Category: readings

  • CAKE Presents . . . A Conversation with Eleanor Davis, John Porcellino, and Keiler Roberts Moderated by Hillary Chute 6/5

    Poster_Low-Res porcWhat better way to usher in CAKE weekend than a conversation with three of the most innovative cartoonists working today? If there’s a graphic narratives supergroup—the Emerson, Lake, & Palmer of American indie comics—this is it.

     

    Eleanor Davis’s Fantagraphics collection How to Be Happy was just nominated for a 2015 Eisner Award. Keiler Roberts’s series Powdered Milk is a consistently stunning example of why so many of us fell in love with autobiographical comics in the first place. John Porcellino’s The Hospital Suite was one of the most critically acclaimed comics of 2014. With King-Cat Comics and Stories now 25 years old and going stronger than ever, John remains one of the guiding lights of the indie comics scene and for CAKE itself. Hillary Chute, comics scholar extraordinaire, author of Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics and Outside the Box: Interviews with Contemporary Cartoonists, will moderate this exciting roundtable.

    Please join us for a rocking, inspiring kick-off event for CAKE 2015! For more information on this event & on the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, visit cakechicago.com . CAKE is June 6th-June 7th. Quimby’s is proud to be a co-sponsor.

    Click here for the Facebook invite for this event.

    Friday, June 5th, 7pm – Free Event!

  • Jessica Hopper Reads From The First Collection of Criticism By a Living Female Rock Critic 5/29

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    Featherproof is proud to announce the publication of legendary rock critic Jessica Hopper’s newest book, The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic, in Spring 2015.

    Jessica Hopper’s music criticism has earned her a reputation as one of the firebrands of the form, a keen observer and fearless critic not just of music, but the culture around it, revealing new truths that often challenge us to consider what it is to be a fan.

    With this premiere volume, spanning from her punk fanzine roots to her landmark piece on R. Kelly’s past, The First Collection leaves no doubt why the New York Times has called Hopper’s work “influential.” Not merely a selection of two decades of Hopper’s most engaging, thoughtful and humorous writing, this book serves as a document of the last 20 years of American music making and the shifting landscape of music consumption.

    Through this vast range of album reviews, essays, columns, interviews, and oral histories, Hopper chronicles what it is to be truly obsessed with music, the ideas in songs and albums, how fantasies of artists become complicated by real life, and just what happens when you follow that obsession into muddy festival fields, dank basements, corporate offices or court records.

    PRAISE FOR THE FIRST COLLECTION OF CRITICISM BY A LIVING FEMALE ROCK CRITIC BY JESSICA HOPPER

    “Jessica Hopper’s criticsm is a trenchant and necessary counterpoint not just on music, but on our culture at large.” —Annie Clark, St. Vincent

    “In this crucial book, Hopper schools us all on the art of criticism. You’ll be reminded, as I was, why you care to read and write about (and listen to!) music to begin with. Hopper’s relationship with music is a joy to behold.” —Tavi Gevinson, Editor-in-Chief, Rookie

    “I read Hopper’s book with a sense of bewildered gratitude. She concedes nothing to the idea that it is dumb to care so much. The excitement in her work is that these things are worth scrapping about.” —Rob Sheffield, author of Love is a Mixtape

    About Jessica Hopper:

    Jessica Hopper’s music criticism has been included in Best Music Writing 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2011. Her first book, The Girls Guide to Rocking, was named one of 2009’s Notable Books for Young Readers by the American Library Associa- tion. She is Senior Editor at Pitchfork and the Editor-in-Chief of The Pitchfork Review. She lives in Chicago with her husband and two young sons.

    Click here for the Facebook invite for this event.

    For  press inquiries:   Dana  Meyerson   dana(at)biz3(dot)net

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  • Josh Simmons Reads From Black River 5/7

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    Josh Simmons returns with his first full-length graphic novel since 2007’s acclaimed House. A group of women, one man, and two dogs are making their way through a post-apocalyptic world in search of a city that supposedly still has electricity and some sort of civilization. Along the way, they go to a comedy club, take a drug called Gumdrop, and encounter gangs of men who are fools, lunatics, or murderous sadists. In other words, all manner of terrors.

    Simmons is one of the field’s most distinctive voices in the genre of horror, (The Furry Trap, House) and this full-length graphic novel is his best work yet – echoing director John Carpenter’s perfect tick-tock pacing, as well as Shirley Jackson’s ability to transcend genre and turn it into literature.

    “Josh Simmons has concocted a hellish world in which madwomen roam a post-apocalyptic landscape – but its battlescars are nothing compared to the self-obliterating hell of their own minds. A horrifying, unforgettable vision.”

    – Kier-La Janisse (House of Psychotic Women)

     

    Josh Simmons was born in Connecticut in 1977. He is the creator of the graphic novels House, Jessica Farm Volume One, and The Furry Trap. He currently lives in New Haven, CT.

    For more info:

    jhscomics.tumblr.com/

    http://www.fantagraphics.com/blackriver

    Click here to see video of pages from the book.

    Facebook event invite for the event.

    Thursday, May 7th, 7pm – Free Event

  • Kristy Bowen reads from Major Characters in Minor Films 4/3

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    “Get ready: Kristy Bowen’s major characters in minor films casts our favorite muse du jour in a ‘white-hot, white dress.’ Through poems that are lyrical, irreverent, and a little bit naughty, we discover the swanky, labyrinthine interior of her straight-to-DVD universe: remember, she tells us in ‘movie of the week,’ ‘Everybody loves a victim, especially the blonde, pretty kind.’ Through scathing missives to James Franco and sensual harangues directed at the moon, our wine-stained diva tempts us through vivacious non sequiturs to the ‘poem within a movie within a girl-shaped world’ in all of us.” -Sara Henning, author of A Sweeter Water

    “I want to be best friends with the ‘I’ of this book. She’s hilarious. She’s heartbreaking. She’s more than a little bit dangerous. Whether she’s writing about crying on the bus or hiding a knife under the sink, she deals out her words like a card shark—fast, sure, sly. What’s not to love about such a deft performance of wit, skill, and heart?” -Sara Biggs Chaney, author of Ann Coulter’s Letter to the Young Poets

    “In Kristy Bowen’s major characters in minor films, language moves like a camera, cutting from image to image, leaving impressions that form intriguing fragmented narratives of love, intrigue, mystery and damage. Populated with both the familiar and the strange, with rabbits and birds as well as whiskey and fire, the journey through the scenes these poems create is a wild and rich ride.” -Donna Vorreyer, author of A House of Many Windows

    A writer and visual artist, Kristy Bowen is the author of several book, chapbook, and zine projects including the shared properties of water and stars (Noctary Press, 2013) and girl show (Black Lawrence Press, 2014).  Her work has appeared most recently in Birdfeast, Diode, and Eratio.  She  lives in Chicago, where she runs dancing girl press & studio. For  more  info:  kristybowen.net

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    Fri, April 3rd, 7pm, Free Event

  • Offsite: Quimby's Night at LiveWire Lounge: 3 Songs, 3 Writers Reading About Those Songs 3/22

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    The LiveWire Lounge (3394 N Milwaukee) asked Quimby’s if we wanted to curate a night at their lounge. And we said yes. So this is what we’re bringing, a themed mix of reading and music with a very specific focus:

    Quimby’s Night at LiveWire Lounge: 3 Songs, 3 Writers Reading About Those Songs

    Original Readings by:

    Mike “McBeardo” McPadden, reading about Kiss Me Deadly by Generation X
    Celia Forrest, reading about Black and White by the DBs
    Dan Kelly, reading about X Offender by Blondie

    All 3 songs performed by The Blue Ribbon Glee Club

    Celia Forrest is a writer, director, teacher and actress who was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska. She is a new mother and couldn’t shut up about it if she tried. She is well-known in Minnesota for her work teaching theater to kids and her award-winning turn in Neil Labute’s Fat Pig. In Chicago she is mostly known for her sketch comedy writing and directing, as well for her work on The People’s Republic of Edward Snowden. Celia is also famous in a subset of radical activists as a co-host of Morning Damnit, the morning news and talk show on Q4 Radio, and the weekly program The Celia and Erik Show, which features comedy, commentary and interviews with local artists. Find her on Twitter at twitter.com/thatcelia

    Mike “McBeardo” McPadden is the author of Heavy Metal Movies: Guitar Barbarians, Mutant Bimbos, and Cult Zombies Amok in the 666 Most Ear- and Eye-Ripping Big Scream Films Ever! (Bazillion Points, 2014) and the upcoming Going All the Way: The Ultimate Guide to Teen Sex Comedy Films of the VHS Era (Bazillion Points, 2016). You will love him. More info at mcbeardo.com.

    Dan Kelly is the author of Hilaretic. He is not to be confused with the Australian judoka and mixed martial artist Dan Kelly. He occasionally writes for The Baffler and Gapers Block. He blogs at mrdankelly.com/blog.

    The Blue Ribbon Glee Club is Chicago’s punk rock a capella glee club, and regularly performs songs by Fugazi, Gang of Four, the Dead Kennedys, the Buzzcocks and more.

    Please note: This event is NOT at Quimby’s. It is at the LIVEWIRE LOUNGE | 3394 N MILWAUKEE AVE, CHICAGO, IL

    Facebook event post can be found here.LiveWire Lounge

  • Oyez Review Issue 42 Launch Reading Featuring Donna Vorreyer& Friends 3/20

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    The Oyez Review, Roosevelt University’s award-winning literary journal, has been in publication for over forty years. Among other readers relevant to issue #42, Donna Vorreyer will read a selection of her poems including “Compline with a Dream of Folded Arms,” which is also featured in this issue.

    Donna Vorreyer is the author of A House of Many Windows (Sundress Publications, 2013) as well as six chapbooks, most recently Encantado, a collaboration with artist Matt Kish from Redbird Chapbook (released in April 2015). She has been a repeat nominee for the Pushcart Prize, and her work has appeared in journals such as Sugar House Review, Sou’wester, Rhino, Linebreak, and Cider Press Review. She is an assistant poetry editor for Extract(s), and her second collection is forthcoming from Sundress Publications in 2016.

    For more info:

    oyezreview.wordpress.com

    donnavorreyer.com

    facebook event post for this event.

    oyezreview(at)roosevelt(dot)edu

    Friday, March 20, 7pm – Free EventDonna Vorreyer author photo

  • Jeff Phillips and Jordan Hoisington Read From Zizobotchi Papers vol 1 2/27

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    Zizobotchi Papers: volume 1, winter, 2015 (Baker & Brady), is the premier issue of a journal dedicated to the novella. Jeff Phillips and Daniel Gerald Mac Rae, who previously collaborated together at Three Leaves Theatre on a variety of stage productions, have teamed up again to launch a publication to highlight one of their favorite forms, the novella. Jeff and Dan are the guinea pigs on volume 1.

     

    The first issue of the Zizobotchi Papers features Proboiotic Hot Sauce by Jeff Phillips, and Chainsaw Guy by Daniel Gerald Mac Rae. Probiotic follows the character Sloan Doan as he returns to Chicago after a falling out with his family to stay with an eccentric dancer, Libby. They attend a warehouse party where a food competition reveals a cast of characters as mysterious as the place itself. Chainsaw makes us witness to a party that escalates into bedlam for Dale, leaving him – and his Honda – vulnerable to the whims of a psychopath.

     

    Jeff Phillips’ short fiction has appeared in Seeding Meat, This Zine Will Change Your Life, Metazen, Chicago Literati and Literary Orphans. has written two full-length plays Magnets and Division & Shame. His first published novella is Chainsaw Guy. Actor Jordan Hoisington has appeared in the play Magnets by Zizobotchi Papers’ featured writer Daniel Gerald Mac Rae, and will read Rae’s work.

    Friday, February 27th, 7pm

    Free Event

    For more info: bakerandbrady.com or bakerandbrady(at)gmail(dot)com

    Click here for the Facebook event link.

  • Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz Reads From Dr. Mütter’s Marvels 10/4

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    In Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz’s new book DR. MÜTTER’S MARVELS (Gotham Books), she explores the previously untold told life story of the man with the famous name: a young, handsome and ambitiously brilliant surgeon whose talents in the operating room and lectures halls were unrivaled in his lifetime. The book delves deep into the life of a man who was truly ahead of his time – from Mütter’s early years as an orphan and time spent studying cutting-edge surgery in Paris, to his struggles to establish himself in Philadelphia amidst the outrageous rivalries among his fellow doctors—many of whom publicly mocked Mütter’s philosophies and innovations (including his devotion to pre- and post-operative care, employing anesthesia, and even the sterilization of his tools).

     

    Although he only lived for 47 years, Mütter’s impact within medicine is still felt, and his legacy lives on with his enormously popular namesake museum. And now, with DR. MÜTTER’S MARVELS, his strange,inspiring and untold story can finally be shared.

     

    “In her deftly crafted narrative, the author provides an absorbing

    account of the charismatic surgeon’s life and career as well as a vivid look at the medical practices and prejudices of his time. Aptowicz draws nicely on Mütter’s speeches and lectures to reveal the depth of his empathetic philosophies and humanist approach.” –Kirkus Reviews

     

    The work of Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz has been featured in such places as: Bust Magazine, About.com’s Poetry Channel, and the spoken word anthology Word Warriors. Most recently, she has been awarded a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry and the 2013 Amy Clampitt Residency.

     

    For more info: http://aptowicz.com

  • Heavy Metal Movies Author Mike “McBeardo” McPadden Reads With Chicago Metal Miscreants 6/14

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    Mike “McBeardo” McPadden’s new book Heavy Metal Movies: Guitar Barbarians, Mutant Bimbos & Cult Zombies Amok in the 666 Most Eye- and Ear-Ripping Big Screen Films Ever! (Bazillion Points) is a lavishly illustrated, epic reference tome devoted to cinema’s most headbanging blowouts. Heavy Metal Movies covers cult classics (Heavy Metal; This Is Spinal Tap), documentaries (Heavy Metal Parking Lot; The Decline of Western Civilization Part II), concert films (Let There Be Rock; The Song Remains the Same), rock-and-roll horror (Black Roses, House of 1000 Corpses), and gore-core (Cannibal Holocaust; A Serbian Film), along with movies that simply exude pure metallic heaviosity (Conan the Barbarian, The Road Warrior).

    McPadden will read from Heavy Metal Movies, accompanied by original pieces about movies and/or metal composed and read by Andy Ortmann (Nihilist Records), Katie Rife (Everything Is Terrible), Andy Slater (Velcro Lewis), Gregory Jacobsen (Lovely Little Girls), Rachel McPadden (xoJane), and Dan Gleason (Chicago zine legend).

    “McPadden has struck gold with Heavy Metal Movies. A must read!” –Robin Bougie, Cinema Sewer

    Mike McPadden published the legendary ’90s zine Happyland and has been featured in Esquire, Playboy, Black Book, New York Press, Hate, and Rollerderby. Since 2003, he’s served as Head Writer at online phenomenon Mr. Skin.

    For more info: HeavyMetalMovies.com

    mikemcpadden(at)gmail(dot)com

    Twitter: @McBeardo

    Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/events/631650036921274/

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  • Yuriy Tarnawsky Reads from The Placebo Effect Trilogy with Eckhard Gerdes 5/16

    tarnawskyIn Ukrainian-American novelist Yuriy Tarnawsky’s new trilogy The Placebo Effect (JEF Books), the themes of alienation, abandonment, and fear of death, developed in Like Blood in Water and elaborated in The Future of Giraffes, respectively the first and second book of The Placebo Effect Trilogy, are picked up in the third book, View of Delft, and are given a new treatment.

    Yuriy Tarnawsky has authored more than two dozen books of poetry, fiction, drama, essays, and translations.  He is one of the founding members of the New York Group, a Ukrainian émigré avant-garde group of writers, and cofounder and co-editor of the journal Novi Poeziyi (New Poetry; 1959–1972). He writes fiction, poetry, plays, translations, and criticism in both Ukrainian and English. His works have been translated into French, German, Hebrew, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Russian. An engineer and linguist by training, he has worked as a computer scientist at IBM Corporation and professor of Ukrainian literature and culture at Columbia University. He writes in Ukrainian and English and resides in the New York City area. His other English-language books include the books of fiction Meningitis, Three Blondes and Death, Like Blood in Water (all FC2), and Short Tails (JEF Books), as well as the play Not Medea (JEF).

    Tarnawsky takes risks most writers wouldn’t dream of.  Just when you think you’re on familiar ground, the earth begins to shake.  His writing rocks! —Derek Pell

    Novelist and poet Eckhard Gerdes will also be  reading from some of his recent work.

    Fri, May 16th, 7 pm – Free Event

    For more info: egerdes(at)experimentalfiction(dot)com

    To find this event on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/262105330638172/