Live Preview of Unsaid #5

We had a live preview of Unsaid #5 at the 510 Readings. The issue will be with us soon. In the meantime, I started the live preview by holding up Unsaid #4 and talking about what a behemoth it is. Then I introduced myself and read from Dear Everybody because I left the pages for the new thing that I was going to read at home on my desk. People called out years and subject matter (tornado, pancakes) and I found pieces that matched.


Next up was Kate Wyer who read four shorts, including work from Unsaid #5 and a new piece that reminded us "to press where it hurts." I think I've messed up the line, but the sentiment stands.






Then we took a break and people talked with each other.

Then Kim Calder read five pieces of work, the first of which is called "After Adorno" and is so good that it was distracting in that I couldn't stop thinking about it, trying to rehearse the lines so that I didn't forget them.




The live preview of Unsaid #5 ended with Andy Devine giving a reading unlike any that you have ever heard before unless you have heard Andy Devine read before. It was amazing.

September 18th: An Unsaid Reading

Sure, we took the summer off, but we want you to know that we missed you and that nothing has changed between us. The first episode of the Fall 510 is going to feature readers from Unsaid Magazine, one of the greatest literary magazines ever published. The September line-up features Michael Kimball, Kim Calder, Kate Wyer, and Andy Devine.

Michael Kimball’s third novel, DEAR EVERYBODY, is now in paperback in the US, UK, and Canada. 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). His three novels have been translated (or are being translated) into many languages. His work has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and in Vice, as well as The Guardian, Prairie Schooner, Post Road, Open City, Unsaid, and New York Tyrant. He is also responsible for Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard)—and two documentary films, I WILL SMASH YOU (2009) and 60 WRITERS/60 PLACES (2010).

Kim Calder lives in Los Angeles, but keeps leaving to study creative writing and literature in other places. Currently, she is an MFA student at the University of Maryland.



Kate Wyer is a mental health interviewer for the public health system of Maryland. Her work has most recently been published in Unsaid, PANK and The Collagist. Wyer is the recipient of the Elisabeth Woodworth Reese award. FENCE magazine granted her a fellowship to attend the Summer Literary Seminars in Lithuania. She heads the collaborative book project And, Afterward. Wyer supports the Understanding Campaign.

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.

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.