510 Readings at the Baltimore Book Festival!

We've hosting our second 510 reading this September at the Baltimore Book Festival, and here's what you need to know:

When? Saturday 26th, 5 pm
Where? Baltimore Book Festival, CityLit Tent (near east side of the monument)
Who? Terese Svoboda, Shanthi Sekaran, John Dermot Woods, Dan Fesperman, Justin Sirois, Savannah Schroll Guz, Michael Kimball, and Jen Michalski
Why? Because we are the only dedicated fiction reading series in Baltimore

AUTHOR BIOS:


Terese Svoboda is the author of eleven books of prose and poetry, most recently Weapons Grade, her fifth book of poetry, and a reissue of Trailer Girl and Other Stories, her third book of fiction forthcoming this fall. “Astounding!” wrote the NY Post about her 2008 memoir, Black Glasses Like Clark Kent that won the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize. Her writing has been featured in the TLS, New Yorker, New York Times, the Atlantic, Slate, Bomb, Columbia, Yale Review, and the Paris Review. Her honors include an O. Henry Prize for the short story, a nonfiction Pushcart Prize, a translation NEH grant, three New York Foundation for the Arts grants in poetry and fiction, a New York State Council for the Arts and a Jerome Foundation grant in video, the John Golden Award in playwriting, a Bellagio residency, the Bobst Prize in fiction and the Iowa Prize in poetry.


Shanthi Sekaran was born and raised in Northern California. After graduating from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins, she moved to Germany, then England, and now lives between London and Berkeley. Her short story, Stalin, was included in Best New American Voices 2004 (Harcourt). Her debut novel, The Prayer Room, was released in 2009 from MacAdam/Cage.


John Dermot Woods draws comics and writes stories in Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of the novel The Complete Collection of people, places & things (BlazeVOX Books) and the comic chapbook The Remains (Doublecross Press). He edits the arts quarterly Action,Yes and organizes the online reading series Apostrophe Cast. He is a professor of English at Nassau Community College in Garden City, NY.


Dan Fesperman's six novels of international intrigue have captured acclaim in eleven different languages while winning a Dashiell Hammett Award in the United States and two Dagger awards in the United Kingdom. Dan's newest novel, The Arms Maker of Berlin, is now available in the both the US and UK.


Justin Sirois is founder and codirector of Narrow House, an experimental writing publishing collective. He received Maryland State Art Council grants for poetry in 2003 and 2007. His books include Secondary Sound (BlazeVOX Books) and MLKNG SCKLS (Publishing Genius). Currently, Justin is trying to find a publisher for his latest novel written in collaboration with Iraqi refugee Haneen Alshujairy about displaced Iraqis living in Fallujah in April of '04. He also is a designer for Edge Books.

Michael Kimball’s third novel, DEAR EVERYBODY, was recently published in the US, UK, and Canada (http://michael-kimball.com/). The Believer calls it “a curatorial masterpiece.” Time Out New York calls the writing “stunning.” And the Los Angeles Times says the book is “funny and warm and sad and heartbreaking.” His first two novels are THE WAY THE FAMILY GOT AWAY (2000) and HOW MUCH OF US THERE WAS (2005), both of which have been translated (or are being translated) into many languages. He is also responsible for the collaborative art project--Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard).


Jen Michalski is the author of the short story collection CLOSE ENCOUNTERS (So New Media). Her work has appeared in more than 50 publications, including McSweeney's Internet Tendency, failbetter, storySouth, Gargoyle, Hobart, The Potomac Review, 42opus, and others. She is the editor of the online lit zine jmww.

Savannah Schroll Guz is author of the short story collections, The Famous & The Anonymous (2004) and American Soma (2009). She is also editor of the theme-based fiction anthology, Consumed: Women on Excess (2005). Previously, her reviews and cultural criticism have appeared in Sculpture, ZMag, The European Journal of Cultural Studies, Modernism/Modernity, Bitch Magazine, Popmatters, Pittsburgh City Paper, and Library Journal, where she has a monthly column. She teaches at West Virginia Northern Community College and is The New Yinzer's fiction editor. Savannah and husband Michael live in West Virginia.

September 18th Reading

Thanks to everyone who came out for Sam Lignon, Robert Lopez, Blake Butler, Johannah Rodgers, and Donald Breckenridge. It was an amazing, strange, fabulous display of voices, a big, big love.

Sam Lignon pondered whether the Pixies sing "bone mashing" instead of "bone machine" in his blunt, powerful piece from DRIFT AND SWERVE:



Johannah Rodgers mused about code partners and identity theft in her novel-in-progress:



Robert Lopez drew us an stick-figure air conditioner, among other things, in his latest book, KAMBY BOLOGNO MEAN RIVER:



Donald Breckenridge wonders what we talk about when we talk about love in New York City in his latest novel, YOU ARE HERE:



Blake Butler assaults us with apocalyptic visions and bloody babies from his new collection, SCORCH ATLAS. And then we were off to dinner:

September 19th Readings: Blake Butler, Robert Lopez, Johanna Rodgers, Sam Ligon, Donald Breckenridge

Blake Butler is the author of EVER (Calamari Press) and Scorch Atlas (Featherproof Books). He edits HTML Giant and blogs here.






Robert Lopez is the author of two novels, Kamby Bolongo Mean River and Part of the World. His fiction has appeared in dozens of publications. He teaches at The New School, Pratt Institute, and Columbia University.





Johannah Rodgers has been living and writing in Brooklyn for the last fifteen years. Her book, sentences, a collection of short stories, essays, and drawings, was published by Red Dust in 2007, and her chapbook, “necessary fictions,” was published by Sona Books in 2003. Her short stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in Fence, Bookforum, Fiction, CHAIN Arts , Pierogi Press, and The Brooklyn Rail, where she is a contributing editor. She teaches writing and literature courses at The City University of New York, where she is an assistant professor in English and is working on a project that investigates experimental approaches to storytelling and narrative through the use of "generated" and found language.


Samuel Ligon is the author of a collection of stories, Drift and Swerve (Autumn House 2009), and a novel, Safe in Heaven Dead (HarperCollins 2003). His stories have appeared in The Quarterly, Alaska Quarterly Review, StoryQuarterly, Noise: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth, Post Road, Keyhole, Gulf Coast, New England Review, and elsewhere. He teaches at Eastern Washington University's Inland Northwest Center for Writers, in Spokane, Washington, and is the editor of Willow Springs.



Donald Breckenridge is the fiction editor of The Brooklyn Rail, editor of The Brooklyn Rail Fiction Anthology (Hanging Loose Press, 2006) and co-editor of the InTranslation website. In addition, he is the author of more than a dozen plays as well as the novella Rockaway Wherein (Red Dust, 1998), and the novel 6/2/95 (Spuyten Duyvil, 2002). His novel This Young Girl Passing is forthcoming from Autonomedia and his novel YOU ARE HERE is out now on Starcherone Books.