VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
ALLING: I made eye contact with Dave Navarro.
Meredith Alling was born in Michigan and now resides in Los Angeles. She writes fiction and prose poetry and her work appears or is forthcoming in Corium Magazine, Monkeybicycle, Pithead Chapel, Wigleaf and elsewhere. She is on Twitter @meremyth.
Come see Meredith read at Book Show in Highland Park on Friday, June 12 at 7:30pm.
Brick Lane
VLAK + VOTM
David Vichnar
Seekers of Lice
Louis Armand
VLAK + VOTM
Vinent Dachy
Jim Ruland
Adrien Clarke
Brick Lane
Richard Makin
Arwen Bird
Thor Garcia
Brick Lane
Thor being ThorThe London launch of VLAK took place at Bethnal Green just around the corner from Brick Lane. The show began with a reading of Philippe Sollers’s acclaimed unpunctuated masterpiece by David Vichnar who translated the novel into English and published it at Equus Press. This was followed by a performance in words and text by Seekers of Lice. Next, Louis Armand read from his new poetry collection, The Rube Goldberg Variations. Belgian writer Vincent Dachy read some entertaining and unusual poems and Jim Ruland read from a scene in Forest of Fortune involving, what else, cocaine. After a short intermission, Adrian Clarke read some poems, Richard Makin read from his new novel, Mourning. Prague writer Arwen Bird also read some poems. Lastly, Thor Garcia did what Thor Garcia does in a style that many imitate but none can duplicate.
Normal Bar, Kreuzberg
Inside Normal Bar
David Vichnar
Jereon Nieuwland
Louis ArmandThe Vermin on the Mount + VLAK European tour kicked off at the Normal Bar in charming Kreuzberg. I welcomed the audience and poet Jeroen Nieuwland served as emcee for the dark and intimate affair. Catherine Hales read a mix of new and old poems from a spot along the bar that sat under an overhead light and the rest of the performers did the same. She was followed by Travis Jeppesen from North Carolina who read an excerpt from an essay published in Frieze about the death of a close friend. Louis Armand was next and he entertained with excerpts from a cycle of prose poems published by VLAK Records (more on that later). The always entertaining and alarming Thor Garcia performed a piece that comprised excerpts from a half-dozen stories, novels, and miscellania and I read a short section from Forest of Fortune. During the intermission David Vichnar of Equus Press manned the merch table. After a brief break, the next slate of writers took the stage. Sam Langer read from works in process (“I was a lot of things, then you came”) and was followed by Donna Stonecipher who read excerpts from her new book Model City in which all of the poems begin with the phrase “It was like…” She was followed by Lotto Thiessen, a German poet who grew up in Portugal, who read from new work. Australian poet Joel Scott was next and Jeroen Nieuwland finished with a reading from a new chapbook. All of the writers have work in the new massive issue of VLAK, which features over 160 writers. The performances were followed by a slideshow. Apologies for the scarcity of photos; it was very dark and I was frightened.
VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
BRACKMANN: I had teamed up with author Dana Fredsti for a series of book events. Our last event together was at a bookstore that I absolutely adore, a beloved independent that has done so much for the community and offers an amazing selection of books. But, I’d done an event there for my first book release, and it hadn’t gone so well. Not the bookstore’s fault, just a bizarre confluence of events involving street construction, a basketball playoff game, and a parade. So I was nervous about this one.
We got to the store early, because I like to be early for these things. My book was displayed all over the place, which felt really good. But the event coordinator thought that the event was an hour earlier than we did. He wasn’t wrong and neither were we. It was just one of those things. Not surprisingly, hardly anyone showed up. This combination is the kind of situation that triggers my not so latent social anxiety, big-time. I felt terrible. Not so much for the time confusion; that wasn’t my fault. But that I couldn’t get many people out to this event.
We soldiered on. I read a short selection from my latest novel, Getaway. Then it was Dana’s turn. Her novel, Plague Town, has been described as Buffy the Vampire Slayer Meets Walking Dead. It’s a lot of fun, and the section she read has some great humor in it. Just as she opened her book to read, a man wandered in off the street and sat down in the back. He wore tattered, rainbow-colored clothes, a towel for a cape, and a turban with various Tarot cards stuck in it. And he thought that everything Dana said was hilarious. Every. Single. Line. Also, that everything she said was utterly perfect, and that she deserved a diamond-studded genie bottle, which he would be happy to provide, because his mother was Barbara Eden. I lost it. I dissolved into helpless giggles, covered my eyes with my hand and did my best not to peak at Barbara Eden’s turban-clad son.
Lisa Brackmann is the author of the critically acclaimed Ellie McEnroe series set in today’s China (Rock Paper Tiger, Hour of the Rat and the upcoming Dragon Day), and the thriller Getaway (an ALA summer reading pick and SCIBA finalist). She is a California native and a former film industry professional who has lived and traveled extensively in China. Lisa once was an issues researcher in a presidential campaign and was the singer/songwriter/bassist in an LA rock band. She just bought a bass ukulele.
Come see Lisa read at MCASD in downtown San Diego on Friday, February 6 at 12pm.
VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
CHA: Most unusual thing… At my first book launch party at Skylight, this man came up to me afterward and told me he’d read about me in the Korean paper and came to my reading because he had a daughter named Stephanie Cha. He then ran into a high school friend of his who was also at the reading, a friend of my parents I’ve known since childhood. Small world, Koreatown.
Steph Cha is the author of Follow Her Home, Beware Beware, and the forthcoming Dead Soon Enough, all published by St. Martin’s Minotaur. She’s a regular contributor to the L.A. Times and the L.A. Review of Books. She lives in her native city of Los Angeles with her husband and basset hound.
Come see Steph read at MCASD in downtown San Diego on Friday, February 6 at 12pm.
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.
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.
VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
CARSWELL: The second strangest that happened to me at a reading occurred at an art gallery in NYC. The air-conditioner was broke and it was so hot that the gallery owner moved the reading onto the sidewalk in front of the gallery. Some clown double parked on the street in front of me. Not a minute later, an ambulance came chugging down the street and got stuck behind the double-parked car. I stopped reading to wait out the cacophony of sirens and arguing (because the guy who double parked was so put out that the he had to move his car for some stupid ambulance). The people who attended the reading on purpose seemed to enjoy my story. Passersby heckled me like I was a street preacher.
Sean Carswell is the author of five books, most recently the novel Madhouse Fog (Manic D Press, 2013). He is the co-founder of the independent book publisher Gorsky Press and the music magazine Razorcake. He teaches writing and literature at CSU Channel Islands. He knows that, when hunting roosters, one must be very, very quiet.
Come heckle Sean at MCASD in downtown San Diego on Friday, February 6 at 12pm.
Samuel W. Gailey
VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
GAILEY: I was at the Poisoned Pen bookstore in Scottsdale, AZ, last March. Unfortunately for me, this was also the final weekend for the NCAA basketball tournament…so the turnout was intimate. Seven or eight people, tops. During my reading, a man showed up late and joins the small circle of folks. He was stoic and looked uncomfortable, appearing as if this was the last place he wanted to be. He kept staring at me like I just kicked his dog, and when I looked his way, he would quickly avert his eyes. After the discussion, he waited until everyone else was gone (all eight of them), then approached me and asked if I would sign a copy of my book. He seemed embarrassed to be asking. Sure, I said. Who should I make it out to? He grinned and said, Jay Eberlin.
It took me a moment to process…I knew this guy. I come from a remote little town in Pennsylvania, population 379, and Jay Eberlin was one of my oldest and very first friend from that area. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in over 30 years. He still lived in the same town, but happened to be in Scottsdale for a convention when he heard that I was having a reading at the Poisoned Pen. And fortunately for me, he wasn’t a huge NCAA basketball fan.
Samuel W. Gailey was raised in a small town in northeast Pennsylvania (population 379), which serves as the setting for his debut novel, DEEP WINTER. Drawn to rural life and the sometimes deceiving atmosphere therein, Gailey’s first novel and his works in progress are suspenseful mysteries and intriguing studies of human nature.
Come see Samuel read at Book Show in Highland Park on Saturday, January 10 at 7pm.
Wendy C. Ortiz
VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
ORTIZ: Thanks to the Griffith Park Storytelling Series, the Griffith Park Bat Caves wins for most unusual and amazing place I’ve been for a reading.
Wendy C. Ortiz is the author of Excavation: A Memoir (Future Tense Books, 2014) and Hollywood Notebook (Writ Large Press, 2015). She’s written for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The New York Times, The Nervous Breakdown, The Rumpus, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and many other journals. Wendy has been curator and host of the Rhapsodomancy Reading Series since 2004.
Come see Wendy read at Book Show in Highland Park on Saturday, January 10 at 7pm.
Ashley Perez
VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
PEREZ: I have not really had any unusual experiences where I have been a reader but as a participant, I would say Antonia Crane’s L.A. release party for her memoir, Spent ranks up there. It was a fantastic sex-themed night. Unusual and enjoyable.
Ashley Perez lives, writes, and causes trouble in Los Angeles. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She runs the literary site Arts Collide and does work of all varieties for Bleed at Jaded Ibis Press, The Rumpus, The Weeklings, and Midnight Breakfast.
Come see Ashley perform at Book Show in Highland Park on Saturday, January 10 at 7pm.
VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
DEON: The most unusual place I’ve had a reading was in an alley in Echo Park. When I arrived, dressed in my six-inch heels, mini dress, and trendy big purse on my shoulder, it was about noon. I was preparing to go into the back entrance of the venue which happened to be in an alley when the bouncer at the door held up his hand and said, “Can I help you?” I said, “Sure, I’m one of the readers. I was told I was first.” At which point he pointed to the microphone on a stand directly behind me and I almost knocked it over with my purse when I twirled around to face it. Across the alley there were two vendors–my only audience–and one was selling books and the other one cookies. They looked across the alley at me with a certain level of pity and comfort, at which point I dropped my purse, took the mic, and read.
An L.A. attorney by day, Natashia Deón is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from Yale, PEN Center USA, the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and VCCA. Recently named one of L.A.’s Most Fascinating People by L.A. Weekly, she has an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts from the University of California, Riverside, and is the creator of the popular LA-based reading series Dirty Laundry Lit. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Rumpus, The Rattling Wall, B O D Y, The Feminist Wire, Asian-American Lit Review, You. An Anthology of Second Person Essays, among others.
Come see Natashia read at Book Show in Highland Park on Saturday, January 10 at 7pm.
VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
CHADBURN: It wasn’t my reading but during the Tin House Writer’s Conference as Steve Almond read in the outside auditorium this guy tripping on acid came out of the bushes and joined him at the podium.
When Melissa Chadburn is not teaching at UCSD, she can usually be found protesting somewhere. She has written for Guernica, SLAKE, Salon, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, American Public Media’s Marketplace, and a dozen other places. Her essay, The Throwaways, was noted in 2013’s Best American Essays and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Follow her on twitter @melissachadburn. She loves your whole outfit right now.
Come see Melissa read at Book Show in Frogtown on Friday, August 8 at 7:30pm, and if you’re going to take LSD, please bring enough for everyone.
VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
HOWELLS: I was once at a reading where one of the readers turned her poem “Winona Ryder, I Want to Ride Her” into a song, accompanying herself on the clarinet. Another time, for some reason a poet started playing the piano with her top off while she read her piece. Poets are wild.
Sacha Howells grew up in Canada, Libya, and Bakersfield, California. His work has been published in Gauntlet Magazine, theMenda City Review, and the Coachella Review. He was a 2012 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow and a 2014 NEA Fellow at the Hambidge Center, and is at work on his first novel, about once-and-future hair-metal superstars Juggernott. He lives with his wife and daughter behind the Sunset Strip Guitar Center.
Come see Sacha read (full clothed) at Book Show in Frogtown on Friday, August 8 at 7:30pm.
VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
RIZZO: I was in a discussion with another author at an event on the book tour for Famous Baby. Surprisingly, it was a packed house, also a really attentive audience of mostly women. And wine was served, so most everyone had a glass of something in their hands. The moderator asked us about a favorite moment in our books. While the other author read a passage from her book, I panicked. I couldn’t think of a page or a paragraph. It was my turn. I started talking about the daughter, Abbie, comparing her mother’s hands with her own. Teenagers hate to be reminded of what they might have inherited from a parent, but in the book it suddenly dawns on Abbie that she has her mother’s hands, while her mother, Ruth, sitting in the passenger seat, wonders at what age she’ll be too old to rest her feet on the dashboard any more. A woman in the front row dropped her wine glass and it shattered on the concrete floor. I stopped, and she said, sniffling, “Oh! I’m sorry, but you made me cry and I dropped my glass and I can’t find a tissue.” “I’m glad,” I muttered. And I felt very calm while someone cleaned up the broken glass.
Karen Rizzo has spent a number of years writing non-fiction, mostly about her family and friends. The recipient of a MAGGIE Award for Best Essay in a West Coast Magazine, her stories and essays have been appeared on NPR and in the Los Angeles Times, Living Fit, Salon, Beatrice, Fresh Yarn and VIVmag as well as the anthology Life’s A Stitch: The Best of Contemporary Women’s Humor. She’s the author of THINGS TO BRING, SH#!T TO DO… , a collection of essays based on twenty years of personal lists, and a Book Sense/IndieBound pick for Best of The Month. Famous Baby, published by Prospect Park Books, is Karen’s debut novel. Karen lives with her husband, actor Jim Macdonald, and their two children in Highland Park.
Come see Karen break things at Book Show in Frogtown on Friday, August 8 at 7:30pm.