May 15th Readings: Deborah Rudacille, Joshua Furst, Alison Livingston, and Joanna Smith Rakoff

The May 15th episode of season 3 of the 510 Readings is dramatic and action packed. Come join us for readings from Deborah Rudacille, Joshua Furst, Alison Livingston, and Joanna Smith Rakoff!

Deborah Rudacille is a science writer and the author of The Riddle of Gender and The Scalpel and the Butterfly. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Joshua Furst is the author of the novel The Sabotage Cafe, and the story collection Short People. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including the Chicago Tribune, BOMB, Conjunctions, etc. (Photo credit: Peter Gat)

Alison Livingston is an Infectious Disease and Ocular Immunology Research nurse at Johns Hopkins. Her writing has been published in Radar and in Urbanite. She is currently working on a non-fiction collection, "Tea and Bread, No Jam."



Joanna Smith Rakoff is the author of the novel A Fortunate Age, which was a New York Times Editors' Pick, a winner of the Elle Readers' Prize, a selection of Barnes and Noble's First Look Book Club, an IndieNext pick, and a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. As a journalist and critic, she's written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post Book World, the Boston Globe, Vogue, Time Out New York, O:The Oprah Magazine, and many other newspapers and magazines. Her poetry has appeared in The Paris Review, Western Humanities Review, Kenyon Review, and other journals. She has degrees from Columbia University, University College, London, and Oberlin College. (Photo credit: Elena Seibert)

April 17th Readings: Sam Lipsyte, Dawn Raffel, Andy Devine, Geoff Becker

we're back from our yearly pilgrimage to the CityLit Festival at Enoch Pratt Free Library in downtown Baltimore, where the 510 Readings were held in the cool, soft-lit Fine Arts Department. The lineup was even cooler: Geoff Becker, Andy Devine, Dawn Raffel, and Sam Lipsyte. Like mega cool.

Recent Flannery O'Connor prize winner Geoff Becker read the beginning of his new novel, HOT SPRINGS, just out from Tin House Books:



The reclusive but very dapper Andy Devine made a rare appearance to promote his first book, WORDS, from Publishing Genius Press:



The much-revered Dawn Raffel treated to new work and also a glimpse at her latest collection, FURTHER ADVENTURES IN THE RESTLESS UNIVERSE (Dzanc Books, 2010):



Finally, Sam Lipsyte, whose literary star could not burn brighter these days, gave us glimpses into parenting, unemployment, and the new world order in his latest novel, THE ASK (FSG, 2010):



That's all for now, but there's always more! Join us on May 15th at our regular location (Minas Gallery) for Deborah Rudacille, Joshua Furst, Joanna Smith Rakoff, and Alison Livingston!

The 510 Readings @ CityLit Festival

The 510 Readings will be at the CityLit Festival this month, as is our tradition, though at a different time 1:30 in the Fine Arts Department in the main branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. It will be a great one, four writers with new books--Sam Lipsyte (The Ask), Dawn Raffel (Further Adventures in the Restless Universe), Geoff Becker (Hot Springs), and Andy Devine (Words).

Sam Lipsyte is the author of Venus Drive, The Subject Steve and Home Land, winner of the Believer Book Award. His fiction has appeared in the Quarterly, Harper's, NOON, Open City, N+1,.Fence, Tin House and Playboy, among other places. His newest book is The Ask (FSG). He teaches at Columbia University in New York City.

Dawn Raffel's new short story collection is Further Adventures in the Restless Universe (Dzanc Books). She is also the author of a novel, Carrying the Body, and a previous collection, In the Year of Long Division. Her stories have appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Conjunctions, Fence, Open City, The Mississippi Review Prize Anthology, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, Arts & Letters, The Quarterly, NOON and numerous other periodicals and anthologies. She has been a magazine editor for many years and has also taught in the MFA program at Columbia University.

Andy Devine’s alphabetical fiction and essays have appeared in a variety of literary magazines, including New York Tyrant, Unsaid, elimae, Everyday Genius, and Taint. In 2002, Devine was awarded the Riddley Walker Prize (for a work that ignores conventional rules of grammar and punctuation). In 2007, he published his first chapbook, “As Day Same That the the Was Year” (Publishing Genius). In 2009, Devine was awarded The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Award (for fiction in the face of adversity). WORDS (2010, Publishing Genius) is his first book. Andy Devine Avenue — in Flagstaff, Arizona — is named after him.

Geoffrey Becker’s new novel, Hot Springs (Tin House Books, 2010) received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, which called it “a remarkably taut narrative and a rousing testament to humanity’s capacity for resilience.” He is also the author of Black Elvis (U. of Georgia Press, 2009), a collection which won the Flannery O’Connor Prize for Short Fiction, and two previous books of fiction, Bluestown and Dangerous Men. Geoff’s awards and honors include an NEA Fellowship, the Drue Heinz Prize for Literature, the Nelson Algren Award, inclusion in the Best American Short Stories anthology, and two Maryland Arts Council Prizes. He lives in Baltimore and teaches at Towson University.