All posts by Jim Vermin
Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Manuel Paul López
VOTM: What was your most unusual experience at a reading?
LOPEZ: I was invited to read alongside a group of middle school students at a restaurant that sold jugos y aguas frescas, Mexican food, y raspados. The restaurant owners generously offered their place to host the event and it was beautiful, nothing strange about it, except for the machine that periodically chewed up the ice for the raspados during the readings. Rak-kak-kak-kak-ak-kak! Rak-kak-kak-kak-ak-kak! Rak-kak-kak-kak-ak-kak! It was relentless, but funny. This, of course, in addition to the gentleman behind the counter shouting over the readers for people to pick up their food, which proved to be a fine complement to the poetry, I must say. The raspados were awesome too. Beautiful evening.
Manuel Paul López was born and raised in El Centro, California. He is a CantoMundo fellow and was recently awarded a Creative Catalyst Fund grant from the San Diego Foundation in 2012, making him 1 of 15 inaugural fellows. His work has been published in Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingue, The Bitter Oleander, Hanging Loose, Rattle, and ZYZZYVA, among others. His first book Death of a Mexican and other Poems was published by Bear Star Press in 2006 and was awarded the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize. His new collection, The Yearning Feed, won the University of Notre Dame Press 2013 Ernest Sandeen Prize for Poetry. With his wife, he lives in San Diego, Califas.
Manuel will be reading at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Sunday, Nov. 10.
Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Scott O’Connor
VOTM: What was your most unusual experience at a reading?
O’CONNOR: When I was in fourth or fifth grade, I entered an oratorical contest for the local Optimists’ Club. I’d breezed through the school-wide heat, and secured a place in the finals. The competition was held in a motel by the Syracuse airport, in a small conference room looking out onto a runway. A few rows of banquet chairs were filled with adult members of the club, various relatives of the competitors, friends, possibly a few vagrants just looking for a place to sit, furtive couples taking breaks from the kind of clandestine trysts that take place at motels by the airport. My speech was entitled, “Optimism: A Way of Life.” There were three contestants, myself included. I came in third.
SCOTT O’CONNOR is the author of the novella Among Wolves, and the novel Untouchable, which won the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. His new novel, Half World, will be published by Simon and Schuster in February, 2014. He lives with his family in Los Angeles.
Scott will be reading at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Sunday, Nov. 10 and at Book Show in Los Angeles on Monday, Nov. 11.
Introducing Our New Home in L.A.
It gives me great pleasure to announce Vermin on the Mount’s new home in Los Angeles: Book Show!
Book Show is Jen Hitchcock’s creatively curated bookshop that lives within the NOMAD Art Gallery and Print Shop. The store features new, used and affordable vintage books, gifts and oddities all staged as art pieces in an interactive and inventive retail environment. Like Book Show on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.
NOMAD is located at 1993 Blake Ave. in Frogtown between the Silver Lake Reservoir and the Los Angeles River, just east of where the 5 and the 2 intersect. (For old school fans of Vermin on the Mount, it’s 3 miles due north of Chinatown, just on the other side of Dodger Stadium.)
NOMAD is easy to find with plenty of street parking. Here’s a map.
Our first event at Book Show is Monday, Nov. 11. Details coming soon!
Raise your hands in the air, wave them like you just don't.... Oh, dear. 
Justin, The Pink Punker, Maurer
A very tall Tony Bonds
A slightly jet-lagged Elle Brooks
C.E. Poverman reads from his new novel
Sandra Millers Younger packs the house
Sandra Millers Younger and Nuvia Ruand
Justin Maurer
Sean Carswell and his White Finger of Death
Marivi Blanco shows off The Fire Outside My Window
Maurer moves the merch with an assist from zinester Matt Lewis
Vermin. Aren't they adorable?
Nine Years of VOTM!
The 9th Anniversary Celebration of Vermin on the Mount at 3rdSpace in San Diego was a huge success.
Writers flew in from the East Coast, hauled ass from L.A. and Central California, and drove in from all over San Diego County. It was a show not to be missed with Tony Bonds spinning a fantastic tale, Elle Brooks reminiscing on her past, C.E. Poverman reading from his new novel Love by Drowning, Sandra Millers Younger telling us how she survived California’s deadliest wildfire, Justin Maurer reflecting on Christmas in the Pacific Northwest (while looking spiffy in a pink shirt), and Sean Carswell reading from Madhouse Fog, his new novel set in a mental hospital.
Books were sold, drinks drunk, and nobody got hurt. Let’s do it again soon!
Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Sandra Millers Younger
VOTM: What’s the strangest experience you’ve ever had at a literary event?
YOUNGER: At one of the first TV appearances I’ve done in promoting the book, the host introduced me not as “award-winning journalist” or “author” like other have (cue the author bio), but as “Disaster Expert Sandra Millers Younger.” Who knew?
Journalist SANDRA MILLERS YOUNGER is the author of The Fire Outside My Window: A Survivor Tells the True Story of California’s Epic Cedar Fire. Sandra’s writing credits range from academic journals to Seventeen magazine. Drawn to journalism by the opportunity to explore diverse subjects, meet fascinating people, and ask endless questions, she has written about everything from garden mulch to bionics. During 10 years spent researching and writing “The Fire Outside My Window,” she did more than 100 interviews with subject experts, first responders, fire survivors, and families of victims. For the past ten years, Bob, Sandra and their Newfoundland dogs have lived in Wildcat Canyon, where 12 of the Cedar Fire’s 15 victims died.
Come see Younger read at 3rdSpace on Saturday, August 24 at 7pm.
Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Tony Bonds
VOTM: What’s the strangest experience you’ve ever had at a literary event?
BONDS: I remember a reading experience that wasn’t particularly strange, but it was awkward. I organized a reading back in grad school (for the sake of the author’s good name, I’ll not mention who was reading) where literally five people showed up—that’s including me, my wife, and the author. They’d set up a whole room full of chairs and I think I remember a few tumbleweeds blowing around. Rather than standing in front of the podium and simply ignoring the deafening lack of people, the author decided to gather us in a circle for a “story time,” and asked us what kind of story we’d like to hear. He was very gracious and positive through the whole ordeal. Those good vibes made it a memorable experience, and taught me a valuable lesson that even established writers must occasionally (or even frequently) make lemonade from lemons. To put it another way, it was a lesson in the importance of always putting on a good show, whether or not anyone gives a hoot.
TONY BONDS received his MFA from San Diego State University. Since then he has worked as an editor for a children’s book publisher, and started up a freelance production design company, and works as the Creative Director for Calypso Editions, a cooperative literary press which he co-founded in 2010. His novella, The Moonflower King, was published in 2012. Currently, he is working on a young adult steam-punk-fantasy novel.
Come see Bonds read at 3rdSpace on Saturday, August 24 at 7pm.
John Wilkens at the San Diego Union-Tribune interviews novelist and reader at the next VOTM, C.E. Poverman about his new book Love by Drowning.
L.A. invades S.D.
This weekend two Los Angeles writers will be appearing at Vermin on the Mount at 3rdSpace in University Heights: Sean Carswell and Justin Maurer.
Both writers have read at Vermin events in L.A. In fact, Sean Carswell appeared at the second VOTM event way back in 2004. Nine years later he’s coming to S.D. to help celebrate nearly a decade of filth and fury at our ninth anniversary bash. Carswell is the author of the novels Drinks for the Little Guy, Train Wreck Girl, and his latest Madhouse Fog. He wrote the short story collections Barney’s Crew and Glue and Ink Rebellion. He co-founded the independent book publisher Gorsky Press and the music magazine Razorcake. He has been a regular contributor to Flipside, Ink 19, and Clamor. His writing has appeared in diverse places: the skateboarding magazine Thrasher, tiny zines like Zisk, and prestigious literary journals such as The Southeastern Review and The Rattling Wall. He currently teaches writing and literature at California State University Channel Islands.
Justin Maurer is no stranger to punk rock. He was born in L.A. but came of age in the Great Pacific Northwest where he recorded three albums and embarked on world tours with his storied punk band Clorox Girls. After a decade of nonstop touring, the band fell apart and he worked and lived in Madrid and London. In Europe he formed the band Suspect Parts before a full-circle return to L.A. Maurer’s first book Don’t Take Your Life (Future Tense Books) was published in 2006. His new book Seventeen Television is now available from Vol. 1 Brooklyn. He currently sings for the punk/’60s pop band L.A. Drugz and plays guitar in punk/glam band Maniac.
VOTM: What’s the strangest experience you’ve ever had at a literary event?
CARSWELL: I once read at the Texas Blues Bar in Longview, Texas. Some highlights of the night included playing pool with a Texan dressed like he’d just climbed down from his deer stand. He told me he was there to see some “literature and shit.” He was very competitive and wanted to bet on the pool games. He was also under four feet tall, so he could barely reach the table to shoot. I didn’t let him win, but I didn’t bet with him either. When I took a break from pool, another strangely intense Texan pulled me aside and said, “Hey, man. I know you know Ian Mackaye. Is he gay?” So much seemed to ride on my answer. I read between punk bands. My new dwarf buddy peppered all my pauses with the type of call-and-response I’d only heard in holy-rolling churches: Uh-huh! Amen! No she di’in! After I finished reading, a barroom brawl erupted. The one definitive loser of the brawl left the bar in the back of an ambulance. He’d broken his leg. I’m still not sure how he broke his leg. As soon as the fight started, I slid off to the non-fighting room. My wholly-unsatisfactory answer to the Ian Mackaye question, by the way, was, “I don’t know. I never tried to fuck him.”
MAURER: The strangest thing I ever saw at a literary event was a bartender refusing to turn the house music down when there was a reading in progress. Lame.
Come see Justin and Sean at 3rdSpace on Saturday, August 24 at 7pm.
Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: C.E. Poverman
VOTM: What’s the strangest experience you’ve ever had at a literary event?
POVERMAN: No melodrama, fortunately, which is the way I like it. I’ve been kindly received. People laughed in the right places, looked appropriately grave when it was so required. I think nothing more wayward has befallen me than when the former dean of Yale college set up a reading and then fell into a rhythmic nod, head forward, head back, as he drifted off into a hearty snooze out in the audience.
C.E. POVERMAN‘s first book of stories, The Black Velvet Girl, won the Iowa School of Letters Award for Short Fiction. His second, Skin, was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His stories have appeared in the O’Henry, Pushcart, and other anthologies. His previous novels are Susan, Solomon’s Daughter, My Father in Dreams, and On the Edge. He’s a former director of creative writing at the University of Arizona, and will read from his new novel, Love by Drowning.
Come see Poverman read at 3rdSpace on Saturday, August 24 at 7pm.
Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Elle Brooks
VOTM: What’s your strangest experience at a literary event?
BROOKS: My strangest experience at a literary event would have to be the Emerging Voices reading at The Jubilee, a two-day music festival that had been held in Silverlake, but this year was moved to the Arts District in downtown Los Angeles. Within the empty warehouses, stages were set up in vacant rooms to accommodate a variety of acts. As I got up to read, the band next door started playing head banging, mosh pit pounding, heavy metal music that permeated the cement walls. It felt like “Public Reading Boot Camp” and the lead singer was my drill sergeant screaming, “Keep reading, solider!” Even though I couldn’t hear my own voice, and the audience was straining to hear my words, I kept reading my essay, appropriately titled, “Fuck.”
ELLE BROOKS is the host of the San Diego’s “Wake Up & Write!” where she provides highly-caffeinated prompts to get writers writing. Elle is a 2013 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow, as well as an alumni of Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Squaw Valley Community of Writers and the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. She is currently working on a memoir titled, In the Land of Liars, Cheats & Thieves: A Love Story.
Come see Elle perform at 3rdSpace on Saturday, August 24 at 7pm.
9th Anniversary Celebration
Join us Saturday, August 24 as we celebrate nine years of filth and fury. Festivities will be held at 3rdSpace in San Diego. Fun starts at 7pm. Don’t be bitten.
Save the Date!
Vermin on the Mount returns to San Diego!
Come to 3rd Space to celebrate the 9th anniversary of VOTM on Sat., Aug. 24 at 7pm.
Mark the date or be haunted the rest of your days…
Writer’s Block at 3rd Space
If you’re looking for a place to write in San Diego, look no further. Every Tuesday from 1pm to 5pm come to 3rd Space and write alongside like-minded creative people. Whether you’re looking for inspiration for a new project or finishing your work-in-project, Writer’s Block provides the time and space.
Writer’s Block convenes in the conference room but you’re free to work anywhere in the facility. If you’ve been to a Vermin on the Mount event in San Diego, you know how inspiring 3rd Space can be.
For more details, send a message to Pete McConnell.