Archive for the 'Store Events' Category

Page 113 of 206

Joe Meno Reads From The Great Perhaps

Apr ’10
16
7:00 pm

GreatPerhapsSC

Joe Meno
is an accomplished young writer and playwright from Chicago. A winner of the Nelson Algren Literary Award, he is the author of four novels and two story collections. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s and broadcast on NPR, and he was a longtime contributing editor to Punk Planet magazine. Time Out Chicago recently called him one of their “cultural heroes,” and in a recent feature on Chicago, GQ wrote that Joe is “the closest thing we’ve got to a literary ambassador.” And now, in his latest novel a soft cover version of THE GREAT PERHAPS (W. W. Norton) Meno returns to that Chicago landscape to introduce five characters searching for simple ways to understand the world’s big questions–Professor Jonathan Casper, his wife, two daughters, and father.
Madeline, Jonathan’s wife, is an animal behaviorist tracking the aggressive behavior of pigeons. The study is compromised, though, by Madeline’s inability to remain an observer; instead she finds herself consistently interceding in her subjects’ cages, trying to save the submissive creatures from the forceful ones. When she’s home from the lab, Madeline feels compelled to watch the news coverage of the ground war in Iraq. This fascination is often counterbalanced by a flood of anxiety that takes over every time she tries to understand the human aggression splashed across the TV screen.
Jonathan is also a scientist struggling with his work. A paleontologist who has devoted his entire life to finding a giant, prehistoric squid, Jonathan is on the verge of being beaten to the discovery of the elusive creature by the young, talented, and highly respected Dr. Jacques Albert. To Jonathan, this creature is the imperative missing piece that will confirm evolution as the indisputable force propelling animal life, providing the scientific community with the necessary tools to truly understand where humans have come from.
The stress of these pursuits takes its toll on Jonathan and Madeline’s marriage, and the two find themselves looking into the realms that their subjects inhabit. Jonathan daydreams about the depths in which his muse swims while gazing at maps of the ocean, and Madeline looks to the sky for comfort, company and rejuvenation.

Also joining the bill is:    Jon Resh, author of Amped, Gretchen Kalwinski, of literago.org fame, Patrick Somerville, author of Trouble (Vintage) and The Cradle (Little, Brown), and folks from Knee-Jerk Magazine.

For more info: http://www.joemeno.com http://www.gretchenkalwinski.com
http://patricksomerville.com http://www.kneejerkmag.com

J. Bradley Reads From Dodging Traffic

Apr ’10
5
7:00 pm

J. Bradley points to three enduring sources for his inspiration: Jameson, revenge, and his wife, Jelian. Not a likely combination for a poet, but one that has brought forth Dodging Traffic (Ampersand Books).  Loud, raucous, lively: J. Bradley’s poetry is widely published and admired, and, in this, his first collection, he brings the full bore of his trademark poetic styling and larger-than-life imagery.  Lust, love, contempt, disgust, parental guidance, and poetic revenge, crafted with unbridled imagination and unmistakable skill. Dodging Traffic hearkens back to the times of childhood, when life was still interesting and imagination could bring cardboard boxes and discarded love affairs to life.

J. Bradley is the Veruca Salt of the literary chocolate factory, writing with a satirical brazenness that leaves cavities among the reader’s eyes.  There is a sugary darkness to his work and a lackadaisical charm; that of a black-market dental hygienist.  J. delivers new audacity, important romance, and certainty.  He acknowledges the sensational ugly without apprehension. His ideas are of an entirely different species and his wit knocks at postmodern…stunned today, laughing tomorrow. Dodging Traffic is the classic, the sequel will forever envy.”    -Sarah Morgan, Author of Animal Ballistics

For more info: http://iheartfailure.net

Joyland vs. CellStories: Brian Joseph Davis of Joyland + Dan Sinker

Apr ’10
6
7:00 pm

Brian Joseph Davis of Joyland will be reading from Ronald Reagan, My Father and Dan Sinker of CellStories will present stories from cellphones.
By the time Brian Joseph Davis stops in Chicago to promote his new collection of short stories, Ronald Reagan, My Father (ECW), over half will have been given away via Chicagoan Dan Sinker’s CellStories project. The two met when Sinker was finding content partners and Joyland.ca, a short story web journal edited in 7 different North American cities and co-founded by Davis, was a perfect match, leading to Davis to experiment with distributing his own stories. Tonight they’ll read and talk about the ins and outs of free fiction.

Ronald Reagan, My Father

Ronald Reagan, My Father

In Ronald Reagan, My Father the elderly take to the streets at night for illegal electric scooter racing. A copy editor suffers brain damage from a virus and is suddenly filled with cannibalistic violence and award-winning minimalist poetry. A Texas doctor transplants the mind of a meth-addicted convict into the body of a suburban web developer, resulting in America’s first “death-penalty case that turned into a custody case that turned into a right-to-die case.” Brian Joseph Davis is an artist and the author of Portable Altamont, a collection that garnered praise from Spin Magazine for its “elegant, wise-ass rush of truth, hiding riotous social commentary in slanderous jokes.” Slate called his first novel,
I, Tania, “The book of your fever dreams.”

Dan Sinker is the founder of Punk Planet magazine and is the creator of CellStories, which provides a new short story or essay everyday and has been recently praised in Publisher’s Weekly for its bold approach to networked reading.

For more info: http://www.joyland.ca , http://brianjosephdavis.com/ , http://www.cellstories.net

Chicago Zine Fest Zine Reading

Mar ’10
12
7:00 pm

Quimby’s Bookstore will help kick off the Chicago Zine Fest by hosting a zine reading, Friday, March 12 at 7pm. Reading will be authors who span the range of self-publishing, from minicomics, to fiction, to cultural criticism. Three of the Zine Fest’s special guests, John Porcellino, Anne Elizabeth Moore and Jeffrey Brown will read alongside five zinesters who were selected by random lottery among exhibitors.
CZF2010posterforweb
John Porcellino draws the minicomic, King Cat, which he has been self-publishing since 1989.

Anne Elizabeth Moore is the author of Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing and the Erosion of Integrity. She is the former editor of Punk Planet, and teaches at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago.

Jeffrey Brown is the award-winning comics artist behind the graphic novels Clumsy, Funny Misshapen Body, and the Incredible Changebots.

Amber Forrester, a long time feminist zinester, writes about small town revolutions and queer (in)visibility.

Monica Anderson writes and draws comics in her personal zine Endless Escalators.

Michelle Aiello is a Chicago-based writer, stationary designer and organizer of the Ephemera Festival.

Anthony Marvullo is a Boston-based poet, author of Various Segments of Industry, a chapbook about power tools.

Sarala Bee is a Montreal-based writer whose zines dealing with depression, love, and sex.

Quimby’s staff will start the event with an opening ceremony, which will include the presentation of the inaugural Quimby’s Long Arm Stapler Award. The award is designed to recognize and encourage an individual or group’s enthusiasm, inspiration, and commitment to self-publishing and the self- publishing community. The award’s recipient has yet to be announced.

For more info about the zine fest: http://www.chicagozinefest.org

Nancy Stohlman Reads From Searching for Suzi

Mar ’10
4
7:00 pm

What happens when an ex-stripper in her mid-thirties, married with children, awakens one day questioning what brought her to a current life of complicated domesticity? Compelled to return to Omaha after seventeen years, the narrator we only know as Natalie begins a quest into her past, an adventure that takes the reader from childhood beauty pageants to the sex and glamour industries. Natalie’s search becomes an intrepid journey through her own sexuality, a woman not only claiming herself but also accepting her contradictions. With inquisitive perception and agile use of perspective, Searching for Suzi (Monkey Puzzle Press) is an investigation into the tragic shadows of a past preferred to be forgotten.

“Sexy, gutsy, raw and mature. A literary strip tease, Nancy Stohlman lures us through the layers of her dark world with the promise of exposing the ultimate sparkle…and ends up revealing something profound.”  -Raymond Federman, Author of Double or Nothing

For more info: http://www.monkeypuzzleonline.com and http://www.nancystohlman.net