Trinie Dalton @ Spoonbill + Sugartown!

Join Trinie Dalton for her east coast launch of Baby Geisha at the one and only Spoonbill & Sugartown this Sunday, 2pm. Be there!

Francis Levy at the East Hampton Library

Author Francis Levy reads from his new novel, Seven Days in Rio, at the East Hampton Library.

Grace Krilanovich on KQED's Writer's Block

Today, KQED broadcast Grace Krilanovich reading a selection from The Orange Eats Creeps on their 'Writer's Block' program. Enjoy...

Trinie Dalton Live

The Sad Drag Monologues is a series that appears in Trinie Dalton's forthcoming collection of stories, Baby Geisha (January 2012), with corresponding images.

This is from Trinie about a new press she's started and the initial undertaking, which will be available at her reading JULY 14, 7pm with Jodi Wille of Process Books at Synchronicity Space, Hollywood:

"I'm not sure if I told you, but I started a risograph press (got the machine, looks like xerox but with colored inks). And this gallery invited me to do something so I decided to make a wall piece with The Sad Drag Monologues and made a limited-edition zine of the art surrounding the texts, as both an art object and an anticipation/promotion for Baby Geisha...

"This reading I'm doing is also the launch for Rainbow Riso, and its first edition. If I sell the first edition out it will enable me to fund the next project. :) It's a special edition zine printed in red/blue/black, edition of 100, $10/ea, handmade by moi, super small-run but a major undertaking in the risograph realm...the zines will be available at the reading and also through my website (sweettomb.com)."

You Are My Heart Launch Party @ BookCulture

On the heels of this oustanding review by Michael Schaub of Bookslut in Kirkus Reviews -- saying "[Neugeboren] might not be as famous as some of his compeers, like Philip Roth or John Updike, but it's becoming increasingly harder to argue that he's any less talented. Neugeboren's new short story collection serves as a convincing piece of evidence of the author's rare talent... dazzlingly smart and deeply felt... Jay Neugeboren is music to our ears." -- Jay Neugeboren celebrated the publication of his fourth collection of stories, You Are My Heart, at BookCulture last night. Here are some photographs from the event, courtesy Michael Friedman.

Barbara Browning + Keren Ann

Hot Shit: This Thursday, be sure to stop in and stake out a seat at Barnes & Noble's 'Upstairs at the Square' series, which will feature Barbara Browning and Keren Ann, hosted by Katherine Lanpher.

Barbara will be reading from The Correspondence Artist while Keren Ann will perform songs from her new album, 101.

'Upstairs at the Square' will take place at the Union Square Barnes & Noble (also known as Francis Levy's Barnes & Noble) on March 24 at 7pm.

This event promises to be super-fantastic. We hope to see you there!

New Literature Wilderness Exploration Group

Spend an evening with two fiction authors whose new books you should know about! Grace Krilanovich and Jarret Middleton (An Dantomine Eerly) will read from their debut novels, and talk with the audience about the future of fiction, getting published on an indie press, death, food, the woods, and more! Enjoy bizarre book-themed gift-basket raffle, booze, and more talk and fun carried on to a nearby bar after the event.

March 11th: The Waypost, Portland, OR - 7pm
March 12th: Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA - 7pm
March 26th: Stories Bookstore, Los Angeles, CA - 6pm

Trinie Dalton Live

Trinie Dalton, author of the forthcoming Baby Geisha (1/12), will be reading Friday, March 4th @ 7:30pm in Los Angeles @ Pepin Moore in Chinatown with Sarah Manguso, author of The Two Kinds of Decay.

Pepin Moore (the old China Art Objects)
933 Chung King Road
LA 90012
7:30pm, Fri. March 4th

Barbara Browning Live!

Good news for people who like really fantastic news: Barbara Browning will be doing two readings next week from her forthcoming debut novel, The Correspondence Artist (February 2011).

On Wednesday, October 6 at 7:30, Barbara will be reading as part of BOMB's All-Stars Literary Reading Series at Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. 'Santuxto Exteberria,' an excerpt from The Correspondence Artist, appeared in the summer issue of BOMB.

For those not in Fort Greene, Barbara will be reading, live, via Two Dollar Radio's brand spanking new video channel the night before, on October 5 at 8pm. Anyone will have the opportunity to pop in and ask Barbara questions about her new book. (I'm super-excited about this.) In the future, we'll be doing regular live web readings, interviews, and miscellaneous activities with our authors. It should be a blast, and plenty more opportunity for readers to interact with the writers.

L.A., Take 2

This Sunday, September 26, Grace Krilanovich and Joshua Mohr will be teaming up again to read as part of the Vermin on the Mount series in Los Angeles.

Grace and Josh will be joined by Matt Stewart and Steve de Jarnatt. The reading is at the Mountain Bar in Chinatown and is free.

Also, those on the opposing coast, don't forget about the NEA panel at the Philoctetes Center tomorrow in NYC.

Ace Stories: Bradfield Reading

Brighton, Sunday September 12: Scott Bradfield will be reading at ACE Stories, which is a terrific reading series supported by Arts Council England, Serpents Tail, and Momentum Pictures.

The reading is at Hotel Pelirocco at 6pm, which is at 10 Regency Square in Brighton. Also, Buffalo Trace is offering discounts on their bourbon . . .

Los Angeles-area Lit Peeps: The 13th Hour Is Here

Black Clock magazine unveils its suitably mysterious, idiosyncratic blog, with such subject areas as “Throwdowns” and “Experiments” accompanying more servicey/pedestrian offerings like interviews and calendar listings. While the online launch has already occurred, the real-life launch (the one with beer) will take place on May 16 at downtown LA artist space The Wulf. Contributing writers Doug Kearney, Emily Kiernan, Katie Manderfield and Doug Matus will read their work, and the band Wounded Dinosaur will perform. Visit the Black Clock blog.

Sunday, May 16 at 5 p.m. The Wulf, 1026 S. Santa Fe Ave. #203, Los Angeles, CA. 213-488-1182; www.thewulf.org.

Illustration by Eliza Frye.

Bryan Charles’ “Wowee Zowee” and Shawn Vandor’s “Fire at the End of the Rainbow”

The latest from Continuum’s stellar 33 1/3 series of little rock ‘n roll books is Bryan Charles’ treatise on Pavement’s third album WOWEE ZOWEE. Charles, author of the funny and affecting novel “Grab on to Me Tightly as if I Knew the Way” (itself a Pavement song lyric; you could say Bryan is a fan), interviewed all band members and various label staff and recording engineers, venturing to Memphis and generally keeping his unyielding love for the band and the album stuffed into a mason jar of intrepid journalistic inquiry. The launch for Wowee Zowee will be held at Brooklyn’s WORD bookstore on Wednesday, April 21 at 7:30 p.m. Charles will read and sign and answer Matthew Perpetua of Fluxblog’s questions.

Shawn Vandor’s debut collection of stories “Fire at the End of the Rainbow” is one of three coolly attractive books published by the Key West-based Sand Paper Press earlier this year. The press, in “limited operation” since 2003, recently ramped up production with “Fire” and two collections of poems: Stuart Krimko’s “The Sweetness of Herbert” and Arlo Haskell’s “Joker.” The trio is intended as a set, and they are certainly complementary in their Key West-esque peach, cornflower and strawberry pastel covers. All three Sand Paper Press authors toured the West Coast together this February and March. I can personally attest that Vandor’s deadpan delivery of the scatological little doozie titled “Manhood, a Cautionary Tale” at LA’s David Kordansky Gallery brought the damn house down.

Jersey Shore in the East Bay

San Francisco has many talented writers, and one of my favorites is K.M. Soehnlein. His first novel "The World of Normal Boys" was fantastic, funny, and devastating. Luckily for us, K.M. decided to revisit the characters from his debut romp with his new novel, "Robin & Ruby."

This Monday, April 19th, I'm thrilled to read in the East Bay with K.M. at the Ashby Stage in Berkeley. The evening is themed around "not your usual" beach reading, as some of Soehnlein's new book is set on the Jersey Shore. The stage will be decorated with a makeshift boardwalk and sand. Will it also stink like cologne and garbage to truly duplicate the Garden State? Hmmm. I guess you'll have to come play with us to find out for sure.

I'm going to read from "Termite Parade" which I just got the galleys for this week. It looks fantastic. To be honest, there won't be a lot of "beach" in my excerpt, though I guarantee some "not your usual."

The event starts at 7. They'll be serving "sex on the beach" to set the mood... classy. Maybe in true Jersey Shore style, we can drink them out of each other's belly buttons.

Come out and support Soehnlein's amazing new read!

Joshua Mohr Reading.

Joshua Mohr, author of Some Things That Meant the World to Me and the forthcoming Termite Parade, reading as part of The Rumpus Reading Series in San Francisco: