All posts tagged Readings in San Diego

Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Ben Loory

January 30, 2015

VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?

LOORY: One time I was approached to do voiceover work for a taco commercial. In the end, I didn’t get the job– they went with someone “more grandfatherly.”

Ben Loory is the author of the collection Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day (Penguin, 2011) and a picture book for children, The Baseball Player and the Walrus (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2015). His fables and tales have appeared in The New Yorker and on This American Life and Selected Shorts. He lives in Los Angeles and is an Instructor for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

Come see Ben read at MCASD in downtown San Diego on Friday, February 6 at 12pm.

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Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Heather Fowler

January 27, 2015

VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?

FOWLER: It’s now a tie–either A. Watching an indie bookstore owner in rural Oklahoma stroke the soft skin of her tortoise’s neck while a greyhound also looked on as I read from my new story collection Elegantly Naked In My Sexy Mental Illness--or B. That one time I scared away an entire troop of Girl Scouts by reading dark, mildly erotic fairy tale poems on a public stage.  Then again, it could have been watching a poet get naked on stage in New York.

Heather Fowler is the author of short story collections Elegantly Naked In My Sexy Mental Illness, This Time, While We’re Awake, People with Holes, and Suspended Heart, as well as a collaborative poetry collection entitled Bare Bulbs Swinging, written with Meg Tuite and Michelle Reale.

Come see Heather read at MCASD in downtown San Diego on Friday, February 6 at 12pm.

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Vermin in the News

November 13, 2013

Vermin on the Mount received a very nice shout out from Carolyn Kellogg in the Los Angeles Times book blog Jacket Copy:

“The punk rock reading series takes its name from its original location, the Mountain Bar, where it began 10 years ago. Host and organizer Jim Ruland has found a new home for the semi-regular series, at NOMAD Studio near the L.A. River.”

Writing for the L.A. Weekly, Joseph Lapin’s generous profile explores the origins of the series. “Incredible writers have graced the stage at Vermin on the Mount. At the first ever reading, the performers were Joe Meno, an author and playwright from Chicago who has written six novels; Joshuah Bearman, the former L.A. Weekly journalist who wrote the story that would become Argo; and Andrea Siegel, author of Like the Red Panda and a screenwriter. There have been many memorable performances, Ruland recalls, including the time Stephen Elliot, the author who’s a founding editor of The Rumpus, appeared unexpectedly on Father’s Day to read a touching piece about his father.”

It’s a great beginning to our tenth year of programming in L.A.!

 

 

 

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Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Nicole Vollrath

November 8, 2013

VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?

VOLLRATH: The fifth year anniversary party for First Friday open mic was held at the Swedenborg church and had about 80 people in attendance. One participant drank so much free wine, he had to be escorted outside against his will. As I read my piece, he pounded on the church door, screaming at us “mother-fucking hypocrites” as the police sirens approached. No one heard a word I read, but no one will forget that party.

Nicole Vollrath writes short fiction and flash fiction and teaches creative writing when her day job doesn’t get in the way.  She earned an MFA at Emerson College in Boston and has placed in San Diego City Beat’s Fiction 101 contest a few times, and won it once. Nicole has served on the board of San Diego Writers Ink and relishes the supportive writing communities in San Diego. Major themes in her work are promiscuity and Christianity, but not necessarily in the same stories.
 
Come see Nicole read at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Nov. 10 at 7pm. 

 

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Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Juliet Escoria

November 7, 2013

VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?

ESCORIA: I once went to a poetry reading in Hell’s Kitchen. The crowd was loud and drunk, causing one reader to yell things at them like, “Shut up or I’ll fucking stab you.” Strippers danced during the break, wearing black strap-ons and eagle masks, while the audience slipped dollar bills into their g-strings. Fun fact: Melissa Broder was also at that reading.

Juliet Escoria writes things for Electric Literature’s blog, The Outlet. Her story collection, Black Cloud, will be published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2014.
 
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Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Louis Armand

November 5, 2013

VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?

ARMAND: The strangest thing was reading in front of a picture of Benny Hill (surrounded by a bevy of bikini-clad girls), with a signed dedication to Anthony Burgess.

Louis Armand is the author of seven collections of poetry and five novels, most recently the neo-noir Breakfast at Midnight (2012) and Canicule (2013), both from Equus (London); Cairo, a novel about time-travelling dwarfs, is due out in January. His screenplay, Clair Obscur, received honourable mention at the 2009 Alpe Adria Trieste International Film Festival. His work has been included in the Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry and Best Australian Poems. He is an editor of VLAK and lives in Prague.

Come see Louis read at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Sunday Nov. 10 at 7pm and at Book Show in Los Angeles on Nov. 11 at 7pm. 

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Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Scott O’Connor

October 23, 2013

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. 

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