paid extra for a consultation on a book-length manuscript with an author of note. (Many of them told me it was a shining highlight of the conference.) Tuesday and Thursday afternoons were generic Q&A sessions with visiting writers. (These sessions relied on the students to provide the topics of discussion, which I felt was a weakness relative to other conferences--I would have preferred to hear the authors talk on specific craft-related subjects. Wouldn't you love to hear Russell Banks talk about voice for an hour? Or Charles Simic talk about what one learns from doing translations? But I digress.) Each evening had a reading by two of the faculty or visitors, followed by a reception. There was a good amount of drinking but alcohol was not the main event. Sunday evening had a student reading and barbecue at an old Victorian mansion attached to the school.
But enough with the nuts and bolts, and on to the unique and/or noteworthy aspects. My overall impression was that we were encouraged to delve deeply into the work of others. The nightly faculty readings were long (each author for as much as 45 minutes) and gave more than a taste of a writer's work. Bob Boyers, the director, gave a thorough, thoughtful introduction to each writer, and while the good-natured jokes did fly about the length of his speeches, they were an art form unto themselves, carefully composed (and even, from previous years, compiled in a volume called A BOOK OF COMMON PRAISE), and designed to help us hear new things in the work of authors we thought we already knew.
A word on the faculty and guests. It's an astonishing list of literary heavies, and my reason for going. (My favorite readings were from Charles Simic, Danzy Senna, Nick Delbanco, Rick Moody, and my teachers Amy Hempel and Mary Gaitskill.) Hero worship was definitely in the air. But the faculty, too, seemed committed to passing the baton. It felt (to me) like it was more than a dayjob to them.
This theme of delving deeply extended into the classroom, where we were reading and annotating 30 pages each of student prose. (Most other workshops I have done ask for half that amount.) With a class of 16, plus assigned published works to read, the load added up. I learned what a slow reader I am. I had flash memories of the oppressive weekends of grading papers, back when I used to teach comp. So the "free" mornings in Saratoga Springs turned out to be me with my folder and pencil, changing venue but not activity: to the cafe in town, to the cafeteria, to the library, to my dorm, to the outdoor chair. To work and work some more, this annotating freak went.
The sheer volume of required reading created in me a new impatience for extra verbiage, for explanation of character motive and/or backstory, for wit for wit's sake. I apologize (if you're reading this) to my classmates for the mass of delete marks I put in your pages. It's not you, it's me, and I think I overreached. I encourage you to ignore the unhelpful comments. I'm not one of those people who thinks workshop is about thickening your skin. But it is about sharpening one's taste and editing skills, and I grew a lot in that department. Emphasis on taste, as in that's why there's horseracing.
I kept thinking about what my husband says about a good day up at bat. The pitch might be coming at 80MPH but if you're in the groove, if you've practiced your fundamentals and put on your lucky underwear and said rabbit rabbit rabbit when you got out of bed in the morning, if you are in the best possible shape before you stand at the plate, the ball looks like it's hanging in the air. All you have to do is whack it.
I felt a little of this shift happening in my brain. The long hours spent picking apart other peoples' unfinished work has made it much easier to pick apart my own. The mistakes and missed opportunities jump out faster. I don't have to beg readers to show them all to me.
The other byproduct of the deep-looking emphasis of the conference was a total lack of instruction on how to get published. I found this refreshing. It wasn't a matter of the discussion being premature for the students (it was for some, but not all), but rather, it would almost be in bad taste. This was a conference about writing and reading, but not about sales. Yahoo.
I want to get into more specifics about what I learned in the classroom, but I'll save that for a future post. Just one more thing before I sign off--that sparkly water they have all over Saratoga bubbling from those cute Victorian spigots--delicious! But it contained microbes my body did not know yet. Be warned. Also: racehorses are exciting and gorgeous when they're working out in the morning. They're not wearing all that wacky colorful clothing they wear on race day, and they are not in a big pack, so you can see more of what they're doing. Worth getting up early. Damn, they're fast.
More later! Off to make dinner.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Audio Joys
You may already know I'm a podcast junkie. Here are a few of my recent faves:
Tobias Wolff reads the Denis Johnson classic short story "Emergency" on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. Time to buy milk for the preemie rabbits and save some lives. Some of my favorite dialogue ever written, the kind that makes me laugh aloud on the subway. (And news to me--I learned that Johnson himself played the patient with the knife in his eye in the movie version of Jesus' Son!)
Zadie Smith talks about language, social class, and inclusion/exclusion in her NYPL lecture "Speaking in Tongues." From Pygmalion to Obama (both president and memoirist). What exactly is "keeping it real," and does education make that impossible? And if so, is that a tragedy, as it has been painted in the past, the so-called "tragedy of the mulatto?" Or, are people like Obama (and Zadie Smith too) teaching us a new way to think about "real?"
Luis Alberto Urrea lectures at Bread Loaf 2008: "The Road Out of Tijuana is Paved with Ink." Talk about keeping it real. Dude has wild stories to tell about his aunt, La Flaca, and her terrifying fireside tales, along with other early experiences that formed who he is as a writer. Instructive and entertaining. Sorry I could not figure out how to deep link to this episode. Click on the "lectures" tab in iTunes. Also recommended from Bread Loaf: Robert Boswell's lecture on omniscient narration, a pared-down version of his essay from The Half-Known World: On Writing Fiction, my new favorite craft book ever.
Alan Davis Drake's podcast of Anton Chekhov's unabridged short stories is fun and well-produced. It's a good way to get up to speed on the classics. There are two things I love about Chekhov (so far)... One: he makes characters' motives transparent--often selfish ones--without completely sacrificing their likeability. Is this the essence of comedy? Or at least the kind of comedy I love, which laughs at the self and the other at the same time? And two: he doesn't appear to be following strict rules of beginning-middle-end. You know how I feel about that crap. Character motive pulls you right on through. That, and the feeling you're sitting around a campfire or card table hearing the story. The structural surprises are welcome and satisfying.
Tobias Wolff reads the Denis Johnson classic short story "Emergency" on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. Time to buy milk for the preemie rabbits and save some lives. Some of my favorite dialogue ever written, the kind that makes me laugh aloud on the subway. (And news to me--I learned that Johnson himself played the patient with the knife in his eye in the movie version of Jesus' Son!)
Zadie Smith talks about language, social class, and inclusion/exclusion in her NYPL lecture "Speaking in Tongues." From Pygmalion to Obama (both president and memoirist). What exactly is "keeping it real," and does education make that impossible? And if so, is that a tragedy, as it has been painted in the past, the so-called "tragedy of the mulatto?" Or, are people like Obama (and Zadie Smith too) teaching us a new way to think about "real?"
Luis Alberto Urrea lectures at Bread Loaf 2008: "The Road Out of Tijuana is Paved with Ink." Talk about keeping it real. Dude has wild stories to tell about his aunt, La Flaca, and her terrifying fireside tales, along with other early experiences that formed who he is as a writer. Instructive and entertaining. Sorry I could not figure out how to deep link to this episode. Click on the "lectures" tab in iTunes. Also recommended from Bread Loaf: Robert Boswell's lecture on omniscient narration, a pared-down version of his essay from The Half-Known World: On Writing Fiction, my new favorite craft book ever.
Alan Davis Drake's podcast of Anton Chekhov's unabridged short stories is fun and well-produced. It's a good way to get up to speed on the classics. There are two things I love about Chekhov (so far)... One: he makes characters' motives transparent--often selfish ones--without completely sacrificing their likeability. Is this the essence of comedy? Or at least the kind of comedy I love, which laughs at the self and the other at the same time? And two: he doesn't appear to be following strict rules of beginning-middle-end. You know how I feel about that crap. Character motive pulls you right on through. That, and the feeling you're sitting around a campfire or card table hearing the story. The structural surprises are welcome and satisfying.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Two Gigs in Same Week? What Are the Odds?
After a long period of silence, I have two gigs in the same week! I'm feeling lucky.
Both in NYC, one poetry, one prose. Both are lineups I'm stoked to be in.
POETRY:
NYQuarterly series
Monday, May 18 2009, 6PM
Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia Street, NYC 10014
Cover $7 (includes one house drink)
Host: Ted Jonathan
Featuring: R.D. Coleman, Anne Elliott, Jason Tandon
Friends of and contributors to NYQuarterly celebrate one of America's finest poetry journals by reading from its pages.
PROSE:
Drunken! Careening! Writers!
Thursday May 21, 7PM
KGB Bar
85 E. 4th St. NYC
Free
Hostess: Kathleen Warnock
Featuring: Anne Elliott, Jessie Male, Felicia Sullivan
READER BIOS:
In 2005, Jessie Male's advanced knowledge of the frozen foods section earned her the title of assistant editor at the number two grocery trade magazine in the country. She has since been published in numerous food and dance publications and is currently working on two nonfiction collections. Jessie recently emigrated from Brooklyn to Manhattan to serve as a program coordinator at Columbia University. Her family is a constant source of support and material.
Felicia C. Sullivan is the author of The Sky Isn't Visible from Here, which has been featured in Vanity Fair, Elle, USA Today, Redbook, Newsday, and The Washington Post. In 2008, her memoir was optioned for film by Gigi Productions. Sullivan lives in New York where she is presently writing the screenplay adaptation of her memoir and working on her novel, Women and Children First. Visit her online at: http://www.feliciasullivan.com/.
Jason Tandon is the author of two collections of poetry, Give over the Heckler and Everyone Gets Hurt, winner of the St. Lawrence Book Award for a first book (Black Lawrence Press, 2008), and Wee Hour Martyrdom (Sunnyoutside Press, 2008). His poetry and reviews have appeared in many journals including Columbia Poetry Review, DIAGRAM, Fugue, Laurel Review, Madison Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry International, Red Cedar Review, Poet Lore, and Quarterly West. He is currently a Lecturer in Writing at Boston University.
(I'll add info as it becomes available.)
Both in NYC, one poetry, one prose. Both are lineups I'm stoked to be in.
POETRY:
NYQuarterly series
Monday, May 18 2009, 6PM
Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia Street, NYC 10014
Cover $7 (includes one house drink)
Host: Ted Jonathan
Featuring: R.D. Coleman, Anne Elliott, Jason Tandon
Friends of and contributors to NYQuarterly celebrate one of America's finest poetry journals by reading from its pages.
PROSE:
Drunken! Careening! Writers!
Thursday May 21, 7PM
KGB Bar
85 E. 4th St. NYC
Free
Hostess: Kathleen Warnock
Featuring: Anne Elliott, Jessie Male, Felicia Sullivan
READER BIOS:
In 2005, Jessie Male's advanced knowledge of the frozen foods section earned her the title of assistant editor at the number two grocery trade magazine in the country. She has since been published in numerous food and dance publications and is currently working on two nonfiction collections. Jessie recently emigrated from Brooklyn to Manhattan to serve as a program coordinator at Columbia University. Her family is a constant source of support and material.
Felicia C. Sullivan is the author of The Sky Isn't Visible from Here, which has been featured in Vanity Fair, Elle, USA Today, Redbook, Newsday, and The Washington Post. In 2008, her memoir was optioned for film by Gigi Productions. Sullivan lives in New York where she is presently writing the screenplay adaptation of her memoir and working on her novel, Women and Children First. Visit her online at: http://www.feliciasullivan.com/.
Jason Tandon is the author of two collections of poetry, Give over the Heckler and Everyone Gets Hurt, winner of the St. Lawrence Book Award for a first book (Black Lawrence Press, 2008), and Wee Hour Martyrdom (Sunnyoutside Press, 2008). His poetry and reviews have appeared in many journals including Columbia Poetry Review, DIAGRAM, Fugue, Laurel Review, Madison Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry International, Red Cedar Review, Poet Lore, and Quarterly West. He is currently a Lecturer in Writing at Boston University.
(I'll add info as it becomes available.)
Monday, May 12, 2008
I'll Hit the Mic, KGB, May 15, Come on Down!
KGB Bar 5/15/08 7PM
85 E 4th St., NYC
FREE
AAA-mazing Writers!
Anne Elliott
Angela Himsel
Alyson Palmer
And your guest host, A. Rich Merritt
Anne Elliott is a writer, ukulelist, and feral cat caretaker living in Brooklyn. Her fiction can be seen in Hobart, Pindeldyboz, Smokelong Quarterly, FRiGG, and others. She blogs on felines and fiction at http://assbackwords.blogspot.com
Angela Himsel has been obsessed with God for a long while, and she'd like to think that God is equally obsessed with her -- and with the rest of us. In her novel, God on the Couch, God takes to the couch in an attempt to understand the Creator/creation relationship. Angela's writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Jewish Week, the Forward, Lilith, online at beliefnet.com and elsewhere.
Best known as the tallest third of the pop rock band, BETTY, Alyson Palmer also writes. BETTY has performed in venues all over the world since 1986 and is known to television audiences through their recognizable theme songs for Showtime’s "The L Word," HBO's "Encyclopedia", "Cover Shot" on TLC, Comedy Central's "Out On The Edge" and Discovery TV's "Ms. Adventure". Alyson has appeared on "The L Word" and "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.". She writes and performs original songs with long-time-love Tony Salvatore in Tony & Alyson and Tot Rock in the raucous Tone Alley. She blogs at www.mamarox.com
Drunken! Careening! Writers! is a reading series dedicated to the proposition that readings should be: excellent, well-read pieces that have at least one thing in them that makes people laugh (nervous laughter counts), and don't run more than 15 minutes each. For more information, or to be added to the mailing list, email CareeningWriters@aol.com.
85 E 4th St., NYC
FREE
AAA-mazing Writers!
Anne Elliott
Angela Himsel
Alyson Palmer
And your guest host, A. Rich Merritt
Anne Elliott is a writer, ukulelist, and feral cat caretaker living in Brooklyn. Her fiction can be seen in Hobart, Pindeldyboz, Smokelong Quarterly, FRiGG, and others. She blogs on felines and fiction at http://assbackwords.blogspot.com
Angela Himsel has been obsessed with God for a long while, and she'd like to think that God is equally obsessed with her -- and with the rest of us. In her novel, God on the Couch, God takes to the couch in an attempt to understand the Creator/creation relationship. Angela's writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Jewish Week, the Forward, Lilith, online at beliefnet.com and elsewhere.
Best known as the tallest third of the pop rock band, BETTY, Alyson Palmer also writes. BETTY has performed in venues all over the world since 1986 and is known to television audiences through their recognizable theme songs for Showtime’s "The L Word," HBO's "Encyclopedia", "Cover Shot" on TLC, Comedy Central's "Out On The Edge" and Discovery TV's "Ms. Adventure". Alyson has appeared on "The L Word" and "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.". She writes and performs original songs with long-time-love Tony Salvatore in Tony & Alyson and Tot Rock in the raucous Tone Alley. She blogs at www.mamarox.com
Drunken! Careening! Writers! is a reading series dedicated to the proposition that readings should be: excellent, well-read pieces that have at least one thing in them that makes people laugh (nervous laughter counts), and don't run more than 15 minutes each. For more information, or to be added to the mailing list, email CareeningWriters@aol.com.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Come Hear Us Read, November 28th, NYC
THIS JUST IN.....
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NEW Reading Series!!
Friends of Tuesday Shorts are now appearing monthly at the Boxcar Lounge (http://boxcarlounge.com/): Our FIRST phenomenal reading is November 28, 2007, 8:00 PM, 168 Avenue B, East Village NYC.
Please join us and forward to anyone you know. We wanna see your shorts there too!Hosted by Shelly Rae Rich, writer (see http://blog.shellyraerich.com/) and co-editor of Tuesday Shorts (http://myspace.com/tuesdayshorts), the series kicks off with an eclectic group of talent.
And here they are…..
Rusty Barnes grew up in rural northern Appalachia. He received his B.A. from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. from Emerson College. His fiction, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in journals like Pindeldyboz, Post Road, and Red Rock Review. After editing fiction for the Beacon Street Review (now Redivider) and Zoetrope All-Story Extra, he co-founded Night Train, a recently reinvented literary journal, which has been featured in the Boston Globe, The New York Times, and on National Public Radio. Sunnyoutside Press published a collection of his flash fiction, Breaking it Down in November 2007.
Linda DiGusta is a freelance writer and artist. Active in the NYC theatre for more than a decade as a director, designer and performer, the inventiveness of acting and collaboration on a screenplay re-kindled her early interest in fiction, and she has had several short stories published in print and online. In the fine art world, she currently has 2 still-life drawings in the exhibition "Lineal Investigations" at the Housatonic Museum of Art, and her assemblages and drawings have been seen in group exhibitions in Manhattan and Brooklyn, including at Art Gotham in Chelsea this month. Integrating art and writing, Linda also writes for and serves as Executive Editor of Resolve40.com, an online publication created by artists in 2005 to present the art world from a fresh point of view. She lives in midtown Manhattan with artist Mark Wiener and their multi-species family. More at: http://www.lindadi.com/ and http://www.resolve40.com/.
Anne Elliott has performed her poetry, with and without ukulele, at the Whitney Museum (with the Beats show), PS122, Lincoln Center, The Poetry Project at St. Mark's, Woodstock '94, and other venues in and out of NYC. Her poems have appeared in Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe, Verses that Hurt: Pleasure and Pain from the Poemfone Poets, and other anthologies. Her fiction has appeared in Hobart, Pindeldyboz, FRiGG, Ars Medica, and others, and she blogs on the writing life and feral cat management at http://assbackwords.blogspot.com/.
Carol Novack, a former criminal defense lawyer and Australian government grant recipient, is the author of a chapbook of poetry, play, collaborative CD and two collaborative films. Writings may or will be found in many publications, including American Letters & Commentary, Action Yes, Del Sol Review, Diagram, 5_trope, Gargoyle, Journal of Experimental Fiction, La Petite Zine, LIT, Notre Dame Review, and the Star*Vigate anthology of best online writings. Carol publishes the multi-media e-journal Mad Hatters' Review (http://madhattersreview.com/), curates a reading series at the KGB Bar, and runs lyrical fiction writing workshops. She'll be a resident at The Vermont Studio Center next year. For additional details, see her blog (http://carolnovack.blogspot.com/).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NEW Reading Series!!
Friends of Tuesday Shorts are now appearing monthly at the Boxcar Lounge (http://boxcarlounge.com/): Our FIRST phenomenal reading is November 28, 2007, 8:00 PM, 168 Avenue B, East Village NYC.
Please join us and forward to anyone you know. We wanna see your shorts there too!Hosted by Shelly Rae Rich, writer (see http://blog.shellyraerich.com/) and co-editor of Tuesday Shorts (http://myspace.com/tuesdayshorts), the series kicks off with an eclectic group of talent.
And here they are…..
Rusty Barnes grew up in rural northern Appalachia. He received his B.A. from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. from Emerson College. His fiction, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in journals like Pindeldyboz, Post Road, and Red Rock Review. After editing fiction for the Beacon Street Review (now Redivider) and Zoetrope All-Story Extra, he co-founded Night Train, a recently reinvented literary journal, which has been featured in the Boston Globe, The New York Times, and on National Public Radio. Sunnyoutside Press published a collection of his flash fiction, Breaking it Down in November 2007.
Linda DiGusta is a freelance writer and artist. Active in the NYC theatre for more than a decade as a director, designer and performer, the inventiveness of acting and collaboration on a screenplay re-kindled her early interest in fiction, and she has had several short stories published in print and online. In the fine art world, she currently has 2 still-life drawings in the exhibition "Lineal Investigations" at the Housatonic Museum of Art, and her assemblages and drawings have been seen in group exhibitions in Manhattan and Brooklyn, including at Art Gotham in Chelsea this month. Integrating art and writing, Linda also writes for and serves as Executive Editor of Resolve40.com, an online publication created by artists in 2005 to present the art world from a fresh point of view. She lives in midtown Manhattan with artist Mark Wiener and their multi-species family. More at: http://www.lindadi.com/ and http://www.resolve40.com/.
Anne Elliott has performed her poetry, with and without ukulele, at the Whitney Museum (with the Beats show), PS122, Lincoln Center, The Poetry Project at St. Mark's, Woodstock '94, and other venues in and out of NYC. Her poems have appeared in Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe, Verses that Hurt: Pleasure and Pain from the Poemfone Poets, and other anthologies. Her fiction has appeared in Hobart, Pindeldyboz, FRiGG, Ars Medica, and others, and she blogs on the writing life and feral cat management at http://assbackwords.blogspot.com/.
Carol Novack, a former criminal defense lawyer and Australian government grant recipient, is the author of a chapbook of poetry, play, collaborative CD and two collaborative films. Writings may or will be found in many publications, including American Letters & Commentary, Action Yes, Del Sol Review, Diagram, 5_trope, Gargoyle, Journal of Experimental Fiction, La Petite Zine, LIT, Notre Dame Review, and the Star*Vigate anthology of best online writings. Carol publishes the multi-media e-journal Mad Hatters' Review (http://madhattersreview.com/), curates a reading series at the KGB Bar, and runs lyrical fiction writing workshops. She'll be a resident at The Vermont Studio Center next year. For additional details, see her blog (http://carolnovack.blogspot.com/).
Friday, July 20, 2007
Fifty Views of the Pacific Northwest, Tin House Workshops, Family, Gardens, Walks, and Critters
I found my missing moleskine, deep in my suitcase with dirty clothes. Yay! and Whew!
I've been keeping a daily journal for a year, using a method I learned in Lynda Barry's Writing the Unthinkable class: every morning, I list ten images from the day before. The theory is that writing about my state of mind is unnecessary--the images will evoke the state of mind. So instead of giving you photographic images of my trip to the Pacific Northwest, I'm gonna do an experiment and share the way I really remember stuff. (And I promise my Sasquatch pics in a later post.)
So here are some highlights from July 4-15, not necessarily verbatim from the journal...I'll omit some names for privacy's sake.
1. Cul de sac with Mount Si looming in the background. Neighbors set off fireworks. Many of them wear matching red white and blue tie dies. Loud rocket shoots up, then bursts into falling parachutes. Kids scramble below to catch the parachutes. Most land on the roof of the family who is out of town. Toddlers cover their ears.
2. Dad shares some of the jokes he uses to warm up the singalong before the Sunday church service. "Why didn't Noah go fishing from the ark? He only had two worms." Bible Study, Dad calls it.
3. My stepmom's gorgeous raspberries. I help her pick them, trying for the higher branches. She makes a salad with raspberries, mango, homegrown spinach, and chicken, arranged in a thoughtful composition on the plate.
4. Walk with Dad to a sphagnum bog. I hear a birdsong I remember from childhood. (Wood Thrush, I later learn. Listen!) A picture is posted to teach visitors about mummies in bogs. Dad talks about sitting in cafes, researching and writing a sermon. I think we are alike in this habit, needing the pen, and books, and solitude.
5. Chipping away at Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer. I find it hard to change gears and go from one example to the next. Her insights are worth the effort. Makes me want to reread Carver, and find the essays of Woolf.
6. A morning hill walk. Two young does watch me from a nearby berm. I get close enough to see how skinny and hungry they are. Worms venture across the sidewalk under my feet; some don't make it, dehydrate under the July sun.
7. Over dinner, my stepmom tells me about relatives who did subsistence farming during the depression. A kitchen garden, and enough livestock to keep them in eggs and milk. The next day, I watch her water her healthy garden. Weeding is not a big chore for her. She does it automatically, as she passes by, almost a way of greeting her vegetables and flowers. They seem to love her back.
8. Road trip from Snoqualmie to Oregon, just me and Dad. We stop in a country cafe in Centralia for lunch. So many obese people around us, I'm a little afraid to eat the food. I buy a rubber chicken to bring home to the dog.
9. Visit to my mother's sister. She tells us that for good luck, on the first of the month, her first words on waking are "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit," before she gets out of bed over the footboard. I resolve to do this from now on.
10. My aunt takes us to walk a labyrinth of a friend of hers. It's a Chartres design, paved in rough stones, and she and I walk it barefoot. The surprise of turns, it always surprises me, the trip to the center and back is not what it looks like. Soft, Corsican mint in the center, a pillow under our feet. We talk about my mom, how she would have loved this.
11. A Welsh Corgi plays the piano for cookies.
12. I attend my first Unitarian Universalist service. After the sermon, there is a period for commentary and/or rebuttal from the room. One man quotes a philosopher: "I have not told the truth until I have contradicted myself."
13. Dad drops me off at Reed College for the Tin House conference. We bring my bags up to my dorm room, and laugh about how it's like dropping me off for college. We never did this then, so it's a 20-years-delayed experience. My room is a third floor garret with three beds to choose from. He prepares his opera scores to study on his drive home. I wave as he drives away, I feel a pang of goodbye.
14. First class session with Steve Almond. He tries to guess who wrote which story. He nails the first four or so, freaking us out a little.
15. Reading by TC Boyle, with the on-campus lake as a backdrop. Several people have dogs in the amphitheater. One, a Willie lookalike, rests his chin on the seat in front of him to listen. Another, a border collie, barks during the applause. Boyle dons a beret and reads a story about a Beats groupie.
16. Breakfast discussion of the stone critters on top of our dorm. Are they owls? Beavers? That night, a mammal glide-swims in the lake behind Karen Shepard as she reads from her new novel. Afterward, I ask the sound guys if it's a beaver. No, they say, it's a nutria. It must be a nutria on top of the dorm! I can't wait to tell hubby. Nutria! I manage to catch a live one up close, he's swimming in the twilight.
17. People are blushing, disagreeing in workshop. Emotions are high but it feels productive. Almond pushes to the emotional core of the story. People seem to be trying to help without babying the writer. "It's so vivid!" Almond says, but asserts that vivid is not enough. He wants the characters to enter an emotional danger zone. My ears are wide open.
18. Several other conferences are concurrent at Reed. I eat lunch with a skinny young man from another group who has loaded his tray with sandwich, salad, soup, dessert. He gets ranch dressing all over his mouth. I'm fascinated with how he eats, can't concentrate on the homework I am trying to read.
19. I take early morning walks to a cafe in Woodstock, where they have easy chairs. I drink my latte and write in my journal. Nearby, two hipsters collaborate on a crossword. "What kind of cheese is in lasagna?" "Woody or Arlo?" I resist the urge to call out suggestions.
20. I sit in lecture next to a very talented 21-year old. She is holding her own, with people twice her age. We talk about how she researched the setting for her story. I am amazed she did it through books and movies. "I'm so shy," she worries, but I'm not worried for her. "I think we all are," I say, feeling the need for Paxil myself. A room full of writers? It will take a few days to get comfortable.
21. I flirt with some sassy crows on my morning walk. Toss them pieces of apricot. They yell at me as they fly out of my way.
22. Salad bar is exactly the same every day. Carrot and celery sticks, iceberg and spinach, cauliflower, cuke, cherry tomato, cottage cheese, hard boiled egg. Sticking to the diet, but it's monotonous.
23. Steve Almond gives us chocolate in morning workshop. I partake. I have to. He's an expert.
24. I sit in the balcony of the air-conditioned lecture hall for Aimee Bender's talk on show and tell. She leads off with a Lynda Barry cartoon. I feel high, up here, like one of my new crow friends.
25. A classmate is lost in thought at breakfast, spoon resting on her mouth, the morning before she is "up" in workshop. Later, before class, I take a walk with her around the lake and we talk about how she turned her own experiences into her short story.
26. Random guy from another class joins our lunch group and tells us about his sex life. I learn the definition of the Pittsburgh Platter. I feel a little sorry for Pittsburgh.
27. More hard boiled eggs. I'm living on them, now, dipped in Dijon mustard.
28. Lecture. Jim Shepard picks through Raymond Carver's short, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," line by line, looking for subtext. It's a precise, planned vivisection. He paces at the front of the hall, doesn't need the mic at all. He wears a blue bowling shirt. I annotate madly.
29. Steve Almond's tee shirt collection impresses us. "Chocolate Boy." "Fictional Character." A picture of the pope smoking pot. He reads, in the amphitheater, a collection of responses to right-wing hate mail. He's at home on the mic. "Condoleeka!"
30. At the participant readings, classmate shares a piece about a gay man having sex with a woman as an experiment, and the surprise of the woman's fragility, the "vestibules" of her body. I can't stop quoting it.
31. I dream a woman is pulling off the roof of our house, without our permission. We are roofless. We put up a blue tarp, like folks in New Orleans, hope it will be sufficient.
32. In the lecture hall, the border collie falls asleep on my feet. She's a service dog, and she enjoys some popularity at the conference. When she "applauds" with us, I realize she has been jolted awake by the clapping, is barking in confusion.
33. Stephen Elliott lectures on using your life as subject matter. He points out that once Jonathan Lethem allowed himself to "cheat" by using concrete memories from his own life, he was able to produce what many view as his masterpiece. Giving oneself permission is the hardest part. Elliott recommends if you write about people in your life, you should make them beautiful. Then you can say anything about them and they will not object.
34. I go into a clog store on Milwaukee and try on $135 mary janes. I love them but not $135 worth. The salesgirl has a shaved head and snake earrings. "You have beautiful stuff," I say as I leave. Then I realize she must have thought I was flirting.
35. Antique store. Bought old Childcraft encylopedias, a blast from my past, for research. Worried about the book-heavy suitcase. Bought some stranger-family photos too. One pic, a rough bunch on a camping trip, dated 1916, with axes, rifles, huckleberry buckets, and a dog. They could be my ancestors. (I will scan and post. This one's a keeper.)
36. Annie Proulx reads a story about the Devil. Later, the sky turns red, and there is lightning. I find shelter with three women and we watch the storm, talk about our writing practice and how we find feedback, systems for making writing groups work, book clubs for writers. I don't crave Paxil any more.
37. Take Friday lunch off campus, at an organic place up the hill. They have dinosaurs on the tables. A baby with a fauxhawk. Then I poke around an Episcopal Thrift Store, my touchstone. Retired ladies, tea sets, tee shirts.
38. I keep walking by an apparent anarchist house in Portland. Dandelions and spent fireworks in the front yard. Tall frankensteined bikes in the back. Very Burning Mannish.
39. Push tables together to eat dinner with my online friends from the Zoe community. We give gifts to one of us who has just gotten married. We pass around coveted advance copies of Charles Baxter's new essay book, The Art of Subtext.
40. Colson Whitehead reads from his new novel, set in 1985, kids in a beach community left to themselves for the summer. He dissects their insults, using a visual aid, building phrases like "fake-Adidas-wearin' motherfucker." He does a full rundown of frozen convenience foods of the era, including Weight Watchers and Stouffers french bread pizza.
41. I'm not "up" in my workshop until the last day, Saturday. I've fainted at these things before so I work on prevention. Some of Steve's chocolate, some water, some quick aerobic exercise in the hall. The discussion is helpful. Almond suggests I take away the "scaffolding" on the story. It hits a nerve, in a good way. I don't faint. I'm grateful.
42. Long talk with a classmate about her novel, about a woman who can communicate with animals. I want to read it.
43. Charles D'Ambrosio's lecture on conflict. He lists signs of conflict-avoidance to look for, like the character who "watches" or "wishes" he/she said something. Suggests when you're painting in a limited palette, sometimes it's good to take a wide, bold brush. It's what I need to hear and I nearly cry as I scramble to write it all down. Later, people talk about the talk's nonlinear chaos, but it felt very linear to me. Maybe this is how I think.
44. The last reading: Abigail Thomas (who I can't wait to read), DA Powell, Charles Baxter. Baxter says "Don't you love the dog?" and competes very well with many distractions--the nutria moving a log behind him in the lake, the pink sunset. He reads from a new novel, in which the protag's young child calls himself "queer."
45. The last night's dance. I take a leap and put on makeup for the first time all week. Hard to do, since we don't have mirrors in the room. I boogie with a new female friend and we admire the dance stylings of Stephen Elliott in his bright orange sleeveless shirt and heart tattoo. He knows how to work it. Several classmates have just been introduced to his work, and are staying up nights reading his new book.
46. Last breakfast, and I get a chance to tickle Josie Almond's fat toes. "Am I invading your personal space?" I ask. "She has no boundaries," her dad says. He plops her on his shoulders and she grabs hold of his hair, then pushes his head aside so she can grin at all the adults at the table.
47. My cousin picks me up, and takes me for a hike, a lake east of Vancouver. Red poison oak in sunny patches. We hear that birdsong again, and she does a good imitation of it. I haven't seen her in years, and she looks just the same. She takes me to her house, and plays piano for me. I swoon over a Mendelssohn piece. She plays with a gentle touch, and lots of feeling for the melody.
48. My cousin gives me a tour of her garden. Perennial flowers, mostly--lilies, monarda, echinacea--and lots of bees. I take pictures. Her cat follows us, but "it has to be the cat's idea." We share notes on cats. A rabbit visits and snacks on the flowers. I tell her about our aunt's "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" ritual. "We do that too!" she says. Later, her son calls, and she and her husband both run to the phone, eager to hear about his experiences at ski camp.
49. Benadryl. I'm falling asleep before I even get on the redeye flight at PDX. Snooze the whole way to JFK, am surprised at how early the sunlight hits my face.
50. Big barks from Willie, hugs from the guy I've been missing, a shower, and back to the office. Feels weird to be wearing a suit again. 400 emails. I dig in.
I've been keeping a daily journal for a year, using a method I learned in Lynda Barry's Writing the Unthinkable class: every morning, I list ten images from the day before. The theory is that writing about my state of mind is unnecessary--the images will evoke the state of mind. So instead of giving you photographic images of my trip to the Pacific Northwest, I'm gonna do an experiment and share the way I really remember stuff. (And I promise my Sasquatch pics in a later post.)
So here are some highlights from July 4-15, not necessarily verbatim from the journal...I'll omit some names for privacy's sake.
1. Cul de sac with Mount Si looming in the background. Neighbors set off fireworks. Many of them wear matching red white and blue tie dies. Loud rocket shoots up, then bursts into falling parachutes. Kids scramble below to catch the parachutes. Most land on the roof of the family who is out of town. Toddlers cover their ears.
2. Dad shares some of the jokes he uses to warm up the singalong before the Sunday church service. "Why didn't Noah go fishing from the ark? He only had two worms." Bible Study, Dad calls it.
3. My stepmom's gorgeous raspberries. I help her pick them, trying for the higher branches. She makes a salad with raspberries, mango, homegrown spinach, and chicken, arranged in a thoughtful composition on the plate.
4. Walk with Dad to a sphagnum bog. I hear a birdsong I remember from childhood. (Wood Thrush, I later learn. Listen!) A picture is posted to teach visitors about mummies in bogs. Dad talks about sitting in cafes, researching and writing a sermon. I think we are alike in this habit, needing the pen, and books, and solitude.
5. Chipping away at Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer. I find it hard to change gears and go from one example to the next. Her insights are worth the effort. Makes me want to reread Carver, and find the essays of Woolf.
6. A morning hill walk. Two young does watch me from a nearby berm. I get close enough to see how skinny and hungry they are. Worms venture across the sidewalk under my feet; some don't make it, dehydrate under the July sun.
7. Over dinner, my stepmom tells me about relatives who did subsistence farming during the depression. A kitchen garden, and enough livestock to keep them in eggs and milk. The next day, I watch her water her healthy garden. Weeding is not a big chore for her. She does it automatically, as she passes by, almost a way of greeting her vegetables and flowers. They seem to love her back.
8. Road trip from Snoqualmie to Oregon, just me and Dad. We stop in a country cafe in Centralia for lunch. So many obese people around us, I'm a little afraid to eat the food. I buy a rubber chicken to bring home to the dog.
9. Visit to my mother's sister. She tells us that for good luck, on the first of the month, her first words on waking are "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit," before she gets out of bed over the footboard. I resolve to do this from now on.
10. My aunt takes us to walk a labyrinth of a friend of hers. It's a Chartres design, paved in rough stones, and she and I walk it barefoot. The surprise of turns, it always surprises me, the trip to the center and back is not what it looks like. Soft, Corsican mint in the center, a pillow under our feet. We talk about my mom, how she would have loved this.
11. A Welsh Corgi plays the piano for cookies.
12. I attend my first Unitarian Universalist service. After the sermon, there is a period for commentary and/or rebuttal from the room. One man quotes a philosopher: "I have not told the truth until I have contradicted myself."
13. Dad drops me off at Reed College for the Tin House conference. We bring my bags up to my dorm room, and laugh about how it's like dropping me off for college. We never did this then, so it's a 20-years-delayed experience. My room is a third floor garret with three beds to choose from. He prepares his opera scores to study on his drive home. I wave as he drives away, I feel a pang of goodbye.
14. First class session with Steve Almond. He tries to guess who wrote which story. He nails the first four or so, freaking us out a little.
15. Reading by TC Boyle, with the on-campus lake as a backdrop. Several people have dogs in the amphitheater. One, a Willie lookalike, rests his chin on the seat in front of him to listen. Another, a border collie, barks during the applause. Boyle dons a beret and reads a story about a Beats groupie.
16. Breakfast discussion of the stone critters on top of our dorm. Are they owls? Beavers? That night, a mammal glide-swims in the lake behind Karen Shepard as she reads from her new novel. Afterward, I ask the sound guys if it's a beaver. No, they say, it's a nutria. It must be a nutria on top of the dorm! I can't wait to tell hubby. Nutria! I manage to catch a live one up close, he's swimming in the twilight.
17. People are blushing, disagreeing in workshop. Emotions are high but it feels productive. Almond pushes to the emotional core of the story. People seem to be trying to help without babying the writer. "It's so vivid!" Almond says, but asserts that vivid is not enough. He wants the characters to enter an emotional danger zone. My ears are wide open.
18. Several other conferences are concurrent at Reed. I eat lunch with a skinny young man from another group who has loaded his tray with sandwich, salad, soup, dessert. He gets ranch dressing all over his mouth. I'm fascinated with how he eats, can't concentrate on the homework I am trying to read.
19. I take early morning walks to a cafe in Woodstock, where they have easy chairs. I drink my latte and write in my journal. Nearby, two hipsters collaborate on a crossword. "What kind of cheese is in lasagna?" "Woody or Arlo?" I resist the urge to call out suggestions.
20. I sit in lecture next to a very talented 21-year old. She is holding her own, with people twice her age. We talk about how she researched the setting for her story. I am amazed she did it through books and movies. "I'm so shy," she worries, but I'm not worried for her. "I think we all are," I say, feeling the need for Paxil myself. A room full of writers? It will take a few days to get comfortable.
21. I flirt with some sassy crows on my morning walk. Toss them pieces of apricot. They yell at me as they fly out of my way.
22. Salad bar is exactly the same every day. Carrot and celery sticks, iceberg and spinach, cauliflower, cuke, cherry tomato, cottage cheese, hard boiled egg. Sticking to the diet, but it's monotonous.
23. Steve Almond gives us chocolate in morning workshop. I partake. I have to. He's an expert.
24. I sit in the balcony of the air-conditioned lecture hall for Aimee Bender's talk on show and tell. She leads off with a Lynda Barry cartoon. I feel high, up here, like one of my new crow friends.
25. A classmate is lost in thought at breakfast, spoon resting on her mouth, the morning before she is "up" in workshop. Later, before class, I take a walk with her around the lake and we talk about how she turned her own experiences into her short story.
26. Random guy from another class joins our lunch group and tells us about his sex life. I learn the definition of the Pittsburgh Platter. I feel a little sorry for Pittsburgh.
27. More hard boiled eggs. I'm living on them, now, dipped in Dijon mustard.
28. Lecture. Jim Shepard picks through Raymond Carver's short, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," line by line, looking for subtext. It's a precise, planned vivisection. He paces at the front of the hall, doesn't need the mic at all. He wears a blue bowling shirt. I annotate madly.
29. Steve Almond's tee shirt collection impresses us. "Chocolate Boy." "Fictional Character." A picture of the pope smoking pot. He reads, in the amphitheater, a collection of responses to right-wing hate mail. He's at home on the mic. "Condoleeka!"
30. At the participant readings, classmate shares a piece about a gay man having sex with a woman as an experiment, and the surprise of the woman's fragility, the "vestibules" of her body. I can't stop quoting it.
31. I dream a woman is pulling off the roof of our house, without our permission. We are roofless. We put up a blue tarp, like folks in New Orleans, hope it will be sufficient.
32. In the lecture hall, the border collie falls asleep on my feet. She's a service dog, and she enjoys some popularity at the conference. When she "applauds" with us, I realize she has been jolted awake by the clapping, is barking in confusion.
33. Stephen Elliott lectures on using your life as subject matter. He points out that once Jonathan Lethem allowed himself to "cheat" by using concrete memories from his own life, he was able to produce what many view as his masterpiece. Giving oneself permission is the hardest part. Elliott recommends if you write about people in your life, you should make them beautiful. Then you can say anything about them and they will not object.
34. I go into a clog store on Milwaukee and try on $135 mary janes. I love them but not $135 worth. The salesgirl has a shaved head and snake earrings. "You have beautiful stuff," I say as I leave. Then I realize she must have thought I was flirting.
35. Antique store. Bought old Childcraft encylopedias, a blast from my past, for research. Worried about the book-heavy suitcase. Bought some stranger-family photos too. One pic, a rough bunch on a camping trip, dated 1916, with axes, rifles, huckleberry buckets, and a dog. They could be my ancestors. (I will scan and post. This one's a keeper.)
36. Annie Proulx reads a story about the Devil. Later, the sky turns red, and there is lightning. I find shelter with three women and we watch the storm, talk about our writing practice and how we find feedback, systems for making writing groups work, book clubs for writers. I don't crave Paxil any more.
37. Take Friday lunch off campus, at an organic place up the hill. They have dinosaurs on the tables. A baby with a fauxhawk. Then I poke around an Episcopal Thrift Store, my touchstone. Retired ladies, tea sets, tee shirts.
38. I keep walking by an apparent anarchist house in Portland. Dandelions and spent fireworks in the front yard. Tall frankensteined bikes in the back. Very Burning Mannish.
39. Push tables together to eat dinner with my online friends from the Zoe community. We give gifts to one of us who has just gotten married. We pass around coveted advance copies of Charles Baxter's new essay book, The Art of Subtext.
40. Colson Whitehead reads from his new novel, set in 1985, kids in a beach community left to themselves for the summer. He dissects their insults, using a visual aid, building phrases like "fake-Adidas-wearin' motherfucker." He does a full rundown of frozen convenience foods of the era, including Weight Watchers and Stouffers french bread pizza.
41. I'm not "up" in my workshop until the last day, Saturday. I've fainted at these things before so I work on prevention. Some of Steve's chocolate, some water, some quick aerobic exercise in the hall. The discussion is helpful. Almond suggests I take away the "scaffolding" on the story. It hits a nerve, in a good way. I don't faint. I'm grateful.
42. Long talk with a classmate about her novel, about a woman who can communicate with animals. I want to read it.
43. Charles D'Ambrosio's lecture on conflict. He lists signs of conflict-avoidance to look for, like the character who "watches" or "wishes" he/she said something. Suggests when you're painting in a limited palette, sometimes it's good to take a wide, bold brush. It's what I need to hear and I nearly cry as I scramble to write it all down. Later, people talk about the talk's nonlinear chaos, but it felt very linear to me. Maybe this is how I think.
44. The last reading: Abigail Thomas (who I can't wait to read), DA Powell, Charles Baxter. Baxter says "Don't you love the dog?" and competes very well with many distractions--the nutria moving a log behind him in the lake, the pink sunset. He reads from a new novel, in which the protag's young child calls himself "queer."
45. The last night's dance. I take a leap and put on makeup for the first time all week. Hard to do, since we don't have mirrors in the room. I boogie with a new female friend and we admire the dance stylings of Stephen Elliott in his bright orange sleeveless shirt and heart tattoo. He knows how to work it. Several classmates have just been introduced to his work, and are staying up nights reading his new book.
46. Last breakfast, and I get a chance to tickle Josie Almond's fat toes. "Am I invading your personal space?" I ask. "She has no boundaries," her dad says. He plops her on his shoulders and she grabs hold of his hair, then pushes his head aside so she can grin at all the adults at the table.
47. My cousin picks me up, and takes me for a hike, a lake east of Vancouver. Red poison oak in sunny patches. We hear that birdsong again, and she does a good imitation of it. I haven't seen her in years, and she looks just the same. She takes me to her house, and plays piano for me. I swoon over a Mendelssohn piece. She plays with a gentle touch, and lots of feeling for the melody.
48. My cousin gives me a tour of her garden. Perennial flowers, mostly--lilies, monarda, echinacea--and lots of bees. I take pictures. Her cat follows us, but "it has to be the cat's idea." We share notes on cats. A rabbit visits and snacks on the flowers. I tell her about our aunt's "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" ritual. "We do that too!" she says. Later, her son calls, and she and her husband both run to the phone, eager to hear about his experiences at ski camp.
49. Benadryl. I'm falling asleep before I even get on the redeye flight at PDX. Snooze the whole way to JFK, am surprised at how early the sunlight hits my face.
50. Big barks from Willie, hugs from the guy I've been missing, a shower, and back to the office. Feels weird to be wearing a suit again. 400 emails. I dig in.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Made Me Giggle the 5 Train Today
In her collection of essays/lectures, NEGOTIATING WITH THE DEAD: A WRITER ON WRITING, Margaret Atwood reflects on her black-clad ("like Hamlet--") bohemian poet days in the early 1960's, when the coffee houses had "mandatory Chianti-bottle candleholders." A morsel:
Another thing was--how can I put this? It was borne in on me that some of these people--even the published ones, even the respected ones--weren't very good. Some were wonderful at times, but uneven; others were insufferably mannerist; others were clearly there mostly to pick up women, or men. Could it be that getting through the door into the swarming poetic anthill wasn't necessarily a guarantee of anything? What then was the true Certificate of Approval? How would you ever know whether you'd made the grade or not, and what was the grade, anyway? If some of these people were deluded about their talents--and it was clear they were--was it possible that I might be as well? And come to think of it, what was "good?" And who determined that, and what litmus paper did they use?
Some things don't change. The candleholders, maybe, or the fashions. But we've all felt this at one time are another: that person up there on mic is overstepping her bounds. Am I too? It can be crippling, it can be funny, it can turn you off from poetry forever. Or, you learn to love the earnestness, like I somehow did, and lower your standards, so that you can keep writing. It's a dilemma.
Is the blogosphere the new Chianti-candled coffehouse? Aren't you glad we can wear our pajamas? Do we worry about being "good," or are we just happy to have a free forum? Do we do it for the sheer love of free speech, warts and all? And aren't the warts kind of cool?
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Art That Takes My Breath Away
Such a cliche. But I'm feeling susceptible to other peoples' art and I can't stop blogging about it. Maybe I should follow the lead of (my non-relative) Stephen Elliott who took an internet fast for one month. He learned it helps lengthen the attention span. Might be worth the experiment. If I go on the wagon, I'll warn you. It convinced him to give up blogging entirely.
Anyhoo, in keeping with my "All For the Best" post, I found myself sighing over a picture in the newspaper today of a volunteer who got Adrian Piper's "EVERYTHING WILL BE TAKEN AWAY" hennaed onto his forehead, backwards, so he can read it in the mirror. My colleague at work found it depressing. I suppose it is. But it also, curiously, lightens the load. I pinned the photo up over my desk at work.
Walking through Madison Square Park yesterday evening, I stopped in my tracks to look at the new site-specific work by sculptor Roxy Paine. His stainless steel denuded trees, gleaming in the fading sunlight, interacting with the newly-budding real trees around them--I had to take time to take them in. You can get close to one of them, which already has dog pee making a patina near the base. I'm so jealous. And grateful I got to see it in person. This is what sculpture is supposed to do. I haven't been floored by formalism like this in awhile. If you are in the area, don't miss this stuff. I don't think it's a permanent exhibition. (And you carnivores can eat one of the city's best burgers at the Shack while you're there.)
If you're a Wagner fan (which I am, despite his politics), check out The Tristan Mysteries, Lincoln Center's latest. The video clips here are worth a look. Hold your breath. Sigh.
And if you need to take your breath away with a belly laugh, check out pics of a bear reading Tao Lin's work, courtesy of 3AM magazine. Thank you, Mr. Bear. I only wish I had been there to hear him read.
Anyhoo, in keeping with my "All For the Best" post, I found myself sighing over a picture in the newspaper today of a volunteer who got Adrian Piper's "EVERYTHING WILL BE TAKEN AWAY" hennaed onto his forehead, backwards, so he can read it in the mirror. My colleague at work found it depressing. I suppose it is. But it also, curiously, lightens the load. I pinned the photo up over my desk at work.
Walking through Madison Square Park yesterday evening, I stopped in my tracks to look at the new site-specific work by sculptor Roxy Paine. His stainless steel denuded trees, gleaming in the fading sunlight, interacting with the newly-budding real trees around them--I had to take time to take them in. You can get close to one of them, which already has dog pee making a patina near the base. I'm so jealous. And grateful I got to see it in person. This is what sculpture is supposed to do. I haven't been floored by formalism like this in awhile. If you are in the area, don't miss this stuff. I don't think it's a permanent exhibition. (And you carnivores can eat one of the city's best burgers at the Shack while you're there.)
If you're a Wagner fan (which I am, despite his politics), check out The Tristan Mysteries, Lincoln Center's latest. The video clips here are worth a look. Hold your breath. Sigh.
And if you need to take your breath away with a belly laugh, check out pics of a bear reading Tao Lin's work, courtesy of 3AM magazine. Thank you, Mr. Bear. I only wish I had been there to hear him read.
Friday, April 20, 2007
My New Favorite MFA Program
If you haven't checked in on Tao Lin lately, do! His two new books are coming out in May from Melville House , a simultaneous release of the novel EEEEE EEE EEEE and the collection BED. If you haven't had the experience of hearing him read, here's a sample, from the legendary KGB Bar (& thanks to 3AM for the link):
That smile! Which sneaks out, disarmingly, in his pauses. And that poem, "the MFA in hamsters," which had me in giggles today, but left left a melancholy aftertaste. A fresh voice not to be missed. It's rare, for me, to have such an emotional reaction to such a deadpan delivery. His inquiry is relentless. He holds up a funhouse mirror, and dares us to peer in with him, nervous laughter and all, to see the animal versions of ourselves.
That smile! Which sneaks out, disarmingly, in his pauses. And that poem, "the MFA in hamsters," which had me in giggles today, but left left a melancholy aftertaste. A fresh voice not to be missed. It's rare, for me, to have such an emotional reaction to such a deadpan delivery. His inquiry is relentless. He holds up a funhouse mirror, and dares us to peer in with him, nervous laughter and all, to see the animal versions of ourselves.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
ART Marches On.
We're all depressed by what we're seeing in the news. Ready for a break? Can I just do a jig because it's National Poetry Month? Am I allowed?
Can I do a roundup of what other people are doing that jazzes me up?
I just took a peek at the Spring issue of FRiGG. This is a harmonic convergence of writers I already dig. Or dug. Check it out! Daphne Buter's language is so idiosyncratic and interesting. I can't read enough of her. And Nadine Darling, and Myfanwy Collins, and Brian Reynolds...some of my favorite voices.
Speaking of writers I dig, I don't think I ever gave a shoutout to the latest issue of Smokelong Quarterly, either. (Or did I? Am I too lazy to check? I meant to, when it came out.) Kudos to guest editor Alicia Gifford. She picked a good crop of breathless, rhythmic prose. I especially fell into the offerings by Rusty Barnes and Tod Goldberg. (And Goldberg should get a medal for inventing the term fucktard, which I don't think he uses here, but is worth mentioning.)
If you feel like plugging in your guitar (or ukulele) and collaborating with Jonathan Lethem, check out his Promiscuous Materials Project. This is free love for art. He offers up his stories for filmmakers and his lyrics for songwriters. You can hear what people have done with his lyrics, including John Linnell of They Might be Giants. And also a choral group! Lethem's song lyrics are good. I hear melodies when I look at them, which is a positive sign. But more than that, I love his courage in putting the stuff out there and letting us participate.
If live art and discussion is what you want, come to Bowery Poetry Club with me on Saturday April 21, for their afternoon mini-symposium, curated by Anne Waldman and Tonya Foster, Pulling it Down: The Aesthetics of Common Ground. Their all-star lineup will talk about the politics of editing, and the implied politics of nontraditional forms. By the way, did you know BPC has a podcast now? For those of you who want a virtual NYC experience. After you listen to the poetry podcast, just imagine walking out the door of the club, seeing CBGB's shuttered, the glittery highrises next to welfare hotels, and the new Whole Foods on Houston, where the robotic female voice says, "Register nine. Register nine," like something out of a seventies sci fi flick. But Walt Whitman lives! In spirit.
(I walked through that Whole Foods on the day they opened, sampling foods offered by out-of-work model/actors, listening to The Pixies full blast on my Ipod Shuffle, filling up my salad bar tray. Oh my god, it was good, but so indie-bourgeois. If only I did not crave their fake chicken salad.)
And if you're in NYC next week, don't ignore the Pen World Voices festival. Many events are free, if you are. (Some are midday....ach! Day job!) Last year they podcast several of them; I'm hoping they do the same this year. Regardless, Pen is an organization worth supporting; they are on the front lines for free speech, which is especially precarious in the current environment, here and abroad. One of the best ways to foster compassion is through literature, especially literature in translation. Why is it treason to publish Iranian poets in the US? This is the crux of many of our problems, in my opinion. OK, soap box done.
Can I do a roundup of what other people are doing that jazzes me up?
I just took a peek at the Spring issue of FRiGG. This is a harmonic convergence of writers I already dig. Or dug. Check it out! Daphne Buter's language is so idiosyncratic and interesting. I can't read enough of her. And Nadine Darling, and Myfanwy Collins, and Brian Reynolds...some of my favorite voices.
Speaking of writers I dig, I don't think I ever gave a shoutout to the latest issue of Smokelong Quarterly, either. (Or did I? Am I too lazy to check? I meant to, when it came out.) Kudos to guest editor Alicia Gifford. She picked a good crop of breathless, rhythmic prose. I especially fell into the offerings by Rusty Barnes and Tod Goldberg. (And Goldberg should get a medal for inventing the term fucktard, which I don't think he uses here, but is worth mentioning.)
If you feel like plugging in your guitar (or ukulele) and collaborating with Jonathan Lethem, check out his Promiscuous Materials Project. This is free love for art. He offers up his stories for filmmakers and his lyrics for songwriters. You can hear what people have done with his lyrics, including John Linnell of They Might be Giants. And also a choral group! Lethem's song lyrics are good. I hear melodies when I look at them, which is a positive sign. But more than that, I love his courage in putting the stuff out there and letting us participate.
If live art and discussion is what you want, come to Bowery Poetry Club with me on Saturday April 21, for their afternoon mini-symposium, curated by Anne Waldman and Tonya Foster, Pulling it Down: The Aesthetics of Common Ground. Their all-star lineup will talk about the politics of editing, and the implied politics of nontraditional forms. By the way, did you know BPC has a podcast now? For those of you who want a virtual NYC experience. After you listen to the poetry podcast, just imagine walking out the door of the club, seeing CBGB's shuttered, the glittery highrises next to welfare hotels, and the new Whole Foods on Houston, where the robotic female voice says, "Register nine. Register nine," like something out of a seventies sci fi flick. But Walt Whitman lives! In spirit.
(I walked through that Whole Foods on the day they opened, sampling foods offered by out-of-work model/actors, listening to The Pixies full blast on my Ipod Shuffle, filling up my salad bar tray. Oh my god, it was good, but so indie-bourgeois. If only I did not crave their fake chicken salad.)
And if you're in NYC next week, don't ignore the Pen World Voices festival. Many events are free, if you are. (Some are midday....ach! Day job!) Last year they podcast several of them; I'm hoping they do the same this year. Regardless, Pen is an organization worth supporting; they are on the front lines for free speech, which is especially precarious in the current environment, here and abroad. One of the best ways to foster compassion is through literature, especially literature in translation. Why is it treason to publish Iranian poets in the US? This is the crux of many of our problems, in my opinion. OK, soap box done.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Here's to My Talented Friends...Let's Go!
There's no way I'll make all of these events, but I'll try. Spring is busting out.
And National Poetry Month hasn't even started yet!
In chronological order:
March 15: 7PM, KGB Bar. Cheryl B guest hosts Drunken!Careening!Writers, with Josh Kilmer-Purcell and David Bell.
March 15 - April 1: Kathleen Warnock's play "Some Are People," at Emerging Artist Theatre.
March 18: Virginia Vitzthum reads at Brooklyn Rail's "Rantrhapsody", Freddy's Back Room, 6PM, with Gabriel Thompson, Jean Railla, Bill Batson, Doug Cordell, An Xiao, and Sabine Heinlein.
March 23: 7PM, KGB Bar. Carol Novack hosts Mad Hatter's reading featuring Patricia Catto, Ted Pelton, and Steve Tomasula.
March 26th: Mo Pitkins, 7PM. Virginia again, reading with Pagan Kennedy and Lisa Dierbeck, in a Sex, Drugs, and Gender night.
March 29th: Bowery Poetry 8PM. Janice Erlbaum reads at her paperback release party.
And National Poetry Month hasn't even started yet!
In chronological order:
March 15: 7PM, KGB Bar. Cheryl B guest hosts Drunken!Careening!Writers, with Josh Kilmer-Purcell and David Bell.
March 15 - April 1: Kathleen Warnock's play "Some Are People," at Emerging Artist Theatre.
March 18: Virginia Vitzthum reads at Brooklyn Rail's "Rantrhapsody", Freddy's Back Room, 6PM, with Gabriel Thompson, Jean Railla, Bill Batson, Doug Cordell, An Xiao, and Sabine Heinlein.
March 23: 7PM, KGB Bar. Carol Novack hosts Mad Hatter's reading featuring Patricia Catto, Ted Pelton, and Steve Tomasula.
March 26th: Mo Pitkins, 7PM. Virginia again, reading with Pagan Kennedy and Lisa Dierbeck, in a Sex, Drugs, and Gender night.
March 29th: Bowery Poetry 8PM. Janice Erlbaum reads at her paperback release party.
Friday, January 26, 2007
More Happenings
Everyone is happening this month...I hope I can get to some of this but day job is interfering. Still, I can shoutout, no?
Tonight Mad Hatter's Review is having their Friday night reading at KGB, featuring Norman Lock, Terese Svoboda, and Deb Olin Unferth. They know how to lasso the talent for these things. For info click the link and scroll down.
Next Wednesday January 31 8PM, Poetry vs. Comedy (PVC) will greet the new year at a new venue, the Bowery Poetry Club. It's a super-fun event, way better than American Idol! Poets alternate with comedians in 8 minute sets, followed by an improvisational showdown to determine the winner. Judges provide commentary, and host Carolyn Castiglia provides jabs and laughs. This month's performers are Brandy Barber, Michelle Buteau, Luke Thayer, Shane Luitjens, Zaedryn Meade, Thad Rutkowski, and Pindeldyboz as musical guest (I've heard they're hilarious.)
Next Thursday, February 1, Virginia Vitzthum's book, I LOVE YOU, LET'S MEET, officially launches! Adam's Books in Park Slope, 8:00PM.
Next Friday, February 2, my troubador friend John Kessel is playing Hank's Saloon (I believe this is Hank's in Brooklyn--dont' know of others). Check out his song, "Thrown Away," on his Myspace page. I love this song.
Probably just the tip of the iceberg.
And because I'm all over the place today, here's a crappy video of our dog Willie taking his medicine. Crappy because the sound got out of sync. I have a lot to learn.
Tonight Mad Hatter's Review is having their Friday night reading at KGB, featuring Norman Lock, Terese Svoboda, and Deb Olin Unferth. They know how to lasso the talent for these things. For info click the link and scroll down.
Next Wednesday January 31 8PM, Poetry vs. Comedy (PVC) will greet the new year at a new venue, the Bowery Poetry Club. It's a super-fun event, way better than American Idol! Poets alternate with comedians in 8 minute sets, followed by an improvisational showdown to determine the winner. Judges provide commentary, and host Carolyn Castiglia provides jabs and laughs. This month's performers are Brandy Barber, Michelle Buteau, Luke Thayer, Shane Luitjens, Zaedryn Meade, Thad Rutkowski, and Pindeldyboz as musical guest (I've heard they're hilarious.)
Next Thursday, February 1, Virginia Vitzthum's book, I LOVE YOU, LET'S MEET, officially launches! Adam's Books in Park Slope, 8:00PM.
Next Friday, February 2, my troubador friend John Kessel is playing Hank's Saloon (I believe this is Hank's in Brooklyn--dont' know of others). Check out his song, "Thrown Away," on his Myspace page. I love this song.
Probably just the tip of the iceberg.
And because I'm all over the place today, here's a crappy video of our dog Willie taking his medicine. Crappy because the sound got out of sync. I have a lot to learn.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
I'm Reading This Sunday at Pheonix Series
Haven't decided, but I may bust out the ukulele for this one. Carol's a fellow cat person, and I do write songs about cats. And Rob appears to be a dog person, and I do write songs about dogs. Plus there's the song about the flying lion, but I can't worry too much about common ground there.
If you come, bring your stuff for the open mic!
THE PHOENIX READING SERIES @ HIGH CHAI
18 Ave B (between 1st & 2nd)
212-477-2424
Sunday, January 21, 2007 2pm
Carol Novack is a long lapsed criminal defense/constitutional lawyer. Her writings can and will be found in many publications, including The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets, American Letters & Commentary, Anemone Sidecar, Big Bridge, BlazeVOX, Del Sol Review, Diagram, First Intensity, 5_Trope, La Petite Zine, LIT, Milk, Notre Dame Review, Salt River Review, and Word Riot. Carol publishes and edits the offbeat e-journal Mad Hatters' Review, teaches innovative fiction writing at The Women's Studio Center, curates a reading series at the KGB Bar, and writes a humorous advice column for City Scoops under the nom Loopy Lulu.
Anne Elliott 's poetry has been featured in anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe, Poetry Nation: the North American Anthology of Fusion Poetry, and Verses that Hurt: Pleasure and Pain from the Poemfone Poets. She has performed (with and without ukulele) at the Whitney Museum, PS122, Dixon Place, St. Mark's Poetry Project, and others. Her short fiction has appeared in Hobart and Pindeldyboz, and she currently seeks a home for her novel, Starving Hysterical Naked. She blogs on the writing life and feral cat management at http://assbackwords.blogspot.com.
Rob Stephenson is NYC based writer, composer, and visual artist. His writings have appeared in print and online in such publications as Entangled Lives, Skin and Ink, Blithe House Quarterly, Velvet Mafia, Dangerous Families, Problem Child, Best Bisexual Erotica, and Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness; writings will also emerge shortly in Issue 7 of Mad Hatters' Review. Rob Stephenson's first novel is forthcoming from Suspect Thoughts Press. His drawings have been exhibited at the Intersection Art Gallery in San Francisco, the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Katona Museum, and the Wexner Center for the Arts. His experimental music CD "dog" composed with Mikael Karlsson is now out on Please MusicWorks. Visit www.dog-cd.com.
OPEN READING FOLLOWS—AS TIME ALLOWS
One Purchase & Donation
If you come, bring your stuff for the open mic!
THE PHOENIX READING SERIES @ HIGH CHAI
18 Ave B (between 1st & 2nd)
212-477-2424
Sunday, January 21, 2007 2pm
Carol Novack is a long lapsed criminal defense/constitutional lawyer. Her writings can and will be found in many publications, including The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets, American Letters & Commentary, Anemone Sidecar, Big Bridge, BlazeVOX, Del Sol Review, Diagram, First Intensity, 5_Trope, La Petite Zine, LIT, Milk, Notre Dame Review, Salt River Review, and Word Riot. Carol publishes and edits the offbeat e-journal Mad Hatters' Review, teaches innovative fiction writing at The Women's Studio Center, curates a reading series at the KGB Bar, and writes a humorous advice column for City Scoops under the nom Loopy Lulu.
Anne Elliott 's poetry has been featured in anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe, Poetry Nation: the North American Anthology of Fusion Poetry, and Verses that Hurt: Pleasure and Pain from the Poemfone Poets. She has performed (with and without ukulele) at the Whitney Museum, PS122, Dixon Place, St. Mark's Poetry Project, and others. Her short fiction has appeared in Hobart and Pindeldyboz, and she currently seeks a home for her novel, Starving Hysterical Naked. She blogs on the writing life and feral cat management at http://assbackwords.blogspot.com.
Rob Stephenson is NYC based writer, composer, and visual artist. His writings have appeared in print and online in such publications as Entangled Lives, Skin and Ink, Blithe House Quarterly, Velvet Mafia, Dangerous Families, Problem Child, Best Bisexual Erotica, and Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness; writings will also emerge shortly in Issue 7 of Mad Hatters' Review. Rob Stephenson's first novel is forthcoming from Suspect Thoughts Press. His drawings have been exhibited at the Intersection Art Gallery in San Francisco, the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Katona Museum, and the Wexner Center for the Arts. His experimental music CD "dog" composed with Mikael Karlsson is now out on Please MusicWorks. Visit www.dog-cd.com.
OPEN READING FOLLOWS—AS TIME ALLOWS
One Purchase & Donation
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Me With Comedians? I'll Give My Best Shot
I'm reading at PVC next Thursday, come on down! I've decided to leave the ukulele home and do straight poetry. I miss that. Stoked to be reading with friends Gloria and Hal. Thanks, Cheryl, for booking me!
Cheryl B. Presents:
PVC: The POETRY vs. COMEDY VARIETY SHOW
December 7th, 8PM
Galapagos Arts Space
70 North 6th Street, Brooklyn
L Train to Bedford Ave.
FREE
www.myspace.com/pvcshow
About the Show:PVC is neither an ordinary poetry slam nor a stand-up comedy show. The Poetry Vs. Comedy Variety Show is a battle of wits and rhymes where the stanzas and the stand-up collide. The show is monthly at Galapagos Arts Space in Williamsburg (70 N. 6th St). Produced by writer and literary series curator Cheryl B., PVC boasts a line-up of venerable poets and rising star comedians.
EMCEE: Carolyn Castiglia (Caroline's)
STARRING:
Comedians
Joe Dixon (NYC Comedian)
Lang Fisher (VH1's Best Night Ever Podcast)
Jenny Rubin (Oh My God)
Poets
Anne Elliott (Pindeldyboz)
Gloria (Kanipchen-fit)
Hal Sirowitz (NPR, MTV, PBS)
MUSICAL GUEST:
The Goddess Perlman (TLC, MTV, Metro Channel)
Cheryl B. Presents:
PVC: The POETRY vs. COMEDY VARIETY SHOW
December 7th, 8PM
Galapagos Arts Space
70 North 6th Street, Brooklyn
L Train to Bedford Ave.
FREE
www.myspace.com/pvcshow
About the Show:PVC is neither an ordinary poetry slam nor a stand-up comedy show. The Poetry Vs. Comedy Variety Show is a battle of wits and rhymes where the stanzas and the stand-up collide. The show is monthly at Galapagos Arts Space in Williamsburg (70 N. 6th St). Produced by writer and literary series curator Cheryl B., PVC boasts a line-up of venerable poets and rising star comedians.
EMCEE: Carolyn Castiglia (Caroline's)
STARRING:
Comedians
Joe Dixon (NYC Comedian)
Lang Fisher (VH1's Best Night Ever Podcast)
Jenny Rubin (Oh My God)
Poets
Anne Elliott (Pindeldyboz)
Gloria (Kanipchen-fit)
Hal Sirowitz (NPR, MTV, PBS)
MUSICAL GUEST:
The Goddess Perlman (TLC, MTV, Metro Channel)
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Some Audio Recordings
Here are some of my spoken word projects. Please note that they ALL contain expletives and/or explicit situations. If you have a delicate constitution, are at the office, or have small children in the room, you may not want to click.
I will be adding to this link page as I gather materials.
TOKEN
2005. Produced by James "Trophy" Barr, Barr on guitar, poem by me.
(3:40 minutes)
A LONE LITANY
1996. Produced by Jordan Trachtenberg for Tomato Records.
(2:57 minutes)
TRACKS
1996. Produced by Jordan Trachtenberg for Tomato Records. Soundscape by Hoyt and Trachtenberg.
(3:16 minutes)
LIVE SET, EUREKA JOE CAFE, NYC
1996. Me on rants. Gary Miles on processed bass clarinet and bass guitar.
(18:13 minutes)
SOMETHING BORROWED
1995. With Hot Sauce Gizzard ensemble: Seth Cooper, bass; John Freund, organ; Jay Gogan, guitar; Eric Kalb, drums. Produced by Mike Boris, Seth Cooper, and John Freund.
(3:14 minutes)
G EARS
1995. With Hot Sauce Gizzard ensemble, see personnel above.
(2:54 minutes)
IN THE VALLEY OF TOMATOES
1995. With Hot Sauce Gizzard ensemble, see personnel above.
(2:54 minutes)
I will be adding to this link page as I gather materials.
TOKEN
2005. Produced by James "Trophy" Barr, Barr on guitar, poem by me.
(3:40 minutes)
A LONE LITANY
1996. Produced by Jordan Trachtenberg for Tomato Records.
(2:57 minutes)
TRACKS
1996. Produced by Jordan Trachtenberg for Tomato Records. Soundscape by Hoyt and Trachtenberg.
(3:16 minutes)
LIVE SET, EUREKA JOE CAFE, NYC
1996. Me on rants. Gary Miles on processed bass clarinet and bass guitar.
(18:13 minutes)
SOMETHING BORROWED
1995. With Hot Sauce Gizzard ensemble: Seth Cooper, bass; John Freund, organ; Jay Gogan, guitar; Eric Kalb, drums. Produced by Mike Boris, Seth Cooper, and John Freund.
(3:14 minutes)
G EARS
1995. With Hot Sauce Gizzard ensemble, see personnel above.
(2:54 minutes)
IN THE VALLEY OF TOMATOES
1995. With Hot Sauce Gizzard ensemble, see personnel above.
(2:54 minutes)
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