7PM at the Baltimore Hostel!  Great Stuff this month!

Michael Cook has lived in Baltimore his entire life, except for a short period when he didn’t. Now he does, though. He writes freelance articles which are often about bars and restaurants. He writes grants that are usually not about bars and restaurants, and he writes fiction. Mike writes fiction about nearly everything. Some of it is available at his website, www.LiteratureIsNotDead.com. In 2009, for the very first Last Sunday reading, Mike read a story about Sasquatch ruining a young man’s dating life. This time around, he’s not sure what he’ll read, but he’s positive there won’t be a sasquatch involved.

Evan Balkan teaches writing at the Community College of Baltimore County. His fiction and nonfiction, mostly in the areas of travel and outdoor recreation, have been published throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, England, and Australia. A graduate of Towson, George Mason, and Johns Hopkins universities, he is the author of The Best in Tent Camping: Maryland, Shipwrecked! Deadly Adventures and Disasters at Sea, Vanished! Explorers Forever Lost, and, most recently, 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Baltimore (all published by Menasha Ridge Press).

Jesús Ángel García is the author of “badbadbad,” a (forthcoming) transmedia novel about what happens when sex, God and rock ‘n’ roll meet the social web. Short stories adapted from this work have been published in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, 3:AM Magazine, Monkeybicycle and sPARKLE & bLINK. “Finnegan’s Wank,” a bawdy parody of James Joyce, was a winner in HTMLGIANT’s “When Writers Get Off” contest and is available on Annalemma‘s blog. An original soundtrack and video projects related to themes of the book are in development at http://badbadbad.net.

Melissa Broder is the author of WHEN YOU SAY ONE THING BUT MEAN YOUR MOTHER (Ampersand Books, 2010). She curates the Polestar Poetry Series and is the Chief Editor of La Petite Zine. Broder won the Jerome Lowell Dejur Award in 2008 and the Stark Prize for Poetry in 2009. She received her BA from Tufts University and is currently in the MFA program at CCNY. By day, she works as a literary publicist. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including: Opium, Shampoo, Conte and The Del Sol Review. She lives in Brooklyn.

Linda Campbell Franklin aka Barkinglips has been writing &
illustrating since she was seven.  She made her living doing
children’s participatory books, and writing about kitchen antiques for
30 years, but instead of dying with “She knew everything there was to
know about eggbeaters” on her gravestone, she decided to keep going
and do stories and more out-of-her-brain stuff instead of “out of her
filing cabinet.”  Now, of course, she wishes she kept a neater filing
cabinet, but liquid Vitamin B complex helps the brain neatness.  She
doesn’t publish anywhere now, not knowing where to send anything.  She
amuses herself by wading in the river and making short stop motion
animated videos.

e. megg magee attended the first Maryland State Writing Project.  In 1990 she won Towson University’s Best Undergraduate MS.  She worked as co-editor for The Pearl for two years.  As well as being published in numerous local papers, including The City Paper, she has published in The Pearl, Late Knocking, Maryland Poetry Review, and, WPFW 89.3FM Poetry Anthology, as well as the international magazine, Fellowship.  Her poem “War Hound” is published on-line for Poets Against The War.

She currently resides way far out in the country where she writes with a view of a horse farm.  Horses terrify her.

Goodloe Byron lives on a mountain battlefield where he whiles away the evenings writing books and songs. In addition to his day job, he spends some time designing book covers for soft skull press, disruptive publishing and others. Along with Pablo D’stair he started Brown Paper Publishing back in the day. The last couple years his life has been swallowed up by the Zero Dollar Tour,  which basically consists of printing up thousands of books and handing them out during haphazard voyages.

Chris Toll lives and writes in Baltimore, Maryland.  In 2011, his new book will come out.  It will be called My Comma Slips into a Comma.

We’ve got a ninja ninja kick ass reading coming up!  Be there or be circle!

Jessica Dotson is a Catonsville native with a background in graphic design and creative writing who will make any excuse to study words, from typography to poetry. She has an affinity for carbs, cats, and art, among other things. Despite her poetry, she is not actually a depressing person to be around.

Sean Ruane is a database programmer and writer from Baltimore.  He has a MA in experimental psychology and has been published in Thieves Jargon, Storyglossia, Mudluscious, Eyeshot, elimae, Sien Und Werden, 3 A.M Magazine and other places. He likes coffee, beer, and Boolean algebra. He is currently writing a novel called ‘Forklifts of Minnesota’.

J. G. Heck moved to Baltimore from Brooklyn New York in late 2004.
He won “best dead-for-100-years elephant” from the Village Voice in 2003, and “best art” for his giant jazz hand at the AVAM KSR in 2007and considers himself a raconteur. He was a founding member of the Madagascar institute and Dark Passage
and has performed original work at The Continental, Joe’s Pub and The Squire Pub inNYC, Minas, Gallery 788 and Art Underground in Baltimore.

Molly Gaudry is the author of the verse novel We Take Me Apart (Mud Luscious) and the editor of TELL: An Anthology of Expository Narrative (Flatmancrooked). Find her online at  mollygaudry.blogspot.com.

Great reading coming up!  You should check it out.  We dig you!

We’ve got four cool cats reading this month:

Rahne Alexander is a writer, musician and multimedia artist from Baltimore. She is the guitarist and songwriter for the art garage trio The Degenerettes and is also an organizer with Baltimore’s Transmodern avant garde festival, the Charm City Kitty Club and the Maryland Film Festival. Her video art has screened in galleries and film festivals across the country, and she is a contributor to City Paper and Smile Hon You’re In Baltimore.

Merrill Feitell’s first book, Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes, won the Iowa Prize for Short Fiction. Her stories have appeared in many publications, including Best New American Voices, and have been short-listed in Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Awards. She is on the MFA faculty at University of Maryland at College Park is Fiction Editor for the literary journal Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, and Light Industrial Safety. She lives in Baltimore and is at work on her first novel.

Jessica McHugh is an author of speculative fiction that spans the genres from the dystopian world of From the Herald’s Wearied Eye to her epic fantasy series The Tales of Dominhydor. She currently resides in Maryland with her husband Dave who serves as constant support and inspiration in life and writing alike.

Megan McShea has put out two chapbooks, Yarn!, and Recipes for Greatness, on her own Thingy Press, and her writing has appeared in the anthologies Shattered Wig Review, Lost and Found Times, Success!, the i.e. reader, and online at Rock Heals and Everyday Genius.  She is currently at work on an anthology of collaborative writing created with writer friends in Baltimore.

Excellent cool cool cool show coming up!  Be there and you can have beer!  Gawk at Nik Korpon’s tattoos!  Poke Pat King’s belly!  Watch these cool cats read:

Ashlie Kauffman: Ashlie Kauffman is a freelance writer and an adjunct instructor at the Community College of Baltimore County. She has a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from New York University and a Master of Arts in fiction from the Johns Hopkins Advanced Academic Programs. Her writing recognitions include publications in Quarterly West and Washington Square, and an Independent Artist Award in fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council. She writes book reviews for the online literary journal jmww and interviews poets for jmwwblog.

Timmy Reed: Timmy Reed is a person from north Baltimore, who spends an indeterminate portion of his time telling stories. He is the author of two unpublished novels, a horsecart full of self-published zines, some other stuff, and a screenplay about satan, juvenile deliquency, and militant lesbians. He used to work for a literary journal called Crazyhorse. Recently, he released a collection of illustrated stories about animals called Animal Stories. You should pick one up somewhere in Baltimore and read it to your mom.

Fernando Quijano III: is a father and a writer.  He is in the finishing stages of editing his first novel, Forever, Lilith. A version of the first chapter was published in an anthology published by Apprentice House, Freshly Squeezed. Follow The Word Pimp on Twitter.  His blog can be found at www.thewordpimpspits.blogspot.com

Erik Pecukonis is a poet and musician.  His website is at www.thesummerwentwest.com

Thanks to everyone who came out last weekend, and, of course, a huge thank you to Ingrid Burrington, Josh Weil, David Erlewine and Joana Rakoff Smith for reading. We’ll see you next month.

Josh Weil reading from The New Valley.

Ingrid Burrington reading flash fiction.

David Erlewine, flash fiction editor of JMWW magazine.

Joana Rakoff Smith reading from A Fortunate Age.

We have another excellent and diverse line-up this February. Hopefully the snow will hold off for a while because you don’t want to miss this reading!

Sunday 28 February
7pm
Baltimore Hostel
17 W. Mulberry Street

Also, be sure to stop by Minas Gallery in Hampden for the 510 Reading next Saturday, 20 February, to catch Meghan Kenny as well as the excellent Kevin Sampsell.

Josh Weil was born in the Blue Ridge Mountains of rural Virginia, to which he returned to write the novellas in his first book, The New Valley (Grove, 2009).

A New York Times Editors Choice selection, The New Valley was honored with a “5 Under 35” Award from the National Book Foundation.  Weil’s short fiction has been published or is forthcoming in Granta, American Short Fiction, Narrative, and Glimmer Train, among other journals; he has written non-fiction for The New York Times, Granta Online, and Poets & Writers.  Since earning his MFA from Columbia University, he has received a Fulbright grant, a Writer’s Center Emerging Writer Fellowship, the Dana Award in Portfolio, and fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences.

As the 2009 Tickner Fellow, Weil is the writer-in-residence at Gilman School in Baltimore, where he is at work on a novel.

Joanna Smith Rakoff is the author of A Fortunate Age, one of Booklist’s Top Ten Debut Novels of 2009, a winner of the Elle Readers’ Prize, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and a Barnes and Noble’s First Look Book Club selection. She has written for many publications including Slate, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Vogue; her poetry has appeared in The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, and other journals. She lives in New York City.

David Erlewine cannot use third person here without feeling like Neon Deion. David edits flash for JMWW. His stories appear or are forthcoming in Per Contra, FRiGG, SmokeLong Quarterly, and other places. His work can be found at http://whizbyfiction.blogspot.com

Ingrid Burrington is an artist and writer living and working between Baltimore and New York. Her website is www.lifewinning.com.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the last reading! And thank you to Mud Luscious Press for supplying chapbooks as open-mic prizes. We hope you had a great time.  We did, and here’s the proof (sorry, my camera died so these are from my phone.) See you next month!

Robin Gunkel reading a poem.

Cliff Lynn and his hilarious yet macabre ways.

Heather Rounds reading flash from the Far East.

Meghan Kenny trying out a passage from her novel-in-progress.

We’ve got a fantastic line-up for the first 2010 reading and we’re really excited about it. We think you will be, too. Don’t about the open-mic. We have some books to give away, as well.

Same Bat-Time, Same Bat Channel.

LAST SUNDAY, LAST RITES
Sunday, 31 January 2010. 7pm
Baltimore Hostel
17 W Mulberry Street
Baltimore MD

Meghan Kenny teaches writing at Towson University and for Gotham Writers’ Workshop online.  She was the 2008-2009 Tickner Writing Fellow at the Gilman School in Baltimore.   Her stories have appeared in Sonora Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, Cimarron Review, Bound Off, The Kenyon Review, The Florida Review and she has one forthcoming in Pleiades.  She won the 2005 Iowa Review Award for fiction.  She received her M.F.A. from Boise State University.  She is working on her first novel.

Heather Rounds’ poetry and flash fiction has most recently appeared in Pank, Merge Poetry, Kritya and the Baltimore Review. She holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore. She recently returned to Baltimore after two years working in the Middle East and Asia as a journalist and teacher. She is currently working on a collection of flash fiction pieces based on her experiences abroad.

Cliff Lynn has been irradiated.  He has lived in Japan and Spain, and wrote poetry subliminally for 40 years.  In 2004 poems began pouring out of his nugget like strange bread ties.  He  hosts three reading series four nights a month in Annapolis.  Next Saturday features are Barbara Decesare and Jim Warner.  You should come!

Robin Gunkel is a graduate of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, CO where she received her low-residency MFA in Creative Writing while living abroad in Japan. Most recently, Robin works as a academic advisor at the University of Baltimore, and is also helping to spearhead Evolver Baltimore, an organization committed to social change through the expansion of consciousness.

Pictures from the last reading. Thank you to everyone who came out and supported these fantastic writers.

Also, Joseph Young’s book EASTER RABBIT will launch Friday 12 December at The Hexagon. Go. You will love it.

XOXO-LSLR