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

GREENWOOD: My second novel was about a mom with Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (the mental illness that causes parents to fabricate their own children’s illness for attention). I did a reading once, and a woman in the audience — clearly horrified — said, “And where is your mother now?” And my poor mom, withering in the front row, raised her hand. Fiction, people!

T. Greenwood is the author of thirteen award-winning novels including RUST & STARDUST, KEEPING LUCY, and WHERE I LOST HER. She teaches at San Diego Writers, Ink and online for The Writer’s Center.

Come see Tammy read at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego on Saturday, September 21 at 7pm

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

STEFANO: I cannot answer this question until 9/22, because I have a sense that the most unusual experience I’ll have at a literary event will take place on 9/21 at the 15th anniversary of Vermin on the Mount!

Karen Stefano is the author of the memoir, What A Body Remembers: A Memoir of Sexual Assault and Its Aftermath (Rare Bird Books 2019). She is the author of the short story collection The Secret Games of Words (1GlimpsePress 2015) and the how-to business writing guide, Before Hitting Send (Dearborn 2011). Her work has appeared in Ms. Magazine, The Rumpus, Psychology Today, Writers’ Digest, Tampa Review, Epiphany, and elsewhere. She is also a JD/MBA with more than twenty years of complex litigation experience.

Come see Karen read at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego on Saturday, September 21 at 7pm

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

TERRY: One time I read with one of the Super Bowl-winning ’86 Chicago Bears and he was conspicuously hot-boxing in the bathroom behind the stage right before he got up there to read. It was a kind of “Spicoli falling out of a van at prom” type situation when his name was called.

Chris L. Terry is the author of the novel Black Card, a satirical story about a mixed-race punk bassist with a black imaginary friend. NPR called Black Card, “hilariously searing.” Terry’s debut novel Zero Fade was on Best of 2013 lists by Slate and Kirkus. He lives in Los Angeles.

Come see Chris read at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego on Saturday, September 21 at 7pm

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

TAYLOR: Without a doubt, seeing the wonderful Sandra B. Alcosser feed pizza to a stray cat after a poetry event. I think it was a stray, but I’m just not sure. Do people bring cats to literary events? I feel like that should be a thing.

Laura Taylor Namey is a Cuban-American Californian who can be found haunting her favorite coffee shops, drooling over leather jackets, and wishing she was in London or Paris. She lives in San Diego with her husband and two teens. This former teacher writes young adult novels about quirky teens learning to navigate life and love. Her debut, The Library of Lost Things will be published 10/08/19 from Inkyard Press / HarperCollins. Her Cuban own voices young adult contemporary is coming fall 2020 from Atheneum Simon and Schuster.

Come see Laura read at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego on Saturday, September 21 at 7pm

Ever Velasquez .a.k.a. the girl about town is an L.A. born D.I.Y. artist, spirit, community organizer, zine maker, writer. Co-creator of Puro Pinche Poetry Gritos De Barrio a poetry column in Razorcake fanzine. Puro Pinche Poetry Gritos de Barrio is going on it’s third year in publication while still being part of Razorcake’s staff in various capacities for thirteen of the eighteen years of Razorcake’s existence in zine culture. D.I.Y. art including this year’s self-curated art and performance show Baños a personal look into both personal spiritual and artistic view of ancestral self-care. Helping create community through art with mural painting, stencil, zine, collage, screen printing and drawing workshops.

Come see Ever read at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego on Saturday, September 29 at 7pm

Eugenia Nicole is an L.A.-based writer, a caramel Carrie Bradshaw with more ass, sass and just a little less cash. Her writing documents her aventuras in the city through the eyes of a brown girl, one drink at a time.

Come see Eugenia read at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego on Saturday, September 29 at 7pm

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

GLENN: I once attended a lecture by an author who wrote about alien abductions. She claimed that the abducted will often return to Earth with strange marks on their bodies. After hearing this, a man at a previous lecture had sent her a nude pic. I wondered if she feared for her safety, but no, she was into it. She told us that if we had any more pictures like that, we should email them to her.

Devon Glenn is a book editor, ghostwriter, copywriter, and journalist. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, Adweek, Kirkus Reviews, and other publications. She usually appears as an email address with no thumbnail photo, but she is very lifelike in person and definitely not a robot. Black Wave is her first novel.

Come see Devon read at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego on Saturday, September 29 at 7pm

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

GNADE: Last tour in Olympia I jokingly threatened to cut the heads off two audience members with a samurai sword. (They were very drunk and talking loudly during my reading.) Thought it would be funny but the whole audience turned against me.

Adam Gnade writes a connected series of novels and what he calls “talking songs” (sort of audio books with music backing) that continue each other’s plotlines and share characters. Releases out via Three One G, Punch Drunk Press, Try Harder Records, Drowned-in-Sound, Blessing Force, DeathBombArc, and Pioneers Press. Also wrote a book called the Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin’ Sad. He’s from San Diego but lives on a farm in the rural Midwest now.

Come see Adam read at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego on Saturday, September 29 at 7pm

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

RIVERA: One of my first readings was held at a music festival. I think I literally read gibberish because no one could hear me above the rock band playing next door.

Lilliam Rivera is an award-winning writer and author of the young adult novels Dealing in Dreams, forthcoming from Simon & Schuster on March 5, 2019, and The Education of Margot Sanchez, available now in bookstores everywhere. Her work has appeared in Lenny Letter, Tin House, Los Angeles Times, and Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine, to name a few. Lilliam lives in Los Angeles.

Come see Lilliam read at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego on Saturday, September 29 at 7pm

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

DEUTSCH: I once read at a space where readers had to pause each time any toilet elsewhere in the building was flushed, the noise of sloshing pipes like jet engines.

Adam Deutsch lives in San Diego, teaches college composition and writing, and has work recently or forthcoming in Poetry International, Thrush, Spinning Jenny, Ping Pong, and Typo. He is the publisher at Cooper Dillon Books, and has a chapbook called Carry On.

Come see Adam read at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego on Saturday, April 28 at 7pm

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

KASAI: Years ago at an open mic literary event, a woman read a poem all about her cats…which was written on toilet paper that she unfurled onstage…unironically.

Kirsten Imani Kasai writes very dark, very weird fiction. She publishes Body Parts Magazine: The Journal of Horror & Erotica and owns MagicWordEditingCo. which offers a full range of services to creative writers, academics and scientists. Her third novel, The House of Erzulie was published this February by Shade Mountain Press. According to Foreword Reviews, Kirsten “makes the macabre beautiful.”

Come see Kirsten read at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego on Saturday, April 28 at 7pm.

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

GRIFFITH: In 2005 I went to see in interesting reading at a bar in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where my friend read and then a Belorussian band took the stage and performed dressed as a group of insects.  Following the show, we all gathered at another bar where the band of insects approached my friend and began to verbally assail him in Russian, accusing him of wearing a fake beard, which evidently was a serious breach of decorum and grounds for a fight.  Soon our friends entered the mix and a huge “beard brawl” nearly ensued, but my bearded friend slipped out the door and, once the offending facial hair was out of sight, cooler heads prevailed.

Ryan Griffith served as resident storyteller for The Lounge on KPBS radio, where he read from his acclaimed series, The Midnight Pharmacy. His stories and poems have also appeared in a variety of literary journals such as elimae, Night Train, and NANO Fiction.  He teaches at Grossmont College and during the 2015-2016 school year, he took sabbatical to work on his novel while living abroad in Iceland, Russia, Turkey, and other countries. His current project is a multimedia narrative installation, “Relics of The Hypnotist War,” which is now on display at Space4Art studios in downtown San Diego.

Come see Ryan read at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego on Saturday, April 28 at 7pm.