Posted
by Henry Stewart on
Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 12:00 PM
The Franklin Park Reading Series' motto is to be "provocative, poignant and hilarious," curator Penina Roth said at last night's third-anniversary reading. She brought it up after Shalom Auslander read. Dressed in a denim-colored shirt, buttons undone and sleeves rolled up, Auslander, with his mop of curly graying hair, looks like he used to write for Rolling Stone in the 70s, even though he was only born in 1970. "I don't know why people come to these things," he said as he took the microphone. "It seems kind of sad." (Auslander loves to bemoan the travails of book-promotion.) The self-professed misanthrope's debut novel, Hope: A Tragedy, tells the story of a present-day upstate New Yorker who finds Anne Frank alive and hiding in his attic. It's philosophically cutting—he read a lengthy section on the perniciousness of optimism—but also funny, as the neurotic narrator frets over the trouble he could get into (in the eyes of history or worse, his mother) if he reported the old woman. And then there're just sentences like, "'Blow me,' said Anne Frank."
Posted
by Henry Stewart on
Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 1:55 PM
Colson Whitehead
Electric Literature curated a line-up at the Franklin Park Reading Series last night that included some literary heavies: Jim Shepard, Colson Whitehead, and Ben Greenman. But they were upstaged by a pair of up-and-comers. Matt Sumell, who was referred to Electric Lit's editors by a friend, lived up to his introduction as "brutal, hilarious, and heartbreaking." He read a story called "Toast," which he said was inspired by advice from Jim Shepard to "follow your weird." "No one likes this story," he said. "No one will publish this story." But the audience, even larger than usual, adored it; with a page and a half left, he asked if he should finish the story, to which the crowd responded with a resounding yes. The story, which Sumell read with dry perfection, was packed with comic dialogue, clinical and mean descriptions born of astute observation, as it chronicled a relationship, a break-up, and the aftermath.
Posted
by Henry Stewart on
Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 1:08 PM
Colson Whitehead didn't just read from his new novel at Greenlight last night—he first delivered a long, autobiographical comic monologue that traced, from childhood to present, how he became a writer. He described his younger self as a shut-in. "I would have preferred to be a sickly child," he said, "but it didn't work out that way." At home, he read comic books and Stephen King novels, watched The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. He wanted to write "the 'black' Salem's Lot." In college, he read more high-brow 20th century stuff and lived the writer's life—just without the writing. "I wore black," he said. "I smoked cigarettes."
After graduation, he snagged a job at the Voice, which he said has changed since, though one thing has remained constant: "whenever you were there was its heyday; whenever you left, it was downhill." He started out writing about television, branching out with more assignments until he was confident enough to start writing fiction.
Posted
by Henry Stewart on
Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 3:13 PM
Jonathan Farmer, left, with David Levithan
David Levithan sees little of himself in the main character of his latest novel, Every You, Every Me. "He's really messed up," he said last night at a panel of YA authors hosted by Powerhouse Arena called "Falling Apart, Coming Together." The absorbing book, on which Levithan collaborated with the photographer Jonathan Farmer, tells the story of Evan, a psychologically unstable teenager who lost his best friend and has recently begun receiving ominous photographs that provoke his longing for her—and his guilt over what happened.
Levithan enlisted Farmer to help him with his idea for a "photographic novel": Farmer would send the photos one by one, around which Levithan would construct the story, never sure where he was going next. He wouldn't let Farmer read any of it so that the narrative wouldn't influence his photographs; it took five years to finish. ("We did many other things in the interim," Levithan said.) The photos are printed in the book, often in rich four-color—28 all together, or roughly one for every person who came out to Powerhouse.
Posted
by Henry Stewart on
Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 1:56 PM
Blake Butler
Scott McClanahan gave a reading last night at Franklin Park that few who witnessed it will soon forget. Taking the microphone, the West Virginian spoke in a panting monotone, like a terrified child, but it turned out to be part of a masterfully calculated persona; this was a reading, not a recitation. He ended by walking away from the podium and moving into the crowd, speaking without amplification, playing a bagpipe song on a portable recorder that he'd later toss to the ground, exhorting us all to join him again next year to the day, "alive and not dead, alive and not dead," and promising, I think, that we'd meet again that night, in our dreams. It was rousing, unifying, and unforgettable, less like a short-story reading than a secular sermon—less written in advance than passed down on the spot from some Holy Spirit of literature.
Posted
by Jonny Diamond on
Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 1:19 PM
In the spirit of reflection and atonement—tis the season, after all—a few select writers and performers will recount some of their biggest regrets of the year tomorrow night, live, onstage, for your amusement. The likes of Starlee Kine, Ben Greenman, A.J. Jacobs—and yours truly—have been invited to read at "With Regrets," an evening of confessional storytelling hosted by Jessica Chaffin and Jessi Klein, under the broader auspices of 10Q, Greenman's online high holiday interrogatory machine (just click on that link).
Posted
by Lauren Beck on
Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 4:19 PM
The New Yorker Festival announced a late addition to the lineup yesterday, a family reunion to end all family reunions: a panel reuniting the cast of the prematurely canceled cult comedyArrested Developmentwith series creator Mitchell Hurwitz. Screw the forever-circulating rumors of a movie, this is for real happening; maybe the best surprise in a week full of surprise announcements (apologies to Radiohead and The Shins). Moderator and New Yorker television critic Nancy Franklin will navigate the "exclusive" family get-togehter set to feature all the Bluths — Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Michael Cera, David Cross, Portia de Rossi, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Alia Shawkat and dear sweet Tony Hale — on Sunday, October 2 at Acura at SIR Stage37. Tickets go on sale here noon tomorrow. NOON TOMORROW. I'm already panicked.
Posted
by Henry Stewart on
Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 8:57 AM
Books, and the people who read them
More than 260 writer types participated in more than 100 panels at yesterday's sixth annual Brooklyn Book Festival, held in and around Borough Hall in Downtown Brooklyn. I spent the whole day there and I only saw six panels! (I also bought a few books and ate lunch from a food truck.) If you're wondering what the writers looked like, or what they said, there's a slideshow after the jump! With quotes and colorful details!
Posted
by Mark Asch on
Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 12:09 PM
Jesus Christ it's hot. (How hot is it?) So hot that everybody's clothes are soaking through and curling and disintegrating like the labels on so many bottles of Miller High Life.
Which is why tonight, at Literary Upstart's Grand Championship Super Final (TM) (at Galapagos), the Miller High Life will be served in cans. There will be 400 of them, on sale at $2 until they run out, for to quench your thirst. This should get interesting.
There are reports, unconfirmed as this blog post went to, um, press, that L Magazine Editor-in-Chief and Upstart host Jonny Diamond plans to shotgun one on stage.
Posted
by Henry Stewart on
Tue, May 10, 2011 at 1:40 PM
Ned Thimmayya reads a ghost story...to ghostly shadows!
"A lot of times," Helen Phillips said, "magic can serve to make a metaphor literal." She made the remark before reading five stories "full of monsters and stuff" from her new book, And Yet They Were Happy, at the Franklin Park reading series last night. The event was called "Myth and Magic," and featured five authors whose work, in some way or another, transcends reality—though, as the hostess said, "fantasy really is a comment on our reality."
Posted
by Henry Stewart on
Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 1:55 PM
Brent Crawford reads as David Levithan looks on
Teen fiction can be more vulgar and sexual than you might expect: judging from the snippets read by nine young adult novelists at the Chatham Square Branch of the New York Public Library on East Broadway last night, it often leans more CW than ABC Family. (That is, the characters sound more like teenagers than an adult's sanitized fantasy version.) The panel, moderated by David Levithan, himself a noted YA author, had gathered to kick off New York's Teen Author Festival, which continues all week with events throughout the city. Except Staten Island, which has canceled its participation in what was intended to be a five-boroughs-wide read aloud. "Fuck Staten Island," Levithan said with a smile. Foul or frank language likely did not offend anyone present: unaccompanied minors peppered the crowd of a few dozen, which was constituted primarily of college students and other YA authors.
Posted
by Henry Stewart on
Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 2:02 PM
It was standing room only fifteen minutes before Tea Obreht began to read from her new novel, The Tiger's Wife, at Fort Greene's Greenlight bookstore on Friday. "There's a lot of you," Obreht noted nervously in the middle of her introductory remarks, tracing an L shape with her hand to illustrate the trajectory of the crowd—unscientifically calculated to have a 1:6 ratio of men to women, and only growing thicker.
Obreht, the youngest of the New Yorker's "20 Under 40" list at 26, published a raved-about short story called "The Tiger's Wife" in that magazine in the spring of 2009; the literary world has been waiting for the subsequent novel ever since. It took her more than three years to write. "I used a lot of outline but stuck to almost none of it," she told the crowd during a post-reading Q&A. (She ended every answer with a chipper "thank you!") Time Out New York has called it the hottest book of the spring.
Posted
by Lauren Beck on
Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 1:53 PM
Charlie and Jay, together at last. The two will discuss Decoded, the latter's new book recounting his rise from the Marcy Projects to superstar/entrepreneur/Yankees fan as rich as the Yankees, on November 18 at the Brooklyn Museum. The event will be taped and aired on The Charlie Rose Show at a later date, which should make all the graying Charlie Rose fans across the country very happy. This comes just two days after the book's release and three days after Jay speaks at the New York Public Library; hopefully, between the three, date night with Beyonce will be divulged in more detail than in his interview with Oprah. (A "great pizza spot," "in Brooklyn," "there are candles there." I need the name, dammit.) Tickets to the Brooklyn Museum event are on sale now for $50 ($45 for museum members), which includes a copy of Decoded.
Posted
by Mark Asch on
Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 10:22 AM
The local choreographer and director Gabriella Barnstone is currently soliciting contributions via Kickstarter to support her dance theater piece Nuevo Laredo, which will debut at Dixon Place next spring. We emailed with her about the piece and the pitch:
In what ways can dance portray current events in general?
I think dance can portray current events in the same way any medium of art can—by bringing something to light and maybe looking at it through a different lens. So whether or not the drug wars in Mexico have been on someone's radar, by coming to see this piece they will either perk up their ears, or come to think about it in a way that may be different from reading about it in a newspaper or listening on the radio.
Posted
by Lauren Beck on
Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 5:05 PM
For those of you not going to see Wolf Parade tomorrow (note: Wolf Parade is playing tomorrow!), you should head over to Coco 66 where Chuck Klosterman — native son of Wyndmere, North Dakota, hair-metal aficionado, and the cause for this, this and this Facebook group — will read from his latest book, the last in a long career of pop culture musings, Eating the Dinosaur. To celebrate its paperback release, he’ll be talking to like-minded writer pal Rob Sheffield, perhaps best known for the heart-warming/wrenching memoir Love Is a Mixtape and, in the near future, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, due out in bookstores on Thursday. Questions from witty audience members will be answered, books will be signed, self-deprecating humor will abound. Tickets are $20; grab those here.
But tonight, more changes are afoot: tonight, at our short fiction competition and live-judged reading series, brought to you by Harper Perennial and the New School, we have a new drink special to go along with the same old terrific short stories, witty literary banter and drunk trivia...
Posted
by Mark Asch on
Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 11:48 AM
Every year around this time I try to figure out ways to describe the season's third Literary Upstart reading as something other than "the third and final semifinal," but, you know what, fuck it. We have three semifinals, followed by a final. Thus, the third semifinal is the final semifinal. Got it? Good.
So Literary Upstart, the L's short fiction competition and reading series, brought to you by Harper Perennial and the New School, will be holding its third and final semifinal a week from today, next Thursday, at Spike Hill off the Bedford stop, which still has that "new Upstart venue" smell. And that "dollar beer" smell.
Posted
by Mark Asch on
Thu, May 20, 2010 at 12:58 PM
With the Slipper Room under renovation, The L's Literary Upstart: The Search for Pocket Fiction competition (brought to you b Harper Perennial and the New School) is, like a recent graduate, moving across the East River to Brooklyn for our last semifinal reading in June, and our hotly contested final in July.
Join us, won't you, at Williamsburg's Spike Hill—just roll off the Bedford Ave L stop and there you are—on Thursday, June 10, and Thursday, July 8, starting at 7pm both nights. Yes, there'll still be dollar beer, rowdy trivia, bite-sized lit-criticism and wonderful short fiction from our city's best unknown writers. Except in Brooklyn, which is arguably where it should have been all along.
Posted
by Mark Asch on
Tue, May 18, 2010 at 1:03 PM
Although Jonny's attempts at inciting a post-reading brawl came to naught, last night's Literary Upstart semifinal was still a resounding success, if I remember correctly. Thanks to readers Jeff Somers, Frank Haberle, Tracy O'Neill, Kathryn Sanders and the winner, Snowden Wright; to the participants in our hotly contested NYC Literary Trivia competition; to the New School and Harper Perennial for their support; to the Slipper Room, for hosting; and to Dogfish Head, for the $1 bottles of beer scattered throughout the Slipper Room, as this slideshow from last night amply demonstrates:
