Jason Ockert reads from Rabbit Punches

Published on May 25, 2006 0 Comments
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

Published on May 20, 2006 0 Comments
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!!!

Published on May 19, 2006 0 Comments
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

Published on May 18, 2006 0 Comments
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

Noah Berlatsky Zine Reading

Published on May 17, 2006 0 Comments
May ’06
17
12:00 am

Noah Berlatsky zine readingMonday, April 17th7:00 PMFREE
 
Chicago Reader contributer Noah Berlatsky will read from two new zines: “George Washington In His Last Illness” and “Piaget and Demigods”. Both publications wrestle upwind from fundamental issues: What would Quetzlcoatl do? Who controls lightning better, Ben Franklin or Thor? Why doesn’t Moby just shut up already? Enlightenment will ricochet like sentient bowel movements if you but attend Quimby’s, plus some pizza too.
 
Noah Berlatsky is also creator of zines such as “Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Blackbird” and “Angry White Clerihew”.