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Exquisite Corpse making with local comics artist Grant Reynolds Wednesday, September 7th, 7PM
FREE
 
Grant Reynolds is twenty-six (26) and has lived in more apartments than years he\’s been alive. He\’s been drawings comics since at least fourth grade, mostly in the form of newspaper comic strips and short-run minis. His first professionally printed book Smaller Parts is totally available like, right now. As for street-cred, Grant has boatloads, and he owns almost two pairs of sturdy pants, though he has almost no money of which to speak.
 
For this event Grant will be hosting a night of exquisite corpse making. It\’ll go down something like this: a space will be cleared for folding chairs and a table. On the table the following will be placed: clipboards (near twenty), a stack of blank paper (folded into thirds), some Bic-type pens, and two baskets. The event will be contained to the back half of the store and will carry a very chill vibe of good, clean fun (although Grant is sure almost nobody will be able to resist the impulse to draw giant excruciating looking genitals on the corpses at least once during the event). The rules of exquisite corpse making will be briefly explained at the beginning of the event (and throughout as needed). They are these: take a sheet of folded paper from the Unfinished Corpse basket and do a drawing on the top third of the sheet (also write your name in the corner), then fold appropriately so that the drawing is all hidden from view and place the sheet back into the Unfinished Corpse basket. Everyone keeps doing this on different sheets of paper until all three panels are finished by three different people. Then the finished drawings are placed in the Completed Corpse basket, where they will be revealed at the end of the event. Everyone gets to take home their respectively named drawing to put on their refrigerators at home. Grant?s books will be signed and sold throughout the evening. Also, during the event the band The Ink Spots will be piped in through the overhead, and some sort of complementary warm cheap beverage in cans will be served.
 
Additional information on Grant and his comics can be accessed at www.grantreynolds.net

Mon, Nov 7th, 7PM
Join Seth (Palooka-Ville, Clyde Fans, Wembelton Green) and
Adrian Tomine (Optic Nerve, Summer Blond, Sleepwalk)
as they sign books and comics at Quimby?s
 
While still in high school, Adrian Tomine started writing and drawing his mini-comic Optic Nerve. After some success Adrian began producing Optic Nerve as a regular comic book series for Drawn & Quarterly. D&Q also published Sleepwalk and Other Stories collecting the first four issues of Optic Nerve it remains a best-seller for the company Adrian?s work has graced numerous CD and album covers as well as magazines like The New Yorker, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Time.
 
Aside from the forthcoming issue of Optic Nerve, Adrian has recently edited The Push Man and Other Stories the debut volume in a groundbreaking new series that collects Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s short stories about Japanese urban life.
 
Seth was a childhood fan of “Peanuts” and Jack Kirby?s “Eternals,” Seth was also influenced by the work of R. Crumb, Edward Gorey, the Hernandez Bros., Herge, Yves Chaland, John Stanley, and the cool, wry wit of mid-century “New Yorker” cartoonists. Drawing from this disparate group of inspirations Seth has distilled one of the most distinctive and recognizable cartooning styles of the past decade and has his illustrations in The Washington Post, Details, Spin, The New York Times, and the New Yorker. He is the author of Palooka-Ville and its two collections Clyde Fans and It’s A Good Life. He the lead designer on the 27 vol. project The Complete Peanuts, Seth lives in Guelph, Ontario with five cats, a huge collection of vintage records, comic books.
 
With his new Graphic Novel Wimbledon Green, Seth creates a farcical world of the people whose passion lies in the need to own comic books and only in pristine, mint condition. A charming and amusing caper where comic-book collecting is a world of intrigue and high finance. Part riotous chase, part whimsical character sketch, Wimbledon Green looks at the need to collect and the need to reinvent oneself.

Saturday Nov. 19th 7PMan event for two of our 33 1/3 series authors: J. Niimi, who wrote a title in the series on Murmur and Franklin Bruno, the author of a book about Elvis Costello\’s Armed Forces.
 
More Info TBA

Joshua Cohen reads from The QuoSaturday, October 8th, 7 PM
FREE
 
Joshua Cohen has performed in-depth investigations into mirrors and navels to return with The Quorum, his first collection of short fiction. A set of ten stories, a set of dreams, and a long monologue, these are all first-person rants given over by the somehow alienated, individuals seeking only a sympathetic hearing, all dealing with identity and religion as well as occupied with technical ideas of reliable narration and the structure of the mind\’s ear. From a review of a book about the Holocaust that\’s six-million blank pages to a suicide note from a young university student, from a letter to home outlining an economy based on hair to a eulogy for a poem, from a story narrated by three-hundred concubines to the title story about a group of people who interchange appearances, habits, proclivities and talents, The Quorum is a sensitively written and inevitably absurd take on the individual\’s lifelong quest to get someone, anyone, to listen.
 
About the author:
Joshua Cohen was born in 1980 in New Jersey. He has worked as a journalist, essayist, translator and editor for many publications, including the Prague Literary Review, and the Forward. His fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, such as Sleeping Fish, Zeek, Fiction Warehouse, and The New Book of Masks (Raw Dog Screaming Press). Cohen\’s novel, Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto, is forthcoming from Fugue State Press in 2006.

Signing with Jolene Siana author of Go Ask Ogre: Letters from a Deathrock CutterThursday November 10th 7pm
 
Go Ask Ogre: Letters from a Deathrock Cutter by Jolene Siana captures teen angst and music obsession like no author before her. Through confessional letters Siana sent to the singer of her favorite band, Go Ask Ogre reveals a troubled but hopeful and often hilarious ?goth? girl, determined to rise above her dysfunctional family life in a dying Midwest city full of head-bangers and fast-food futures.
 
Siana?s life throughout the Reagan era was a deeply troubled one. Her mother was single, alcoholic, and abusive. Jolene grew suicidal and became a ?cutter??someone who cuts their skin to feel relief from emotional pain. A suicidal tailspin led her to reach out to Ogre, the enigmatic singer of the influential industrial band Skinny Puppy. For more than three years, Siana sent Ogre a stream of letters, elaborately decorated with illustrations, photos, stories and clippings.
 
Ogre was so moved by the letters that he kept them in a box for more than a decade, returning them to the author after a chance meeting. After sifting through the details of her former life, Siana?now a well-adjusted and vibrant woman living in Los Angeles?found herself with an ?unintentional memoir,? and a persuasive testament to the power of art and music?even ?Devil Music??to transform lives.
 
Go Ask Ogre features Jolene?s accounts of personal interaction with several alternative heroes from the ?80s?including bailing Skinny Puppy out of jail, attending a slumber party with punk legends The Descendents, getting a pep talk from the Revolting Cocks, meeting Peter Murphy, and more.

October 28, 7pmThe Perpetual Motion Roadshow, an international indie-press tour, will feature three touring writers who also happen to be three nice Canadian boys: ECW press Novelist and pop culture pundit Jason Anderson (Toronto), blogging indie poet Mingus Tourette (Calgary) and electro-rapper Lucas Costello (Toronto). The local act will be poetry vet Larry O. Dean, author of I AM SPAM.

City of Destiny_ Chicago Writers’ NightSaturday August 20, 7:30 pm
 
With featured readers/performers:
Joshua Bermont is an actor/comedian with The Gentleman Callers and open mic host.
 
Kate Cullan is a spoken word performer and open mic host.
 
Emerson Dameron has written for many publications including his former zine, Wherewithal.
 
Thax Douglas, rock poet, is the author of Tragic Faggot Syndrome.
 
Wendy McClure is the author of I’m Not the New Me: A Memoir, blogger at www.poundy.com, and columnist for Bust.
 
Jonathan Messinger runs thisisgrand.org, hosts the Dollar Store readings, and is books editor of Time Out Chicago.
 
Jason Pettus is a travel writer and blogger at jasonpettus.com.
 
This event will be hosted by Katherine Hodges, whose book and zine projects include Noncompliant and City of Destiny.
 
With free mini cocktails and desserts!

Friday October 29th 7PMNick Ostdick, author of Sunbeams and cigarettes
 
First time novelist Nick Ostdick has been writing for about five years. He has had a few works published on the web, as well as being the front man for a alternative rock band. Sunbeams and Cigarettes, his first novel will be available on October 17, and a relentless touring schedule will follow. Living in Northern Illinois, he is currently at work on his second novel, as well as a book of short stories.

THE2NDHAND presents:
Mickey Hess, Daniel Buckman, and Jonathan Messinger, live and riffing heavy.
September 10, 7:30 PM
 
Mickey Hess (www.mickeyhess.net), author of the 2003 memoir “Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory”, hails from Louisville, where he writes, teaches, and thinks about hip-hop.
 
Daniel Buckman lives and writes in Chicago. He is the author of a trio of novels, “Water in Darkness,” “The Names of Rivers,” and most recently “Morning Dark.”
 
Jonathan Messinger is Time Out Chicago’s books editor and proprietor at ThisISGrand.org, site for stories of Chicago’s rapid transit.
 

Chicago Noir Event
Friday September 2nd 7PM
with Marlon James (John Crow’s Devil), Neal Pollack (editor of Chicago Noir),
and Joe Meno (How the Hula Girl Sings).
 
CHICAGO NOIR, edited by Neal Pollack
 
On the heels of the stunning success of the summer ’04 award-winning
bestseller Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books launches a groundbreaking series of original
noir anthologies. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a
distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Now: Chicago
Noir.
 
Brand new stories by: Neal Pollack, Achy Obejas, Alexai Galaviz-Budziszewski,
Adam Langer, Joe Meno, Peter Orner, Kevin Guilfoile, Bayo Ojikutu, Jeff
Allen, Luciano Guerriero, Claire Zulkey, Andrew Ervin, M.K. Meyers, Todd Dills,
C.J. Sullivan, Daniel Buckman, Amy Sayre-Roberts, and Jim Arndorfer.
 
Chicago Noir is populated by hired killers and jazzmen, drunks and dreamers,
corrupt cops and ticket scalpers and junkies. It’s the Chicago that the
Department of Tourism doesn’t want you to see, a place where hard cases face their
sad fates, and pay for their sins in blood. These are stories about blocks that
visitors are afraid to walk. They tell of a Chicago beyond Oprah, Michael
Jordan, and deep-dish pizza. This isn’t someone’s dream of Chicago. It’s not even
a nightmare. It’s just the real city, unfiltered. Chicago Noir.
 
NEAL POLLACK worked as a reporter for the Chicago Reader from 1993-2000,
where he wrote the “Petty Crime” column, among many other assignments. He’s the
author of three books of satire, including the cult classic The Neal Pollack
Anthology of American Literature and the rock-n-roll novel Never Mind the
Pollacks. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies and magazines, and
he?s a regular contributor to Vanity Fair and Nerve.
 
HOW THE HULA GIRL SINGS By Joe Meno
 
Paperback reissue of the second novel from the author of the smash hit
HAIRSTYLES OF THE DAMNED.
 
A young ex-con in a small Illinois town. A lonely giant with a haunted past.
A beautiful girl with a troubled heart. Strange and darkly magical, How the
Hula Girl Sings begins exactly where most pulp fiction usually ends, with the
vivid episode of the terrible crime itself. Three years later, Luce Lemay, out
on parole for the awful tragedy, does his best to finds hope: in a new job at
the local Gas-N-Go; in his companion and fellow ex-con, Junior Breen, who
spells out puzzling messages to the unquiet ghosts of his past; and finally, in the
arms of the lovely but reckless Charlene. How the Hula Girl Sings is a
suspenseful exploration of a country bright with the far-off stars of forgiveness,
but still dark with the still-looming shadow of the death penalty.
 
JOE MENO is a fiction writer from Chicago and winner of a Nelson Algren
Literary Award. His latest best-selling novel, Hairstyles of the Damned, a
selection of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program, follows the
exploits of adolescents as they struggle for belonging on Chicago’s south side. He
is a professor of creative writing at Columbia College, Chicago, the cofounder
of Sleepwalk magazine, coeditor of Bail magazine, and a columnist for Punk
Planet magazine.
 
JOHN CROW’S DEVIL
a debut novel by Marlon James
 
THIS STUNNING DEBUT NOVEL tells the story of a biblical struggle in a remote
Jamaican village in 1957. With language as taut as classic works by Cormac
McCarthy, and a richness reminiscent of early Toni Morrison, Marlon James reveals
his unique narrative command that will firmly establish his place as one of
today’s freshest, most talented young writers.
 
IN THE VILLAGE OF GIBBEAH — where certain women fly and certain men protect
secrets with their lives — magic coexists with religion, and good and evil
are never as they seem. In this town, a battle is fought between two men of God.
The story begins when a drunkard named Hector Bligh (the “Rum Preacher”) is
dragged from his pulpit by a man calling himself “Apostle” York. Handsome and
brash, York demands a fire-and-brimstone church, but sets in motion a
phenomenal and deadly struggle for the soul of Gibbeah itself. John Crow’s Devil is a
novel about religious mania, redemption, sexual obsession, and the eternal
struggle inside all of us between the righteous and the wicked.
 
MARLON JAMES was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1970. He graduated from the
University of the West Indies in 1991 with a degree in Literature. An
award-winning artist and writer, this is his first novel. He lives in Kingston.