The 2ndHand Release Event with
Jeb Gleason Allured, Patrick Sommerville and
Nic PizzolattoSaturday, March 3rd, 8:00 PMFREE
 
The reading is an issue release event for the latest 2ndHand broadsheet, coinciding with an identical event in Atlanta. Featuring readings from:
 
Jeb Gleason-Allured is the Chicago editor of The2ndHand.com.
 
Patrick Somerville grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, went to college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, lived in one or two large American cities, and earned his MFA in creative writing from Cornell University. He has taught creative writing at both Cornell and Auburn SCF. His first book of short stories, Trouble, came out in September of 2006 (Vintage). He lives in Chicago and is 428 years old.
 
Nic Pizzolatto is the author of the story collection Between Here and the Yellow Sea. Said Booklist: ?Pizzolatto, like the great Richard Ford, is drawn increasingly to sad, even grim scenarios depicting the way people fail to connect. And, also like Ford, he expresses their dissatisfaction in precise language, drawing readers into perfectly realized, frequently unconventional scenarios?These sad, beautifully rendered stories will resonate with fans of the form.?

John Sheppard and Evan ManderyWednesday, February 21st, 7:00 PM
 
SMALL TOWN PUNK by John SheppardTrapped in dreary Sarasota, Florida in the early 1980s–during Reagan’s “Morning in America,”–going to high school with junior fascists by day, working at Pizza Hut by night, his family a dysfunctional nightmare, 17-year old Buzz Pepper feels that nothing matters in life beyond drinking, drugs and punk rock.
 
As the country around him is becoming more conservative and corporate, and adulthood seems like the ultimate corrupt existence, Buzz can only find solace within a close-knit group of fellow disillusioned teens, which includes his devoted younger sister, Sissy. As they drive around in Buzz’s beat-up van, encountering redneck cops, mocking the local “geezers,” and wondering if there is any meaning in what seems to be a meaningless world, Small Town Punk perfectly captures how it is to be young, yet feel that you have no future.
 
John Sheppard currently lives in Chicago, and his fiction has been published in Bridge Magazine.
 
DREAMING OF GWEN STEFANI by Evan Mandery.Mortimer Taylor Coleridge is a unique man. With a mind of rare mathematical precision, he is obsessed with imposing order upon the chaos of every day life. A once brilliant student of evolutionary biology at Columbia University, he has turned his back on a promising academic career to devote his life to selling hot dogs at Papaya Queen. And Mortimer has used his keen intellect to become the quickest and most efficient of hot dog men, devising a numerical-based system to sell hot dogs which maximizes both time and effort.
 
One day while watching TV, Mortimer comes upon VH1, and his life is instantly transformed. While watching Behind the Music: No Doubt, he decides that he and Gwen Stefani are soul mates, destined to be together. When Mortimer discovers that her favorite food is a Papaya Queen hot dog, he dedicates his life to preparing for the day, which he knows will come, when Gwen Stefani will walk into the Papaya Queen where he works, order a frankfurter and fall in love with him.
 
Evan Mandery is the author of two works of nonfiction. Dreaming of Gwen Stefani is his first novel. He lives in New York City.
 
Both Authors will be present to read and sign their new books.