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

BAUMAN: At my own literary event– For my first book, I read at the Happy Endings series in New York.  I downed 2 vodkas before I did my 7 minute reading read and 2 after I finished, and then with my high school friend Peter Bricken, we reprised our roles in Kiss Me, Kate and sang “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.”  I’m sure I was off key and who the hell knows what else, but it sure was odd. And kinda stupidly hilarious. And will never happen again.

At a reading in New York,, I can’t even remember for who–sorry, that’s embarrassing–a woman came up to me and said, “You’re Madison Smartt Bell, aren’t you?” I politely said, No. I had no idea what Bell looked like or even if we were close in age. She kept saying to me and others around “Why are you lying to me?” To get away form her, a friend and I went around the corner to a bar and and we’re sitting there just bullshitting, drinking and a completely different woman came up to me and said “You’re Alexander Cockburn, I love reading your stuff in the Nation.” Again I said, No, I’m not him, and Cockburn is probably 15 years older than me and he’s Irish and I’m a Jew from Queens. Listen to my accent.” She said, “You’re snarky in your columns and now I know you’re snarky in person.”

Bruce Bauman is an instructor in the CalArts MFA Writing Program and the Senior Editor of Black Clock literary magazine. Library Journal called Bauman’s new novel, Broken Sleep “[A] plangent tour de force of epic proportions…” Bookworm’s Michael Silverblatt said Broken Sleep “is funny, heartbreaking and beautiful.” Shelf Awareness wrote it’s a “mind-bending work of fiction that entwines generations and continents, each character represents contemporary life’s most existential crises.” Booklist called Bauman’s first novel And The Word Was “a magnificent debut, smart and intense, and riveting.” Among his awards are a UNESCO/Aschberg award in Literature, Durfee Foundation grant and a City of Los Angeles Award in literature.

Come see Bruce read at Book Show in Highland Park on Saturday, June 11 at 7pm. 

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

MURPHY: I once saw Michael Cunningham read. He had just won the Pulitzer a few days earlier but kept his commitment to teach at the Napa Valley Writer’s Conference. We were gathered in a movie theater for the reading. People balanced buckets of popcorn and glasses of chilled white wine in their plush, theater seats. A large spray of flowers had been set up in front of the podium, which itself was in front of the velvet curtain covering the screen. It looked like were were gathered for some kind of bizarro funeral. While he was reading, the theater next door started playing a shoot-‘em-up movie. Michael Cunningham had to nearly shout to be be heard over the movie, while people sipped their wine (this was Napa, after all) and munched their popcorn. That said, I was so impressed with how down-to-earth and real he remained throughout, laughing it off and enjoying being with all of us. You can win the Pulitzer Prize, but you’re still just an author hoping to get a few people to listen to your crafted words, and grateful when they do. 

Bernadette Murphy is the author of Harley and Me: Embracing Risk on the Road to a More Authentic Life. She has published three previous books of narrative nonfiction including the bestselling Zen and the Art of Knitting, is an Associate Professor in the Creative Writing Department of Antioch University Los Angeles, and a former weekly book critic for the Los Angeles Times

Come see Bernadette read at Book Show in Highland Park on Saturday, June 11 at 7pm. 

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

HERNANDEZ: My friend Nina’s baby Jupiter attended the presentation for “Down & Delirious in Mexico City” at The Echo wearing noise canceling baby headphones cuz we had a band playing.

Daniel Hernandez is author of “Down in Delirious in Mexico City” and is a correspondent for VICE. He just moved back to L.A. after living eight years in DF.

Come see Daniel read at Book Show in Highland Park on Saturday, June 11 at 7pm. 

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

MORSHED: During residencies in my MFA program, we would have student readings. I participated in some but not all. After one such reading, a classmate came up to me and said that he liked my story. “I didn’t read last night,” I told him. “Didn’t you read some kind of scene about pho?” I knew exactly what he was talking about. Although I didn’t read, I was at the reading. Another classmate (who is also of Asian origin) read a sex scene that involved pho. I’m guessing since I am Vietnamese, some in the audience got us mixed up. I was a bit horrified — not because of the quality of the writing or the content, but because I write nonfiction, and I didn’t want my classmates thinking that scene was based on any kind of experience that I’d had.

Maggie Thach Morshed is a former award-winning sports journalist. She has an MFA from UC Riverside, Palm Desert. She is currently at work on a memoir about living and teaching in South Korea. Much of her writing revolves around the themes of immigration, identity and assimilation. Most recently, she was involved with the PeaceMakers program at the Joan B. Kroc Institute of Peace and Justice, where she was a Peace Writer for South Africa’s Glenda Wildschut. Her narrative appears on the Atavist. Her essays have appeared in Full Grown People, Catapult, Sport Literate and others. Oh, and she just got married.

Come see Maggie read at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Thursday, June 9 at 7:30pm. 

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

KENNEY: I was reading at Tower Records in Boston on my first book tour and came to a section in the story about golden showers when some 10-year-old kid came wandering through, so I stopped and we all waited until his father caught up to him and ushered him out.

The most special one was reading at City Lights on Halloween years ago with Cara Bruce and Pleasant Gehman. We all wore devil horn headbands for the holiday and afterward the manager took us to the basement where there was sort of a dresser-shrine that had Allen Ginsberg’s Buddhist beads and a matchbook from William Burroughs on it and stuff from all of these greats. He said we could each leave something too, so we left our horns. I felt like I could just die a happy writer right there.

Shawna Kenney is the author of the award-winning memoir I Was a Teenage Dominatrix (Last Gasp), co-author of Imposters (Mark Batty Publisher), and editor of the anthology Book Lovers (Seal Press). Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Playboy, Ms., Creative Nonfiction, Vice, The LA Weekly, Narratively and more. She teaches creative writing in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and gets around LA mostly by bike.

Come see Shawna read at Book Show in Highland Park on Saturday, June 11 at 7pm. 

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

QUIRK: If I have a long drive on book tour, I’ll usually wear something comfortable on the road, like shorts and a t-shirt. That often leads to me changing clothes in odd places: in the bathroom of some cozy bookstore, in the back of my car in Orange, in the parking lot of Vroman’s, etc. It always cracks me up, as I absurdly think of the Joads, or Superman’s phone booth, or an old-time traveling salesman. I’m still waiting for the day when I go on stage and someone says, “Hey, didn’t I just see you in your boxers in the back of a Toyota?” 

Matthew Quirk studied history and literature at Harvard College. After graduation, he spent five years at The Atlantic reporting on crime, private military contractors, terrorism prosecutions, and international gangs. His first novel, The 500, was an Edgar nominee and won the Strand Critics’ and International Thriller Writers’ awards for best first novel. His most recent book is Cold Barrel Zero. He lives in San Diego.

Come see Matthew read at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Thursday, June 9 at 7:30pm. 

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

Araki-Kawaguchi: At a reading a couple years ago I read two straight poems about dildos. Is that unusual? I don’t know, it felt pretty normal at the time.

Kiik A.K. earned a MA from UC Davis where his poetics thesis was titled THE JOY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE and a MFA from UC San Diego where his collection of counter-internment narratives was titled EVERYDAY COLONIALISM. He is currently at work on a book of poems titled HOGG BOOK. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in iO, Washington Square, Action Yes, CutBank and Alice Blue Review.

Come see Kiik read at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Thursday, June 9 at 7:30pm. 

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

HILT: At a Chuck Palahniuk reading the week before Thanksgiving, I won a plastic turkey by blowing up an 6ft inflatable Oscar statue faster than everyone else in the audience. Really? Is that a surprise? No. It’s not.

Jessica Hilt likes to pretend that she’s some ethereal and mysterious writer of beautiful things but she usually ends up writing about body fluids and sadness. She’s a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and wants constant reassurance that she doesn’t need an MFA. You can find her work in Bourbon Penn, Fanzine, and the anthology States of Terror.

Come see Jessica read at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Thursday, June 9 at 7:30pm.