VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
ROWAN: In May 2008 I was booked into a radical London bookstore, to read as part of an artistic celebration of the protests of May 1968. I began the reading to a small group with a story in which “my brother’s” problems are ascribed, probably not seriously, to his worship of “Bob Dylan.” The first mention of “Bob Dylan” provoked the MC to cut in and reminisce about Dylan’s contributions to his personal growth, and the reading was blown away by heated discussion of the “revolutionary” folk singer.
Lou Rowan’s books include A Mystery’s No Problem, novel, 2016; Love’s, poetry, 2016; The Alphabet of Love Serial, stories, 2015; My Last Days, Superman’s autobiography, 2007; Sweet Potatoes, stories, 2008. A native of Southern California, he received most of his formal education in the Atlantic states. Living in and around New York City, he earned his living as a teacher, and as an institutional investor. The early onslaught of the derivatives “revolution” drove him to Washington State, to a then-stable pension investment firm, and in 2003 he forwent finance to write full-time. The same year marked the advent of Golden Handcuffs Review, which he continues to edit. His informal education began in the Lower East Side of New York City, when the artistic experiments in and around St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery flourished. He is eternally grateful to the English Department at Harvard University for making the formal study of accepted literature repugnant to him.
Come see Lou read at Book Show in Highland Park on Friday, January 20 at 7:30pm and at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Saturday, January 21 at 7pm.