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Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Maria Bustillos

April 1, 2013

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

BUSTILLOS: I went to hear David Foster Wallace and some others read at the Grove the day after the Iraq War started, and the crowd was overflowing, with people sitting on the floor and everything. The whole world had gone crazy, and here we were, at the Grove. And then Michael Silverblatt started to speak, and very soon he began to weep, and so did everyone else.

Maria Bustillos is a journalist and critic whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Awl, The New York Times, Slate, Bookforum and here and there around the Internet. She lives in Los Angeles. 

Come see Maria’s presentation at 826LA Echo Park on Friday, April 5.

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Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Dina Gachman

March 30, 2013

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

GACHMAN: My first reading was at a comedy theater in Hollywood. I was nervous. I asked a friend to bring me some Beta Blockers, and I took half a pill, just to keep myself from shaking. I figured the other readers would be on Beta Blockers too, or at least drunk. You know, writers. Not so. They were all actors – thespians – people who love rolling around on a stage and emoting. Fine, I can make friends with most everyone, I thought. Why should thespians be any different?

They told us to hang out in the green room, and to my horror all the other readers were doing stretches, voice exercises – one woman was miming. I felt totally alone. I focused on my essay and read and re-read the thing over and over, pretending not to be distracted every time someone yelled out, “ooo-eeee-oooo-aaaa!” or “blah-blah-blah-BLAH!” These people were not easing my nerves.

Nothing too crazy happened after the green room insanity – I got out there and read my essay about crazy people in coffee shops – one man in particular who told me about a play he wrote several years ago where he played a Tampon. If I see someone miming in a green room at a reading again, you can find me by the bar.

Dina Gachman is a Texan adrift in Los Angeles. Her comedic blog Bureaucracy for Breakfast has been featured on NPR and Chelsea Handler’s Borderline Amazing Comedy. She writes comic books for Bluewater Comics, and has written for Forbes, Ask Men, The Nervous Breakdown, Red Bull, Glamour, and Los Angeles Review of Books. She’s on Twitter.

 

Come see Dina Gachman read at 826LA Echo Park on Friday, April 5.
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Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Justin Maurer

March 29, 2013

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

MAURER: At one of my first readings I was presenting my debut chapbook. I made the near-fatal mistake of eating spicy food and drinking coffee followed by some shots of tequila to soothe my nerves.  When I began reading, World War III was setting off in my stomach. There was some serious heavy artillery going on. I came very close to soiling myself.

Justin Maurer is a writer and musician from Los Angeles. He was born in L.A. but came of age in the Great Pacific Northwest where he recorded 3 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. 

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

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Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Kate Durbin

March 28, 2013

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

DURBIN: Several years back I was asked to read/perform for the Les Figues Press garden party. I was feeling inspired by Hannah Weiner at the time. Instead of reading from my own work, I decided to create elaborate, conceptual hats based off of books by Les Figues Press series. The writers wore the hats and walked down the garden path while I read from their works.

Kate Durbin is a Los Angeles-based writer, cultural worker, and transmedia artist. She is author of The Ravenous Audience (Akashic Books, 2009), and co-author of Abra, forthcoming in iOS and artist book editions, with the help of a grant from Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago. She has also written five chapbooks. She is founding editor of Gaga Stigmata, and her tumblr project, Women as Objects, archives the teen girl tumblr aesthetic. Her projects have been anthologized and featured by Poets and Writers, Salon.com, Huffington Post, The New Yorker, Spex, NPR, Hyperallergic, poets.org, and many others. She is the winner of an &Now Innovative Writing Award.

Come see Kate Durbin at 826LA Echo Park on Friday, April 5.

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Look Who’s Coming to Vermin: Jerry Stahl

March 27, 2013

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

STAHL: Someone showed up.

Pushcart Prize-winning author Jerry Stahl has written seven books, including the memoir Permanent Midnight (made into a film with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson), and the novels Pain Killers and I, Fatty (optioned by Johnny Depp). His online column “OG Dad,” appears regularly on The Rumpus. He has written extensively for film and television, including most recently, the HBO film Hemingway & Gellhorn. Latest books are the anthology, The Heroin Chronicles, which he edited, and the novella Bad Sex On Speed. His new novel Happy Mutant Baby Pills will be published by Harper-Collins in Sept. 2013.

Come see who shows up with Jerry Stahl on Friday April 5 at 836LA Echo.

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