510 Readings at the 2013 Baltimore Book Festival!

All right, we all had a great summer, but now it's back to work! We're kicking off the Fall 2013 season of The 510 Readings at the Baltimore Book Festival in spectalofastic fashion, welcoming writers Jessica Anya Blau, Simon Fruelund, Aubrey Hirsch, Heather Rounds, Noel Sloboda, and the 510's own Jen Michalski. We honored and super excited that The Chesapeake Wine Company will be sponsoring the reading. Come out, have a free drink, and listen to this knockout lineup. Hosted by Jen Michalski at 6:30 pm, CityLit Stage. For the full CityLit Stage schedule, go here.

Nick Hornby said of Jessica Anya Blau’s third novel, The Wonderbread Summer “[it’s] picaresque, properly funny, unpredictable, and altogether irrepressible … it made me so happy that after I’d read it, in two days flat, I bought everything I could find by the same author.” She is also the author of Drinking Closer to Home and The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, all from Harper Collins.

Simon Fruelund is the author of five books, among them Mælk (1997) and Panamericana (2012). His work has been translated into Italian, Swedish, and English from the original Danish, and his short stories have appeared in a number of magazines across the U.S, including World Literature Today, Redivider, and Absinthe.

Aubrey Hirsch’s stories, essays and poems have appeared in American Short Fiction, Third Coast, Hobart, and The Los Angeles Review, among others. Her short story collection, Why We Never Talk About Sugar, is available now from Braddock Avenue Books.





Jen Michalski’s debut novel The Tide King is available from Black Lawrence Press. She is the author of two collections of fiction, Close Encounters and From Here and a collection of novellas, Could You Be With Her Now. In 2013 she was voted one of "50 Women to Watch" by the Baltimore Sun and "Best Writer" by Baltimore Magazine. She also is the editor of the anthology City Sages: Baltimore, which won a 2010 “Best of Baltimore” award from Baltimore Magazine. She is the founding editor of the literary quarterly jmww and a co-host of the monthly reading series The 510 Readings in Baltimore.

Heather Rounds’ debut novel There, based on her experiences in Iraqi Kurdistan between 2007 and 2008, won Emergency Press’ 2011 International Book Award and will be published by the Press in October. Her poetry and short works of fiction have appeared in such places as PANK, The Baltimore Review, and Big Lucks. She’s a co-founder of the roaming curatorial collective The Rotating History Project. She lives in Baltimore but you can visit her from anywhere—http://snap-shotsofearthlyglitches.blogspot.com/.

Noel Sloboda earned his PhD in English and American literature from Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of the collections Shell Games (2008) and Our Rarer Monsters (2013) as well as several chapbooks, most recently Circle Straight Back (2012). Sloboda has also published a book about Edith Wharton and Gertrude Stein. He teaches at Penn State York.

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.

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.

The Season 4 Finale: November 19th

November 19th, 5pm, at Minas -- it's Stephanie Barber, Joshua Mohr, Ben Loory, and Mike Young -- and then there won't be anymore readings for a few months, none at all, so maybe stop by and say hello or goodbye?

Stephanie Barber is a writer and video maker who constructs work that wriggles through the tight spaces in between humor and misery, science and magic and intellect and emotion. Her work has been featured in books, magazines, museums and galleries all over the world.


Mike Young is the author of Look! Look! Feathers, a book of stories that Publishers Weekly called "relevant, wise, and immensely enjoyable," and We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough, a book of poems selected by The Believer as one of 2010's Top 20 Poetry Books. He co-edits NOÖ Journal, runs Magic Helicopter Press, and writes for HTMLGIANT.



Ben Loory lives in Los Angeles, in a house on top of a hill. His story "The TV" was featured in the April 12, 2010 issue of The New Yorker, and was named a Distinguished Story of the Year in The Best American Short Stories 2011. His book Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day (Penguin, 2011) is now in its fourth printing. It was chosen as a selection of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program and the Starbucks Coffee Bookish Reading Club, and was named one of the 10 Best Fiction Books of the Year by the Hudson Booksellers retail chain.

Joshua Mohr's novel, Some Things That Meant the World to Me, was published by Two Dollar Radio in June 2009. His second novel, Termite Parade, was published by Two Dollar Radio in 2010. His third novel, Damascus, will be published by Two Dollar Radio in 2011. Visit his website for news, readings and more: www.joshuamohr.net.

510 Fall Season Opens September 17th

Like major television networks, we don't do real programming over the summer, but it's fall again and we have some exciting watching and listening planned. First up are John Brandon, Sandra Beasley, Christine Grillo, and Greg Olear (bios and faces, below). The rest of the fall schedule is over there on the right. I hope to see you there or there or there.

John Brandon was raised on the Gulf Coast of Florida. He spent the last couple years at Ole Miss and this year will be the Tickner Writing Fellow at Gilman School in Baltimore. He has written two novels, 'Arkansas' and 'Citrus County,' both put out by McSweeney's. His shorter work has appeared in GQ, Oxford American, Subtropics, The New York Times Magazine, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Mississippi Review, Tampa Review, Saw Palm, ESPN the Magazine, The Pinch, Yalobusha Review, etc. Last season he wrote a blog on SEC football for GQ.com and this fall is writing about all of college football for Grantland.com.

Sandra Beasley’s most recent book is Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, a memoir and cultural history of food allergy. She is also the author of I Was the Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize, and Theories of Falling, winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize. Other honors for her work include selection for the 2010 Best American Poetry, the 2010 University of Mississippi Summer Poet in Residence position, a DCCAH Artist Fellowship, the Friends of Literature Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and the Maureen Egen Exchange Award from Poets & Writers. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Christine Grillo's work has appeared in The Southern Review, Utne Reader, LIT, and other journals. She works full-time as a contributing writer at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, and does freelance magazine writing for publications such as BSO Overture, Baltimore Style, Urbanite, and others. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins master's program in creative writing, and a fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Greg Olear is the author of the novels Totally Killer and Fathermucker. He’s the senior editor of The Nervous Breakdown and the editor-in-chief of Fathermucker: The Blog, and he regularly contributes to Huffington Post Parents. His work has also appeared at Babble.com, The Millions, and The Rumpus. He lives with his family in upstate New York, where he teaches creative writing at Manhattanville College.

The March 19th 510 Greatness

Season Four, Episode Three: Deb Olin Unferth, Megan Boyle, Jen Grow, and Mikita Brottman. This actually too much greatness to have in one place at one time, but please come anyway. Saturday, March 19th, at 5pm, at Minas.

Deb Olin Unferth is the author of the memoir Revolution, the story collection Minor Robberies, and the novel Vacation. Her work has been published in Harper's Magazine, McSweeney's, The Believer, and the Boston Review. She has received two Pushcart Prizes and a 2009 Creative Capital grant for Innovative Literature, and was a Harper's Bazaar Editors' Choice: Name to Know in 2011.

Megan Boyle has lived in Baltimore for three years. She has been published by 3 AM, Muumuu House, and frequently contributes to Thought Catalog. Her debut poetry collection, selected unpublished blog posts of a mexican panda express employee, is forthcoming from Muumuu House in October 2011.


Jen Grow has had her fiction and nonfiction appear in The Writer’s Chronicle, Other Voices, The Sun Magazine (of North Carolina), The GSU Review, Shattered Wig Review, Hunger Mountain, Indiana Review, City Sages: Baltimore and others. She’s received two Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council and her stories have earned nominations for both the Best New American Voices and a Pushcart Prize. Her story collection, O.K., Goodbye, was a finalist for the St. Lawrence Book Award, the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Fiction and the Spokane Prize. She holds her MFA from Vermont College and taught for several years at Goucher College and MICA.

Mikita Brottman is an author and cultural critic known for her psychological readings of the dark and pathological elements of contemporary culture. She is the author of books on the horror film, cannibalism, psychoanalysis, critical theory and contemporary popular culture. Her most recent book, The Solitary Vice: Against Reading (Counterpoint, 2008) was selected as one of the Best Books of the year by Publishers Weekly.

The Great October Reading

You don't want to miss this one--Brian Evenson, Carolyn Parkhurst, Matt Bell, Joanna Howard.

Brian Evenson is the author of ten books of fiction, most recently the limited edition novella Baby Leg, published by New York Tyrant Press in 2009. In 2009 he also published the novel Last Days (which won the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel of 2009) and the story collection Fugue State, both of which were on Time Out New York's top books of 2009. His novel The Open Curtain (Coffee House Press) was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an IHG Award. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Slovenian. He lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island, where he directs Brown University's Literary Arts Program. Other books include The Wavering Knife (which won the IHG Award for best story collection), Dark Property, and Altmann's Tongue. He has translated work by Christian Gailly, Jean Frémon, Claro, Jacques Jouet, Eric Chevillard, Antoine Volodine, and others. He is the recipient of an O. Henry Prize as well as an NEA fellowship.

Joanna Howard is the author of the story collection On the Winding Stair and the chapbook In the Colorless Round, with artwork by Rikki Ducornet. She teaches at Brown University and lives in Providence, RI.


Matt Bell is the author of How They Were Found, a collection of fiction from Keyhole Press. His fiction has been anthologized in Best American Mystery Stories 2010 and Best American Fantasy 2. He is also the editor of The Collagist.

Carolyn Parkhurst is the author of the New York Times bestselling novels "The Dogs of Babel" and "Lost and Found," as well as the new novel "The Nobodies Album." Her first children's book, Cooking With Henry and Elliebelly, will be published later this month. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and two children.

November 21st Reading, Which Will Be Great: Josh Weil, Laura van den Berg, Geoffrey Becker

Josh Weil is the author of the novella collection The New Valley (Grove, 2009), a New York Times Editors Choice selection for which he was honored with a “5 Under 35” National Book Award. His fiction has been published or is forthcoming in Granta, American Short Fiction, Narrative, and Glimmer Train, among other journals; he has written non-fiction for The New York Times, Granta Online, and Poets & Writers. Since earning his MFA from Columbia University, he has received a Fulbright grant, a Writer’s Center Emerging Writer Fellowship, the Dana Award in Portfolio, and fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences. As the 2009 Tickner Fellow, he is the writer-in-residence at Gilman School in Baltimore, where he is at work on a novel.

Laura van den Berg was raised in Florida and earned her MFA at Emerson College. She is the recipient of scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, the 2009 Julia Peterkin Award, and the 2009-2010 Emerging Writer Lectureship at Gettysburg College. Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Boston Review, American Short Fiction, Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008, Best New American Voices 2010, and The Pushcart Prize XXIV: Best of the Small Presses, among others. Laura’s first collection of stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (Dzanc Books, October 2009), is the winner of the Dzanc Prize and was recently selected by Barnes & Noble for their "Discover Great New Writers" Program. To learn more about Laura, please visit www.lauravandenberg.com.

Geoffrey Becker’s new book of stories, Black Elvis (University of Georgia Press, October, 2009), won the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Prize for Short Fiction. His novel, Hot Springs, is forthcoming from Tin House books. He is the author of two previous books, Dangerous Men, a collection that won the Drue Heinz Prize, and Bluestown, a novel. His other awards and honors include an NEA fellowship, selection for the Best American Short Stories anthology, the Nelson Algren Award from The Chicago Tribune, and the Parthenon Prize. He teaches writing at Towson University in Maryland, where he also directs the graduate program in Professional Writing.

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.