Litquake

Bal Littéraire: May 25

Litquake — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:04:30 +0000

New Play Nightclub at Des Voix Festival

Lit Crawl Brooklyn: May 19

Litquake — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 02:39:46 +0000

On May 19th, 2012 Lit Crawl NYC heads even further east to Brooklyn, the East Coast literary epicenter du jour. For years, writers and bookish types alike have flocked to the borough’s tree-lined streets for inspiration and collaboration. This spring, Lit Crawl NYC celebrates them all with an evening of literary delights, Brooklyn style!

See more details as they are revealed at Lit Crawl NYC.

Regreturature on The Finch Files

Litquake — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:52:37 +0000

Without You, We’re Nothing

Litquake — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:18:08 +0000

<<	May 2012	>>
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
29	30	1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31	1	2

May 22 – Peter Carey at Epicenter
May 22 – Litquake: Visible Cities
May 25 – Bal Littéraire: A New Play Nightclub at Des Voix Festival
May 29 – Celebration of Edith Piaf at The Epicenter
May 31 – Dos Cubanas, dos libros
Jun 2 – This Side of Paradise: A Great Gatsby Garden Party

See full list of upcoming events.

We can’t promise to introduce you to Gatsby, but you’re certain not to be a stranger at This Side of Paradise: A Great Gatsby Garden Party. Join us June 2 in Mill Valley for cocktails, canapés, croquet, and more.

To get you ready for the event, here’s an excerpt from The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald:

“On Sunday Morning while the church bells rang in the villages alongshore, the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby’s house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn.

“He’s a bootlegger,” said the young ladies, moving somewhere between his cocktails and his flowers. “One time he killed a man who had found out that he was nephew to Von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil. Reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that there crystal glass.”

Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a timetable the names of those who came to Gatsby’s house that summer. It is an old time-table now, disintegrating at its folds, and headed “This schedule in effect July 5^th, 1922.” But I can still read the gray names, and they will give you a better impression than my generalities of those who accepted Gatsby’s hospitality and paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him.

From East Egg, then, came the Chester Beckers and the Leeches, and a man named Bunsen, whom I knew at Yale, and Doctor Webster Civet, who was drowned last summer up in Maine. And the Hornbeams and the Willie Voltaires, and a whole clan named Blackbuck, who always gathered in a corner and flipped their noses like goats at whosoever came near. And the Ismays and the Chrysties (or rather Hubert Auerbach and Mr. Chrystie’s wife), and Edgar Beaver, whose hair, they say, turned cotton-white one winter afternoon for no good reason at all.

Benny McClenaham arrived always with four girls. They were never quite the same ones in physical person, but they were so identical one with another that it inevitably seemed they had been there before. I have forgotten their names – Jaqueline, I think, or else Consuela, or Gloria or Judy or June, and their last names were either the melodious names of flowers or months or the sterner ones of the great American capitalists whose cousins, if pressed, they would confess themselves to be. . . .

All these people came to Gatsby’s house in the summer.”

Peter Carey at Epicenter: May 22

Litquake — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:50:59 +0000

MAGNITUDE 1.3

magnitude — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 03:43:08 +0000

Open publication - Free publishing - More litquake

In Magnitude1.3, you’ll find mesmerizing poems by Matthew Zapruder, Hollie Hardy, and Darothy Durkac; an encounter with a homeless troubadour on a MUNI bus by Cat Graham; and an abridged but fantastic recap of Litquake 2009 by Laura Joakimson.

Seth Greenland in Conversation June 14

Litquake — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:34:32 +0000

Elena Mauli Shapiro’s Favorite Things: Birth Control, Air Conditioning & Indoor Plumbing

Litquake — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 23:26:41 +0000

Novelist Shapiro tackles the Litquake Interview and spills the beans on her favorite dirty words. She’ll appear at the next Epicenter, April 24, which features a release party for ZYZZYVA’s spring issue.

1. What is your favorite book?: Madame Bovary.
2. Who is your favorite writer?: Oscar Wilde.
3. If the answers to 1 & 2 are different, why?: It’s a matter of persona. I think it would be more fun to get drunk with Wilde than Flaubert.
4. How old were you when you were first published?: My first novel was published when I was 32.
5. What writing style do you most abhor?: When fiction is trying too self-consciously hard to be “literary,” resulting in sentences that sound pretty and clever but aren’t actually true.
6. What is your favorite writing cliché?: “Write every day” is pretty amusing. That’s like ordering someone to make love every day. Write when you bloody well feel like it, or you are liable to turn it into a wearisome task like too much else in life.
7. What is your favorite word?: I have to go with “fuck.” It’s so fabulously versatile. I also think “squeegee” is so adorable I used it to name my cat.
8. When and how do you write?: On a MacBook. Mostly holed up in my apartment like a hermit, often in the dead of night. Occasionally in a café when the lonely silence makes my sanity fray.
9. What is your greatest fear when you first turn in a manuscript?: You know when you have an intense dream that shakes you to your core, and then you try to tell someone else about it after waking up and realize that it doesn’t make any sense and you’re an idiot? I am often afraid that entire novels will fail just like that.
10. In what era do you wish you’d been born?: Now is pretty good. I like birth control and air conditioning and indoor plumbing. And being able to answer any question immediately with the tiny computer in my portable phone. If not now, then ancient Egypt. I like their animal Gods.
11. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?: I need to stop saying “cocksucker” in that Richard Nixon inflection.
12. Which talent would you most like to have?: If I were given talent credits to spend, I would probably put them all towards being a better writer. If this were not allowed, I would probably blow them towards a bunch of completely goofy things like being double-jointed or able to belch the national anthem.
13. What do you consider your greatest achievement?: Marrying the only man in the world I could possibly be married to.
14. Who is your favorite hero of fiction?: I like magnificent bastards who completely destroy people’s lives but are really witty about it, like Humbert Humbert and Tyler Durden.
15. How would you like to die?: I was going to say mid-orgasm but then realized that it might be a bit traumatic for my partner. So, instead I’d like to request drifting off peacefully in a post-coital nap.

The Litquake Interview: In Which We Put a Gun to Rob Ehle’s Head

Litquake — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:22:12 +0000

Here, author Rob Ehle succumbs to our nosy questions and talks about the difference between “chard” and “shard” (hint: one is tasty with bacon) and how to count in Czech! See him at the next Epicenter, April 24, which features a release party for ZYZZYVA’s spring issue (hint: he’s in the issue!).

1. What is your favorite book?: The Sound and the Fury, if you put a gun to my head and I could choose only one. No, wait. Brothers Kara— (Bang.)
2. Who is your favorite writer?: Faulkner, even without a gun to my head.
3. How old were you when you were first published?: One “flash fiction” piece when I was about 26, then a real short story when I was 29. Didn’t publish again until 49, though I’ve been luckier since.
4. What writing style do you most abhor?: The bad kind. I don’t have stylistic druthers, I just abhor ineptitude.
5. What is your favorite writing cliché?: “Never end a sentence with a preposition.” That’s where it’s at.
6. What is your favorite word?: I like the Czech word for “four,” čtyři, because I can say it, and most Americans can’t.
7. When and how do you write?: Mostly on Caltrain on my commute to and from my day job. I use a laptop, because the jostling makes my handwriting go all jostly.
8. What is your greatest fear when you first turn in a manuscript?: That I’ve used a word wrong. I once used “chard” for “shard” all the way through an otherwise very poignant section of a story. The whole effect was different with produce strewn over the floor instead of pieces of a broken vase.
9. In what era do you wish you’d been born?: I’m pretty happy where I’m at. Wingsuits? iTunes? Should anyone even have to think about this?
10. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?: I’m neurotic enough about my writing, thank you very much, without thinking that one through.
11. Which talent would you most like to have?: I will pay anyone $100 – I am not kidding – who can teach me, finally, to do that loud whistle thing with my fingers in my mouth. None of the YouTube videos have been effective. I mean $50.
12. What do you consider your greatest achievement?: My kid, d’oh.
13. Who is your favorite hero of fiction?: Not sure I have one for all time, but I’m partial to the young Ike McCaslin in The Bear. He’s one. I also like the widow in The Outlander, an amazing novel by Gil Adamson.
14. How would you like to die?: I’d like to be beamed up.

Regreturature Benefit with Writers’ Grotto

Litquake — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:19:04 +0000

On April 4, Litquake & the Writers’ Grotto present the return of “REGRETURATURE: An evening of readings that probably shouldn’t see the light of day,” with Katie Crouch, Jeff Greenwald, Mary Roach, and more! Advance ticket sales have ended but a limited number of tickets will be available at the door for tonight's show.