omaha (downtown) lit fest reading at Slowdown
sponsored by featherproof books and MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine

What: A Happy Hour Reading featuring fiction writers and performers Amy Guth, Zach Plague, Jonathan Messinger, essayist and editor Kathryn Scanlan and essayist and National Public Radio contributor Starlee Kine.

When: Saturday, September 20th, 2008, 5:30 – 7pm. Reading follows the completion omaha lit fest activities at the Bemis. www.omahalitfest.com

Where: Slowdown, 729 N. 14th St, Omaha, NE, www.theslowdown.com.

About the Readers:

Amy Guth is the founder of Pilcrow Lit Fest and author of Three Fallen Women (So New Media Publishing, 2006), as well as a forthcoming second novel, Light of Waters. Previously, she has written for The Believer, Monkeybicycle, and Ninth Letter, among others. Currently, in addition to her blog, Bigmouth Indeed Strikes Again, she writes for The Nervous Breakdown, Hungry City and others, is assistant fiction editor at 42 Opus and hosts the monthly Fixx Reading Series. Once upon a time, she collaborated on a few sketch comedy productions at The Second City’s training center.

Starlee Kine is a contributor to Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life and is currently working on a book, It Is Your Fault, about self-help. Her humorous essays regularly appeared in the Funny Pages section of The New York Times Magazine. Starlee is the co-creator of the Post-It Note Reading Series in Brooklyn.

Zach Plague’s hybrid typo/graphic novel, boring boring boring boring boring boring boring, was released on featherproof books in August. Excerpts have appeared, or are forthcoming, in such publications as The M Review, 55 Words, THE2NDHAND, Weird Deer, and Take the Handle. The audio version was co-released on Flameshovel Records. In 2007 he was named to Newcity’s Top 50 Literary Figures in Chicago, which is where he lives.

Jonathan Messinger is an author, editor, performer and joe. His first book, Hiding Out, has been described as a short story collection “about nervous manhood in a good, non-Zach Braff kind of way.” He’s the book review editor for the weekly arts and entertainment magazine Time Out Chicago and co-publisher of Featherproof Books, a small press in Chicago publishing works of full-length fiction and short stories as their own, lovingly designed mini-books.

About the Sponsors:

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, available for free at featherproof.com. Recently released: Hiding Out by Jonathan Messinger and This Will Go Down On Your Permanent Record by Susannah Felts. Hot off the shelf: boring boring boring boring boring boring boring by Zach Plague.

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, “The Experiment” features crime noir by Lindsay Hunter; an interview with Gabriel Gudding; poems from John Beer, Arda Collins, and more; and an experimental play by Tennessee Williams. MAKE is currently accepting submissions for the forthcoming issue, “Property Lines.” Visit www.makemag.com

STOP SMILING is an arts and culture magazine founded in Chicago in the mid-Nineties. Each issue follows a theme and consists of feature-length articles, essays and oral histories. With a focus on preservation, STOP SMILING has published some of the last in-depth conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Altman, Lee Hazlewood, and George Plimpton. www.stopsmilingonline.com ###