All posts in Interviews

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

McCLEARY: Last fall, a now-defunct performance space called The Void tried their hand at doing a monthly reading series. I went once and read some stuff, and then felt obliged to go again the next month because A) a bunch of my friends were reading and B) the Void was across the street from my house. The series had been kind of drunken and haphazard to begin with, but this particular night ended up being even weirder — the host/owner didn’t show up, there wasn’t a setlist, and every mixed drink that got ordered turned out to be ginger ale mixed with beer. Also, none of the performers wanted to be first to go up on stage and read. After an hour or so of this I started to get bored, and joked that I could just go up first and read from whatever I had with me — despite the fact that I wasn’t on the bill, and all I had to read was an 80’s comic book about post-apocalyptic surfing, a copy of Jarett Kobek’s If You Won’t Read, then Why Should I Write that I’d received as a comp and knew nothing about, and a crumbling, coverless paperback 1977 edition of Dune. Maybe it just the ginger-ale-beer, but after five minutes of discussion my joke was ruled a brilliant idea, and I found myself on stage. Ultimately I read from everything I had with me. I learned the dangers of reading Dune aloud, since half the words are unpronounceable neologisms. I also somehow also ended up MCing the reading for the next several hours. I recall at one point telling a long story about walking to Tijuana for beer — not my story, but a story I’d just been told five minutes before by a friend at the bar. After the show half the readers, half the audience and I went to the diner down the street for terrible midnight food. The next week the Void closed its doors forever and the owner moved to Texas. Our reading was their final show.

Keith McCleary is a writer and graphic designer from New York. He is the author and illustrator of two graphic novels, Killing Tree Quarterly and Top of the Heap, from Terminal Press. His prose and comics have appeared in Heavy Metal, Flash, Jupiter 88, and Weave, and his teleplay ‘The Gothickers,’ co-written with Sophia Starmack, was featured in the CCLaP 2012 audio series ‘Podcast Dreadful.’ He is currently working on an ongoing comic book series, Curves & Bullets, with Eisner-nominated artist Rodolfo Ledesma. Keith is an MFA candidate at UCSD, and received his BFA in Film & TV Production from NYU, where his thesis film ‘Australia’ won a Warner Bros Production Award in 2002.

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

ZOBELL: Once I was reading an excerpt from my novel that included some characters called the Terrace Rats, boys who grew up in Del Mar Terrace, the south end by the slough before Interstate 805 had gone through. I’d done some extra research about the gang and the area because The Reader wanted a more historic version of it for a cover story. I tracked down the leader of the Terrace Rats all those years later, and he had so much fun talking about the old days—how the Rats had made makeshift rafts to float through the slough and had wars with the inland boys about who got to play on the earthmovers in the evening when the freeway builders had gone home for the day. As cool a customer as this character was, one night I called him right back to ask him one last thing, and his wife told me that the minute we’d hung up, he’d immediately dashed to the attic to try to find an old picture of the Terrace Rats that I’d asked for. I let him know I’d be reading from the story nearby, so he turned up proud as could be, wearing a big pair of overalls like he was still in the old gang. After my reading, people wanted me to sign the book. The Terrace Rat set up camp right next to me and signed all the books right after I did. He didn’t even need to be asked!

Bonnie ZoBell’s new connected collection, What Happened Here, a novella and stories from Press 53 centered on the site PSA Flight 182 crashed in the North Park area of San Diego is being pre-launched this very moment. Her fiction chapbook, The Whack-Job Girls, was published in 2013. She has won a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in fiction, the Capricorn Novel Award, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, and others.

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. 

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.

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.

VOTM: Can you officiate a rock and roll wedding?

DES BARRES: Absolutely!

Known mostly for her heady dalliances and friendships with classic rock’s elite dandies in the 60s and 70s, Pamela Des Barres has written four books: I’m With the Band, Take Another Little Piece of My Heart, Rock Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon, and most recently, Let’s Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies. She has been teaching ongoing women’s writing workshops in Los Angeles and all over the country for twelve years.

Come see Pamela perform at 826LA Echo Park on Friday, April 5.