April 13th Readings (City Lit Festival: Andrew Keating, Nathan Leslie, C. L. Bledsoe, Rob Roensch)

Greetings dear Baltimore,

The 510 Readings are taking its yearly pilgrimage downtown on April 13th as part of the CityLit Festival at the Central Branch of Enoch Pratt Library. Headlined this year by George Saunders, the festival is in its 10th year (and we are in our fifth in partnership). 

The 510 Readings will held in the FINE ARTS DEPARTMENT (2ND FLOOR), 11:30-12:30 510 AT THE FESTIVAL (FICTION). We will be hosting readers Andrew Keating, Nathan Leslie, C. L. Bledsoe, and Rob Roensch. 

Reader bios and listings of other events can be found in the CityLit Festival brochure and complete schedule, downloadable here.

See you then!

Season 6, Episode 2: March 16

Last month Joe Young killed it in his guest-hosting duties, so we're doing it again in March. Your guest host will be the wonderful Laura van den Berg and she will be introducing Elliott Holt, Marie-Helene Bertino, Meghan Kenny, and Scott McClanahan.



Elliott Holt's short fiction has appeared in The Pushcart Prize XXXV (2011 anthology) among other places. Her debut novel You Are One of Them will be published by The Penguin Press in May. [Photo credit Rebecca Zeller]



Marie-Helene Bertino's debut collection of short stories SAFE AS HOUSES received The 2012 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was long-listed for The Story Prize. She received The Pushcart Prize in 2007 and a Special Mention in 2011. She has taught for The Gotham Writer's Workshop and One Story's Emerging Writer's Workshop and was an Emerging Writer Fellow at NYC's Center for Fiction. She hails from Philly and lives in Brooklyn. Currently, she is a biographer for people living with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). For more information, visit www.mariehelenebertino.com, or follow her @mhbertino.



Scott McClanahan is the writer of Stories V! and the Collected Works of Scott McClanahan, Vol. 1. Two Dollar Radio is putting out Crapalachia in 2013. Tyrant Books is putting out Hill William in 2013.



Meghan Kenny received her MFA from Boise State University and her fiction has appeared in Hobart, Pleiades, The Gettysburg Review, The Kenyon Review, The Cincinnati Review and elsewhere. She won the 2005 Iowa Review Award, held the 2008-2009 Tickner Writing Fellowship at The Gilman School, was a fiction scholar at Bread Loaf in 2010, and recently won second place in Glimmer Train’s Fall Fiction Open. She teaches English at Gerstell Academy and fiction writing for Gotham Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Baltimore and is working on a novel.

February 16, 2013 Readings

Welcome to the 2013 season of the 510 Readings! This is our sixth year hosting the series in Baltimore, and we're excited to bring you another season of local, regional, national, and global writers. We're starting this season with a quartet of regional awesomeness: Roy Kesey, series cohost Jen Michalski, Justin Sirois, and Tara Laskowski. We hope you can stop by and welcome in  the new year with this amazing group of writers. Hosted by special guest, writer Joseph Young.

Roy Kesey's latest book is a short story collection called Any Deadly Thing, published by Dzanc Books in February 2013. His other books include a novel called Pacazo (the January 2011 selection for The Rumpus Book Club, and winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award), a collection of short stories called All Over (a finalist for the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award, and one of The L Magazine's Best Books of the Decade), a novella called Nothing in the World (winner of the Bullfight Media Little Book Award), and two historical guidebooks. His short stories, essays, translations and poems have appeared in more than a hundred magazines and anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, The Robert Olen Butler Prize Anthology and New Sudden Fiction. He has won two Pushcart Prize Special Mentions, the Jeffrey E. Smith Editors' Prize in Fiction, and a 2010 prose fellowship from the NEA. He currently lives in Maryland with his wife and children.

Jen Michalski is author of the novel The Tide King (Black Lawrence Press, 2013), winner of the 2012 Big Moose Prize, the short story collections From Here and Close Encounters, and the novella collection Could You Be With Her Now (Dzanc 2013). She is the founding editor ofthe literary quarterly jmww, a co-host of The 510 Readings and the biannual Lit Show, and interviews writers at The Nervous Breakdown. She also is the editor of the anthology City Sages: Baltimore, which Baltimore Magazine called a "Best of Baltimore" in 2010. She lives in Baltimore, MD, and tweets at https://twitter.com/MichalskiJen. 

Justin Sirois is a writer living in Baltimore, MD. His books include So Say the Waiters, Secondary Sound, MLKNG SCKLS, and Falcons on the Floor written with Iraqi refugee Haneen Alshujairy. Justin has received four individual Maryland State Art Council grants and a Baker "b" grant in 2011.So Say the Waiters book 2 will be out this spring. 

Tara Laskowski is the author of the short story collection Modern Manners For Your Inner Demons (Matter Press). She is the senior editor for SmokeLong Quarterly, which is celebrating its 10th year of publishing this year. Tara is a native of Pennsylvania and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University. Her submission of short fiction won the 2010 literary awards series from the Santa Fe Writers Project, and she has work forthcoming or published in several anthologies. Her story, “Ode to the Double-Crossed Lackey in ‘Thunderball’” was nominated for Dzanc’s Best of the Web series for 2009, and her short stories “They” and “Like Everyone Else” were recognized by storySouth as notable online stories in 2004 and 2009. Another story, “Hole to China,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She currently lives in a suburb of Washington, D.C. with her husband Art Taylor, son Dashiell, and their two cats.

The Last 510 of 2012

Jen and I have been hosting the 510 for 5 full years now. It's exhausting at times, organizing people, but we both love bringing so many good words to stand up in front of you. So the latest greatness will be Matt Bell, Amber Sparks, Robert Kloss, and Julian Berengaut. That's November 17th, 5pm, at the usual place, Minas.

Matt Bell is the author of Cataclysm Baby, a novella, and How They Were Found, a collection of fiction. His debut novel In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods will be published by Soho Press in June 2013. He is the Senior Editor at Dzanc Books, where he also edits the literary magazine The Collagist, and he teaches creative writing at Northern Michigan University.

Amber Sparks’s short stories have appeared in New York Tyrant, Unsaid, Gargoyle, Barrelhouse, The Collagist and elsewhere. Her first full-length story collection, May We Shed These Human Bodies, was recently published by Curbside Splendor. She lives with a husband and two beasts in Washington, DC. You can find her at ambernoellesparks.com or follow her on Twitter @ambernoelle.

Robert Kloss is the author of How the Days of Love & Diphtheria and The Alligators of Abraham. He is found online at robert-kloss.com.

Julian Berengaut is the author of The Estate of Wormwood and Honey, a novel about 19th century Russia. Berengaut was born in Poland. He was educated at universities in Warsaw, Jerusalem, Waltham, Massachusetts and Madison, Wisconsin. He worked for many years as an international debt negotiator. He has written poetry and short stories.

October 20th Readings--UPDATED

For October, we're so pleased to welcome Karl Taro Greenfeld, James Magruder, Adam Prince, and Mikita Brottman. See you then! Bring your cider and candy corns.

Karl Taro Greenfeld is the author of six books: the novel Triburbia (2012); the much-acclaimed memoir Boy Alone; NowTrends; China Syndrome; Standard Deviations; and peed Tribes. His writing has appeared in Harper's, the Paris Review, Playboy,One Story, Bloomberg Businessweek, Time, Sports Illustrated, GQ, the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Best American Short Stories, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. Born in Kobe, Japan, he has lived in Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. He currently lives in Tribeca with his wife, Silka, and their daughters, Esmee and Lola.

James Magruder’s adaptations of Marivaux, Molière, Gozzi, Labiche, Lesage, and Dickens have been produced on and off-Broadway, across the country, and in Germany and Japan. His fiction has appeared in New England Review, The Gettysburg Review, Subtropics, The Normal School, and elsewhere, and his début novel, Sugarless, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Current projects include a new version of The Madwoman of Chaillot for American Conservatory Theatre and Das Bourgeois Bigshot for Princeton University. He teaches at University of Baltimore, Princeton, and Swarthmore College.

Born and raised in Southern California, Adam Prince earned his BA from Vassar College, his MFA from the University of Arkansas, and his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee. His award-winning fiction has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, and Narrative Magazine, among others. His first book, a short story collection called The Beautiful Wishes of Ugly Men, has just been published with Black Lawrence Press. He is married to the poet Charlotte Pence and is currently serving as the 2012-2013 Tickner Fellow at the Gilman School. You can find his website at adamprinceauthor.com.

Mikita Brottman is an author, critic, psychoanalyst, and true crime aficionado. She teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her new book, Thirteen Girls, was published in August. 

The 510 Is Back

The 510 is back for the fall series and we're opening with one that is going to be so great: Noy Holland, Laura van den Berg, Sam Michel, and Lauren Bender. It's upstairs at the Minas Gallery, at 5pm, just like you like it.

Noy Holland’s collections of short fiction and novellas include Swim for the Little One First (FC2),What Begins with Bird (FC2), and The Spectacle of the Body (Knopf.) She has published work in Conjunctions, The Quarterly, Ploughshares, Milan Review, Western Humanities Review, The Believer, NOON, New York Tyrant, and Post Road, among others. She was a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council award for artistic merit and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She has taught for many years in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts, as well as at Phillips Andover and the University of Florida. She serves on the board of directors at FC2.

Laura van den Berg’s debut collection of stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (Dzanc Books, 2009), was a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection, longlisted for The Story Prize, and shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Award. She is also the author of the chapbook There Will Be No More Good Nights Without Good Nights (Origami Zoo Press, 2012). She currently teaches creative writing at George Washington University and lives in Baltimore.

Sam Michel is the author of a book of short stories, Under the Light, and the novels Big Dogs and Flyboys and Strange Cowboy: Lincoln Dahl Turns Five. He teaches, works with stone, and makes his home in Massachusetts and Montana.

Lauren Bender is a teacher, student, and twin living and working in Baltimore. Publications include The Dictionary Poems: Some Bees (New Lights Press), Whale Box (Publishing Genius), [there is no YOU in poem] (Big Game Books), and I'AM BORED (Produce Press, with Kevin Thurston). Selected exhibitions/performances include CorpOreo (Transmodern Festival) and Big Pink (The Baltimore Museum of Art). Lauren curated the BOITE: Show&Tell series at Minas Gallery in Hampden and is co-director of Narrow House. She feels pretty good lately.

510 Readings at the Baltimore Book Festivals

Don't forget about us when you're back from the summer! We will have been waiting here the whole time, just for you, dear listener. We are excited to once again to be at the Baltimore Book Festival with a special 510 reading—look for us on Saturday, September 29th, at the CityLit Tent, 6:30-8pm. For now, we're pleased to preview our lineup of great readers—Elissa Schappell, Michael Kimball, Carissa Halston, Patrick King, Nancy Murray, and Robb Todd. See you in September—while you're away, don't forget to write.


Elissa Schappell is the author of two books of fiction, most recently Blueprints for Building Better Girls, which was chosen as one of the “Best Books of the 2011” by The San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, and O Magazine, and Use Me, a finalist for the PEN Hemingway award, and a New York Times "Notable Book" and a Los Angeles Times, "Best Book of the Year.” She is co-editor with Jenny Offill of two anthologies, The Friend Who Got Away and Money Changes Everything. Currently, she is a Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair, and a Founding-editor, now Editor-at-Large of Tin House magazine and formerly Senior Editor of The Paris Review. Her short stories, non-fiction, book reviews, and essays have appeared in such places as The Paris Review, The New York Times Book Review, BOMB, Vogue, SPIN, One Story, GQ.  She lives in Brooklyn.


Michael Kimball is the author of three novels, including Dear Everybody(which The Believer calls “a curatorial masterpiece”) and, most recently, Us(which was named toOprah’s Reading List). His work has been on NPR’s All Things Considered and inVice, as well as The Guardian, Bomb, and New York Tyrant, and has been translated into a dozen languages. He is also responsible for Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard). His new novel, Big Ray, will be published by Bloomsbury in Fall 2012.

Carissa Halston is the author of A Girl Named Charlie Lester and The Mere Weight of Words. She has received grants for her long-form fiction from the Wesleyan Writers Conference and the University of Massachusetts Boston. Carissa’s short fiction has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Precipitate, TRNSFR, > kill author, and The Collagist, among others. She currently lives in Boston, where she edits a literary journal called apt and hosts a reading series called Literary Firsts.



Patrick King has been published in various small press online and print journals. These days he mostly writes silly blog posts over at his humor site and complains about his white people problems. He will die in 2043 after which his wife, Katie, will put his remains into a cannon and shoot them to the moon. Exit Nothing is his first, and possibly last, novel.



Nancy Murray is a playwright, theater director and story teller who has recently contributed works of creative non fiction for the Urbanite magazine, performed her storytelling for the Women of the World conference at the Meyerhoff, and wrote two 10 minute plays for the Submit 10 reading series. Her full-length play, 'Asking Questions" was produced at Fells Point Corner Theater last summer. She is working toward an MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts at the University of Baltimore.



Robb Todd, author of the collection Steal Me for Your Stories, is a writer in New York City. He has lived all over the country and was lucky enough to live in Hawaii twice. He also lived in Texas twice. And North Carolina twice. Actually, this is his second stop in New York City, too. He does not do things right the first time. For more, visit www.robbtodd.com