June 19th Readings: Laura Ellen Scott, Timothy Gager, Bill Black, and Curtis Smith

Laura Ellen Scott teaches fiction writing to undergraduates at George Mason University, and in 2009-2010 published 19 short stories in print and online, including work selected for The Wigleaf Top Fifty and Barrelhouse magazine's Futures issue. Her work was nominated for Dzanc's Best of the Web 2010 anthology twice, and she is currently Fiction editor of Prick of the Spindle.

Timothy Gager is the author of eight books of short fiction and poetry. His latest, Treating a Sick Animal: Flash and Micro Fictions (Cervena Barva Press), features over 40 stories, many previously published in various literary magazines. He hosts the Dire Literary Series in Cambridge, Massachusetts, every month and is the co-founder of Somerville News Writers Festival. He has had over 200 works of fiction and poetry published since 2007, of which eight have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Timothy is the current Fiction Editor of The Wilderness House Literary Review, the founding co-editor of The Heat City Literary Review, and has edited the book OUT OF THE BLUE WRITERS UNITE: A BOOK OF POETRY AND PROSE FROM THE OUT OF THE BLUE ART GALLERY.

Bill Black's work has appeared in The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Hotel Amerika, The Black Warrior Review, Short FICTION, and elsewhere. He has taught literature and creative writing at Western Washington University, Ohio University, and The Johns Hopkins University, and is currently Writer-in-Residence at Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania. He a founding Co-Director of the Pages & Places Book Festival in Scranton, Pennsylvania.


Curtis Smith's stories and essays have appeared in over 60 literary journals and have been cited by The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery Stories, and The Best American Spiritual Writing. Press 53 has released his last two story collections (THE SPECIES CROWN and BAD MONKEY); Casperian Books has published his last two novels (SOUND AND NOISE and TRUTH OR SOMETHING LIKE IT). This fall, Sunnyoutside will publish his essay collection, THE AGNOSTIC'S PRAYER.

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.

March 20th Readings

The March installment of the 510 Readings was a blast! But you knew that, because you were there:




Baltimore author/poet Ashlie Kauffman began the evening by reading an excerpt of her novel-in-progress.




Jamie Iredell, who visited from Atlanta, followed, reading from Prose. Poems. A Novel (Orange Alert Pres), an innovative hybride of the aforementioned, and also a bit from his forthcoming book, The Book of Freaks (Future Tense).



After the break, Baltimore's own Todd Whaley read a story about schizophrenia and riddles entitled "What Am I?"



Finally, Molly Gaudry, down from Philadelphia, closed the show by reading from her prose-poem novella, We Take Me Apart, a Stein-like play of images and words.



Come visit us April 17th at the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Library during the CityLit Festival, where we'll welcome Sam Lipsyte, Dawn Raffel, Geoffrey Becker, and Andy Devine.

March 20th Readings: Molly Gaudry, James Iredell, Todd Whaley, and Ashlie Kauffman

Molly Gaudry is the author of the verse novel We Take Me Apart (Mud Luscious, 2009), and the editor of Tell: An Anthology of Expository Narrative (Flatmancrooked, 2010). She is the curator of Walking Man Gallery, the editor of Willows Wept Press and Willows Wept Review, co-founding editor of Twelve Stories, and associate editor for Keyhole Magazine. She contributes to the arts and culture site Big Other and writes reviews for East&West Magazine. Find her online at http://mollygaudry.blogspot.com.



Jamie Iredell is the author of Prose. Poems. a Novel. (2009), and The Book of Freaks, which is forthcoming in late 2010. His writing has also appeared in JMWW, The Literary Review, Lamination Colony, and in many other literary magazines. He lives in Atlanta with his wife.










Ashlie Kauffman is a freelance writer and an adjunct instructor at the Community College of Baltimore County. She has a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from New York University and a Master of Arts in fiction from the Johns Hopkins Advanced Academic Programs. Her writing recognitions include a Semi-Finalist nomination for the Ruth Lilly Fellowship for Younger Poets and an Independent Artist Award in fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council. She writes book reviews for jmww and interviews poets for jmwwblog.


A 2008 Finalist for The Flannery O’Connor Award for Fiction, Todd Whaley lives in Baltimore and works for an international architectural firm in Washington, DC. He has stories in a number of journals, including Berkeley Fiction Review, Louisiana Literature, The Baltimore Review, Fourth River, Pisgah Review, Soundings East, Quercus Review, REAL: Regarding Arts and Letters, Licking River Review, Compass Rose, and others. He has been honored as a finalist in Glimmer Train Stories and nominated to the Best New American Voices.

Thanks for joining us for the February 20th reading, an evening of fiction and nonfiction.



Meghan Kenny, Ron Tanner, Jane Satterfield, and Kevin Sampsell were our featured readers:


Meghan Kenny began the evening reading from her novel in progress.



Ron Tanner read from his prize-winning chapbook, Wheels, available soon from Gertrude Press.



After the intermission, Jane Satterfield read from her acclaimed memoir, Daughters of Empire, available from Demeter Press.



Finally, Future Tense Press publisher Kevin Sampsell made the trip from Portland to read from his newly released memoir, A Common Pornography, from Harper Perennial.



Join us next month for Molly Gaudry, Jamie Iredell, Ashlie Kauffman, and Todd Whaley!