At AWP, even the urinals advertise lit journals. Of course, don’t think about the connotations of advertising your lit journal on the pisser. But perhaps Bull should expand its tagline: “Fiction for Thinking [And Pissing!] Men.” You know it’s a good reading when halfway through the story, the reader, Aaron Burch of Hobart, rips off his shirt. […]
One of my pet peeves is when I get PR emails supporting literary readings that never mention the city, because isn’t it so incredibly obvious that all literary events happen in New York City, I mean, where else could they possibly happen? They mention an address on 20th Street, and everyone who ever receives that […]
I’m afraid I’m on a diverse reading schedule these days. It’s never: Read One Book Then Start Another. At last count, I think I was getting through about 10 short story collections/novels. I just have one story left in both Mary Gaitskill‘s new book “Don’t Cry” and in Daniyal Mueenuddin “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders.” […]
In you are not in Chicago in the dead of winter enjoying AWP, and are in Los Angeles which has seen a spell of rain but also some temps in the 70s, consider checking out Ray Bradbury at the Beverly Hills Library on Friday. He’s launching a new collection of short fiction, “We’ll Always Have […]
Jim Shepard is a funny, funny man. He kept us all in stitches, even as he bemoaned the lack of importance of short stories in popular culture and the way that Europeans value writers much more than Americans do. He read from his new, as-yet-unpublished story “Minotaur,” about the black world in the military (no, […]
For all of you in Los Angeles, Jim Shepard will be at the Hammer Museum this Tuesday night, and so will I. Except he will be on the stage, reading and talking to Mona Simpson, while I will be sitting in the audience, dutifully listening to this short story master.
Ever since the post on the Millions last week about DIY literary scenes, I've been considering what makes for a good hip indie literary gathering. Also, I've been thinking about why the indie concert is often so different than a reading and how that distance can be abridged. Let me first share about a literary […]
So Edward Champion’s April Fools’ Day lampoon of Jonathan Lethem – that Lethem was going on a five-year reading tour – wasn’t that far off that mark. Lethem is reading at four venues just here in Los Angeles to promote his latest comedic novel, You Don’t Love Me Yet, but I think the reading last […]
Even though the library spokesperson twice referred to him as “John Banfield”, Mr. Banville, aka Benjamin Black, delivered a wryly funny and occasionally self-deprecating performance last night at the Los Angeles Public Library. After beginning the night with a self-comparison to Krusty the Clown, he managed to insert his name so many times into the […]
The reading by Daniel Alarcon last night at Skylight Books in Los Angeles had what every reading should have: sponsorship by Dewars. Yes, that’s right, the folks who make whiskey. They made mixed drinks with ginger beer and the packed house drank enough to make listening easy but not so much to make listening difficult. […]
