Monthly Archive for May, 2006

Mykel Board reads

May ’06
26
12:00 am

Mykel Board readsFriday, May 26th, 7:00 PMFREE
 
About Even a Daughter is Better
This is the true story of Mykel Board\’s journey into Outer Mongolia. Part black comedy, part travelogue, part memoir, Even A Daughter Is Better Than Nothing (the title is taken from a Mongolian proverb) recounts, among other things, a year of: teaching English at the National University in Ulaanbaatar, getting lost in the Gobi Desert, meeting the only rock band in Mongolia, having dinner with an arms dealer in China, sparring with Mongolian pro-wrestlers, witnessing a bizarre visit by Hillary Clinton and ritual sheep slaughter.
 
About I A, Meist (or The Portable Board)
The first compilation of the legendary Maximum Rock \’N\’ Rollcolumns. Fifty-three columns from 1985 to 2000. A huge, healthy dose of the caustic wit, provocative insights, and literary genius that has kept Mr. B as the longest running reason folks continue to pick up that venerable bible of the international underground punk community.
 
Mykel Board has written dozens of freelance articles and seventeen novels under pseudonyms. Maximum Rock\’n\’Roll has been printing his column for more than 20 years. His essays have appeared in several anthologies including Bisexual Politics, Hayworth Press and Good Advice for Young People, Last Gasp Press.

Jason Ockert reads from Rabbit Punches

May ’06
25
12:00 am

Jason Ockert author of Rabbit PunchesMonday, May 15th, 7:00 PMFREE
 
Jason Ockert?s debut collection of demented Southern short stories is titled, Rabbit Punches. George Saunders has said, “Rabbit Punches marks the debut of an exciting new American talent.?; and Padgett Powell has said, “The writing is hip but not terminally hip, fun, at times very fun, and contains signs that the author is disturbed enough to be worth watching. He may tell us some new things.”
 
Jason Ockert was the 1999 winner of the Atlantic Monthly Fiction Contest and the 2002 Mary Roberts Rinehart National Fiction Award. His stories have appeared in Virgin Fiction 2, McSweeney?s, River City, CutBank, Oyster Boy Review, Black Warrior Review, and are forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review. He teaches writing at Ithaca College.
 
More info: http://www.lofipress.com/rpunches.asp

THE2NDHAND #20 release party

May ’06
20
12:00 am

Saturday, 20 May 2006
THE2NDHAND #20 release party
7:30 PM
 
THE2NDHAND\’s broadsheet installment #20 is Austin writer Lauren
Trojniar\’s \”This Is How You Paint a House,\” a tale of the giddy, drunken
moral collapse of a suburban couple and a sometime housepainter.
Trojniar, a preschool teacher by day, makes the trek to Chicago for this
reading, at which she\’ll be joined by THE2NDHAND contributors Susannah
Felts and Gretchen Kalwinski and editor Todd Dills, who plays host.
 
Lauren Trojniar is the author of THE2NDHAND\’s 20th Installment, \”This Is
How You Paint a House,\” the story of Greg and Moira, a suburban couple
loosed from the strains of rearing children and attending yoga classes
by the introduction into their lives of one housepainter, Tomas, a
Dominican immigrant who shares with Greg a taste for whiskey. Trojniar
teaches preschool in Austin, TX, where she also lives.
 
Susannah Felts is on the faculty of SAIC\’s creative writing department,
and she\’s a frequent contributor to the /Chicago Reader/, among other
publications.
 
Gretchen Kalwinski lives and writes in Chicago. Lately, her
journalistic work has appeared, in addition to her fiction being
featured at THE2NDHAND.com, in /Venus/ and a host of other publications.
 
Todd Dills is the editor of THE2NDHAND. His first novel, Sons of the
Rapture, is due out August/September from Chicago publishers Featherproof.

Michelle Tea!!!

May ’06
19
12:00 am

Michelle Tea EventMay 25th 7PMfree
 
About Rose of No Man?s Land
Fourteen-year-old Trisha Driscoll is a hungry machine, taking in her hometown of Mogsfield, Massachusetts ? a place that has shamelessly surrendered to neon signs, theme restaurants, and cookie-cutter chain stores. Cynical but naive, Trisha observes the disappointing world from the ignored perspective of a teenager: creepy guys, the unfathomable sadness of the elderly, illegal tattoos, and the wild kingdom of mall culture.
 
After being hired and abruptly fired from the most popular shop at the absurd and kaleidoscopic Square One Mall, Trisha finds herself linked up with a chain-smoking, physically stunted mall rat named Rose, and her life shifts into manic overdrive.
 
A whirlwind exploration of poverty and dropouts, Rose of No Man?s Land is the world according to Trisha ? a furious love story between two weirdo girls, brimming with snarky observations and soulful wonderings on the dazzle-flash emptiness of contemporary culture.
 
Michelle Tea is the author of four memoirs, including the Lambda-award winning Valencia and the illustrated Rent Girl, which is currently being developed for television. Tea is the founder of the notorious all-girl performance tour Sister Spit, which wrecked poetic havoc across the USA at the end of the last century. She continues to curate literary events nationally, and hosts and cookie-baker for the monthly Radar Reading Series at the San Francisco Public Library. Rose of No Man?s Land is her first novel.

Tony Fitzpatrick signing

May ’06
18
12:00 am

Book Signing withTony Fitzpatrickfor the new bookThe Wonder: Portraits of a Remembered City, Volume 2, The Dream CityThursday May 18th 7:30PM
FREE
 
The Wonder: Portraits of a Remembered City, Volume 2, is a collection of new works by Chicago artist, writer and raconteur Tony Fitzpatrick. Stories of his city and its denizens permeate Fitzpatrick?s art, already in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The National Museum of American Art in Washington D.C., the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Wonder: Portraits of a Remembered City, Volume 2, The Dream City, is the newest collection in a three-part series of drawing-collages books.
 
Tony Fitzpatrick will be signing copies of his book at this event.
http://www.tonyfitzpatrick.com