AWP Off-Site READING

Via Chicago: presented by Chicago publications and organizations: ACM, Canarium Books, Danny’s Reading Series, featherproof books,

MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine, and Literago.org.

Featuring renowned poets and fiction writers: John Beer,

Arda Collins, Joel Craig, Michael Czyzniejewski, Steffi Drewes, Cathy Park Hong,

Zach Plague, Nick Twemlow, Michael Zapata, Matthew Zapruder

DATE/TIME – Thursday, January 31^st, 2008, from 7:30pm – 9:30pm. Open to the Public, Free

PLACE – Happy Ending – 302 Broome Street (x Forsyth/Eldridge) New York, NY

click to download event program
click to listen to each writer read !

click to see pictures of the event

About the Writers:

John Beer’s poems and essays have appeared in many periodicals, including ACM, Barrow Street, Bridge, Chicago Review, Chicago Tribune, Crowd, Denver Quarterly, Iowa Review, Verse, the Village Voice, andXantippe.  He is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy and social thought at the University of Chicago.

Arda Collins’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New Yorker, A Public Space, The American Poetry Review, The Canary, and jubilat. She is a contributing editor of GutCult and lives in New York City.

Joel Craig lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Zoland Annual, A Public Space, The City Visible, Iowa Review, and Fence, among others. He co-founded and curates The Danny’s Reading Series.

Michael Czyzniejewski teaches at Bowling Green State University and is editor-in-chief of Mid-American Review. His collection Elephants in Our Bedroom is due early next year from Dzanc Books.

Poems by Steffi Drewes have appeared or are forthcoming in Traffic, American Letters & Commentary, 26, Aufgabe and MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine. She lives in California and teaches English and History to high school students.

Cathy Park Hong’s second book, Dance Dance Revolution, was chosen for the Barnard Women Poets Prize and was published in May 2007. Her first book, Translating Mo’um, was published in 2002 by Hanging Loose Press. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her work has appeared in The Canary, Denver Quarterly, American Letters and Commentary, Chain, jubilat, and she has also received a Pushcart Prize. Currently, she teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.

Zach Plague is a designer and writer living in Chicago, IL. He is currently growing a mustache inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis’s in There Will Be Blood. His novel boring boring boring boring boring boring boring is due out from featherproof books in August 2008.

Nick Twemlow’s have lately appeared or are forthcoming in the Boston Review, A Public Space, New American Writing, and City Visible.  A recent Fulbright Fellow, he is an editor of Canarium Books.  He lives in Chicago.

Mike Zapata is a writer and educator living in Chicago. He is co-founder, co-publisher, and fiction editor forMAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine. He is currently working on a novel which takes place in Chicago, Quito, and New Orleans.

Matthew Zapruder is the author of two collections of poetry: American Linden (Tupelo Press, 2002) and The Pajamaist (Copper Canyon, 2006), selected by Tony Hoagland as the winner of the William Carlos Williams Award. He teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the New School and works as an Editor for Wave Books. He lives in New York City.

Emcee:

Greg Purcell is a veteran of The Danny’s Reading Series and will soon host The St. Mark’s Bookshop Reading Series in New York (starting March 2008).

The Sponsors:

Another Chicago Magazine (ACM) has lived among the crumbs of consistency for the past 30 years. ACM has remained an independent, self-reliant literary journal for the duration of that time, publishing work by a wide range of established writers (including the likes of Brigit Pegeen Kelly, David Sedaris, and Robin Hemley), and relative newcomers (Ada Limon, Dobby Gibson, and Emily Rosko among them), as well as interviews with literary stalwarts (Amiri Baraka, Dagoberto Gilb, and Kathy Acker, to name-check a few). ACM’s current issue, “ACM is Dead” features work by Michael Czyzniejewski, John Beer, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, and Richard Wirick. ACM’s forthcoming issue, “American Values,” will be available in Spring ’08.

Canarium 1 (featuring work by Ed Roberson, Arda Collins, Takashi Hiraide, Srikanth Reddy, and a dozen other poets) is the first venture from Canarium Books, a poetry press sponsored by the University of Michigan. The first single-author books from the press will appear in 2009. Canarium’s predecessor, The Canary, is on a brief hiatus during the development of Canarium Books. Check us out online at: www.canariumbooks.org.

The Danny’s Reading Series occurs one Wednesday per month, featuring poets and writers from around the country and abroad, at Danny’s Tavern in Chicago. The series is curated by Joel Craig and Chris Glomski.

featherproof books is a young indie publisher based in Chicago, dedicated to the small-press ideals of finding fresh, urban voices. They publish perfect-bound, full-length works of fiction and downloadable mini-books. Out Now: Hiding Out by Jonathan Messinger. Coming Soon: This Will Go Down On Your Permanent Record by Susannah Felts and boring boring boring boring boring boring boring by Zach Plague.

literago.org is intended as a portal to news and information about literary goings-on in and around Chicago. The site features a curated calendar with a corresponding weekly newsletter, news and photos, post-event write-ups, and the occasional essay about the state of literature in Chicago.

MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine proudly features fiction, nonfiction and poetry by established writers and emerging writers, as well as interviews, reviews, and topnotch graphic design. The current issue, “City in Biography,” features short stories by John McNally, an interview with Bruce Olds, and a poetry section edited by Ed Roberson with poems from Reginald Gibbons, Carolyn M. Rogers, and Quraysh Ali Lansana, among others. MAKE is currently accepting submissions for the forthcoming issue, “The Experiment.” Visitwww.makemag.com for more information.

Handbill and program by Zach for bleached whale