Archive for the 'readings' Category

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Josh Simmons Reads From Black River 5/7

Published on April 8, 2015 0 Comments
May ’15
7
7:00 pm

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Josh Simmons returns with his first full-length graphic novel since 2007’s acclaimed House. A group of women, one man, and two dogs are making their way through a post-apocalyptic world in search of a city that supposedly still has electricity and some sort of civilization. Along the way, they go to a comedy club, take a drug called Gumdrop, and encounter gangs of men who are fools, lunatics, or murderous sadists. In other words, all manner of terrors.

Simmons is one of the field’s most distinctive voices in the genre of horror, (The Furry Trap, House) and this full-length graphic novel is his best work yet – echoing director John Carpenter’s perfect tick-tock pacing, as well as Shirley Jackson’s ability to transcend genre and turn it into literature.

“Josh Simmons has concocted a hellish world in which madwomen roam a post-apocalyptic landscape – but its battlescars are nothing compared to the self-obliterating hell of their own minds. A horrifying, unforgettable vision.”

– Kier-La Janisse (House of Psychotic Women)

 

Josh Simmons was born in Connecticut in 1977. He is the creator of the graphic novels House, Jessica Farm Volume One, and The Furry Trap. He currently lives in New Haven, CT.

For more info:

jhscomics.tumblr.com/

http://www.fantagraphics.com/blackriver

Click here to see video of pages from the book.

Facebook event invite for the event.

Thursday, May 7th, 7pm – Free Event

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Kristy Bowen reads from Major Characters in Minor Films 4/3

Published on March 6, 2015 0 Comments
Apr ’15
3
7:00 pm

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“Get ready: Kristy Bowen’s major characters in minor films casts our favorite muse du jour in a ‘white-hot, white dress.’ Through poems that are lyrical, irreverent, and a little bit naughty, we discover the swanky, labyrinthine interior of her straight-to-DVD universe: remember, she tells us in ‘movie of the week,’ ‘Everybody loves a victim, especially the blonde, pretty kind.’ Through scathing missives to James Franco and sensual harangues directed at the moon, our wine-stained diva tempts us through vivacious non sequiturs to the ‘poem within a movie within a girl-shaped world’ in all of us.” -Sara Henning, author of A Sweeter Water

“I want to be best friends with the ‘I’ of this book. She’s hilarious. She’s heartbreaking. She’s more than a little bit dangerous. Whether she’s writing about crying on the bus or hiding a knife under the sink, she deals out her words like a card shark—fast, sure, sly. What’s not to love about such a deft performance of wit, skill, and heart?” -Sara Biggs Chaney, author of Ann Coulter’s Letter to the Young Poets

“In Kristy Bowen’s major characters in minor films, language moves like a camera, cutting from image to image, leaving impressions that form intriguing fragmented narratives of love, intrigue, mystery and damage. Populated with both the familiar and the strange, with rabbits and birds as well as whiskey and fire, the journey through the scenes these poems create is a wild and rich ride.” -Donna Vorreyer, author of A House of Many Windows

A writer and visual artist, Kristy Bowen is the author of several book, chapbook, and zine projects including the shared properties of water and stars (Noctary Press, 2013) and girl show (Black Lawrence Press, 2014).  Her work has appeared most recently in Birdfeast, Diode, and Eratio.  She  lives in Chicago, where she runs dancing girl press & studio. For  more  info:  kristybowen.net

Click here to see Facebook invite for this event.

Fri, April 3rd, 7pm, Free Event

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Offsite: Quimby’s Night at LiveWire Lounge: 3 Songs, 3 Writers Reading About Those Songs 3/22

Published on March 3, 2015 3 Comments
Mar ’15
22
7:00 pm

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The LiveWire Lounge (3394 N Milwaukee) asked Quimby’s if we wanted to curate a night at their lounge. And we said yes. So this is what we’re bringing, a themed mix of reading and music with a very specific focus:

Quimby’s Night at LiveWire Lounge: 3 Songs, 3 Writers Reading About Those Songs

Original Readings by:

Mike “McBeardo” McPadden, reading about Kiss Me Deadly by Generation X
Celia Forrest, reading about Black and White by the DBs
Dan Kelly, reading about X Offender by Blondie

All 3 songs performed by The Blue Ribbon Glee Club

Celia Forrest is a writer, director, teacher and actress who was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska. She is a new mother and couldn’t shut up about it if she tried. She is well-known in Minnesota for her work teaching theater to kids and her award-winning turn in Neil Labute’s Fat Pig. In Chicago she is mostly known for her sketch comedy writing and directing, as well for her work on The People’s Republic of Edward Snowden. Celia is also famous in a subset of radical activists as a co-host of Morning Damnit, the morning news and talk show on Q4 Radio, and the weekly program The Celia and Erik Show, which features comedy, commentary and interviews with local artists. Find her on Twitter at twitter.com/thatcelia

Mike “McBeardo” McPadden is the author of Heavy Metal Movies: Guitar Barbarians, Mutant Bimbos, and Cult Zombies Amok in the 666 Most Ear- and Eye-Ripping Big Scream Films Ever! (Bazillion Points, 2014) and the upcoming Going All the Way: The Ultimate Guide to Teen Sex Comedy Films of the VHS Era (Bazillion Points, 2016). You will love him. More info at mcbeardo.com.

Dan Kelly is the author of Hilaretic. He is not to be confused with the Australian judoka and mixed martial artist Dan Kelly. He occasionally writes for The Baffler and Gapers Block. He blogs at mrdankelly.com/blog.

The Blue Ribbon Glee Club is Chicago’s punk rock a capella glee club, and regularly performs songs by Fugazi, Gang of Four, the Dead Kennedys, the Buzzcocks and more.

Please note: This event is NOT at Quimby’s. It is at the LIVEWIRE LOUNGE | 3394 N MILWAUKEE AVE, CHICAGO, IL

Facebook event post can be found here.LiveWire Lounge

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Oyez Review Issue 42 Launch Reading Featuring Donna Vorreyer& Friends 3/20

Published on February 25, 2015 0 Comments
Mar ’15
20
7:00 pm

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The Oyez Review, Roosevelt University’s award-winning literary journal, has been in publication for over forty years. Among other readers relevant to issue #42, Donna Vorreyer will read a selection of her poems including “Compline with a Dream of Folded Arms,” which is also featured in this issue.

Donna Vorreyer is the author of A House of Many Windows (Sundress Publications, 2013) as well as six chapbooks, most recently Encantado, a collaboration with artist Matt Kish from Redbird Chapbook (released in April 2015). She has been a repeat nominee for the Pushcart Prize, and her work has appeared in journals such as Sugar House Review, Sou’wester, Rhino, Linebreak, and Cider Press Review. She is an assistant poetry editor for Extract(s), and her second collection is forthcoming from Sundress Publications in 2016.

For more info:

oyezreview.wordpress.com

donnavorreyer.com

facebook event post for this event.

oyezreview(at)roosevelt(dot)edu

Friday, March 20, 7pm – Free EventDonna Vorreyer author photo

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Jeff Phillips and Jordan Hoisington Read From Zizobotchi Papers vol 1 2/27

Published on January 27, 2015 0 Comments
Feb ’15
27
7:00 pm

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Zizobotchi Papers: volume 1, winter, 2015 (Baker & Brady), is the premier issue of a journal dedicated to the novella. Jeff Phillips and Daniel Gerald Mac Rae, who previously collaborated together at Three Leaves Theatre on a variety of stage productions, have teamed up again to launch a publication to highlight one of their favorite forms, the novella. Jeff and Dan are the guinea pigs on volume 1.

 

The first issue of the Zizobotchi Papers features Proboiotic Hot Sauce by Jeff Phillips, and Chainsaw Guy by Daniel Gerald Mac Rae. Probiotic follows the character Sloan Doan as he returns to Chicago after a falling out with his family to stay with an eccentric dancer, Libby. They attend a warehouse party where a food competition reveals a cast of characters as mysterious as the place itself. Chainsaw makes us witness to a party that escalates into bedlam for Dale, leaving him – and his Honda – vulnerable to the whims of a psychopath.

 

Jeff Phillips’ short fiction has appeared in Seeding Meat, This Zine Will Change Your Life, Metazen, Chicago Literati and Literary Orphans. has written two full-length plays Magnets and Division & Shame. His first published novella is Chainsaw Guy. Actor Jordan Hoisington has appeared in the play Magnets by Zizobotchi Papers’ featured writer Daniel Gerald Mac Rae, and will read Rae’s work.

Friday, February 27th, 7pm

Free Event

For more info: bakerandbrady.com or bakerandbrady(at)gmail(dot)com

Click here for the Facebook event link.

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