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

HART: Last fall I went to reading at a loft in DTLA. The first reader played a tape he had recorded of himself walking through a park while he read from a book he did not write. He never took off his sunglasses. The next reader looked at the ground and read his poems with a profundity befitting his words; namely, “My banana gun has a licorice trigger.” The final reader told a condensed 50s style sci-fi epic, complete with projected images of collages he made from anatomy books and sci-fi mags and sounds effects from his mouth. He wore a very spiffy tweed suit.

Matthew Hart is a writer and frequent contributor and volunteer at Razorcake fanzine. He’s currently a grad student of Philosophy and enjoys free drinks.

Come see Matthew read 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?

TAWATER: I once saw a man shave a microphone and call it a poem.

Hanna Tawater completed her MFA in hybrid writing at the University of California, San Diego. Outside of writing poems about reptiles, she spends her time pretending to be an oceanographer, playing too many tabletop games, and raising a baby corn snake. Her work can be found in New Delta Review, White Stag, Jupiter 88, and The Radvocate.

Come see Hanna read at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Saturday, August 2 at 7pm.

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

SOLIVEN: The most unusual experience I had at a reading was being heckled by an angry white guy who didn’t believe that mail order brides existed in real life.

Marivi Soliven has taught writing workshops at the University of the Philippines and the University of California at San Diego. Stories from her 16 books have appeared in anthologies and creative writing texts in Manila and the United States. She won awards for her children’s fiction in 1991 and 1992 and the Grand Prize for the Novel  in 2011, all three conferred by the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, the Philippine counterpart of the Pulitzer Prize. The same novel The Mango Bride was published by Penguin Books in the April, 2013. Grupo Planeta is publishing a Spanish translation this year, while National Book Store is currently developing the Filipino edition. A film adaptation of the novel is being negotiated. In June, the San Diego Book Awards named The Mango Bride Best Contemporary Fiction of 2013.

Come see Marivi read at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Saturday, August 2 at 7pm.

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

HUERTA: The weirdest thing that ever happened at a reading was the riot police showing up on the street outside in full riot gear, hitting their batons against their shields the day the Iraq War started. 

Lizz Huerta is a poet, fiction writer and essayist. She owns her own painting business called Wrought Iron Maiden and spends her days listening to audiobooks from the tops of ladders. She is currently working on a young adult fantasy novel that has jaguars instead of dragons, pyramids instead of castles, and warrior women instead of princesses.

Come see Lizz read at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Saturday, August 2 at 7pm.

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

FALOON: A few years back I was touring with friends. When we arrived in Bakersfield — to read at a chain bookstore — we found out that one of us was scheduled to sign copies of his latest book. The rest of us were politely told we could watch and support, but not read. This irked all of us, but stung me more for some reason. I was younger, grumpier, and from my days as a drummer I’d learned that the show goes on, even if there isn’t an audience. So I walked out to the parking lot and read aloud for about 10 minutes. One dude walked past. He smiled but continued.

Mike Faloon is proud to be associated with both types of publishing, the stapled and the bound. He dabbles in the digital, too, with a pair of online music columns, Are You Receiving Me? and The Other Night at Quinn’s. His latest book is Fan Interference from Blue Cubicle Press.

Come see Mike read at Book Show in Los Angeles on Friday, April 18 at 7:30pm.

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

FRANGELLO: I was the second writer slotted at a reading series in Chicago, and the first guy who stood up to read performed his piece entirely in Vulcan. With no translation. My husband bit the insides of his mouth so hard to keep from laughing that by the time I was reading my work he was sitting there swallowing his own blood.

Gina Frangello is the author of three books of fiction: A Life in Men (Algonquin 2014), which has been a book club selection for NYLON magazine, The Rumpus and The Nervous Breakdown; Slut Lullabies (Emergency Press 2010), which was a Foreword Magazine Best Book of the Year finalist, and My Sister’s Continent (Chiasmus 2006).  She is the Sunday editor for The Rumpus and the fiction editor for The Nervous Breakdown, and is on faculty at UCR-Palm Desert’s low residency MFA program in Creative Writing.  The longtime Executive Editor of Other Voices magazine and Other Voices Books, she now runs Other Voices Queretaro, an international writing program in the Central Highlands of Mexico. 

Come see Gina read at Book Show in Los Angeles on Friday, April 18 at 7:30pm.

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

KALI: Someone turned white and passed out and the paramedics were called.

Taleen Kalenderian is a writer, musician, and L.A. native. She is founder of DUM DUM Zine, and co-frontwoman of the 3 piece post-punk band, TÜLIPS.

Come see Taleen read at Book Show in Los Angeles on Friday, April 18 at 7:30pm.

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

ROBERGE: Probably a night when all the readers were supposed to go for ten minutes and a poet read 44 minutes (we timed it) of her “epic poem” about…well, among other things, her father going down on a bull. It was, I pray, a dream sequence, but I have never forgotten the line “and the bull’s black balls smacked my father’s fat face!” screamed over and over. That might be the most unusual.

Rob Roberge is the author of four books of fiction—the novels The Cost of Living, More Than They Could Chew and Drive, and the book of stories Working Backwards from the Worst Moment in My Life. Stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He plays guitar with the LA punk band The Urinals.

Come see Rob read at Book Show in Los Angeles on Friday, April 18 at 7:30pm.