Debut Lit reading at Lit Crawl Seattle, Thurs. 10/18, 7pm

As part of the inaugural Lit Crawl Seattle event this coming Thursday, DEBUT LIT will present a showcase of local debut authors, including Suzanne Morrison (Yoga Bitch), Nicole Hardy (Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin), Lance Weller (Wilderness), Dan Coxon (Ka Mate: Travels in New Zealand), Jeff Bender (The Weight), Will O’Donnell (Beta Version) and host Rebekah Anderson (Let the River Take It).

The DEBUT LIT event takes place at The Pine Box (21+) at 1600 Melrose Ave during the 7pm phase of the crawl.

Lit Crawl Seattle boasts an entire evening of readings in bookstores, bars, art galleries, restaurants, stores, cafés…even an ice cream parlor! From 5pm until late on Thursday, October 18, lit lovers will roam Seattle from its downtown core through First Hill and Capitol Hill as part of City Arts Fest’s “Topographies” arts programming. In all, 17 literary performances by more than 60 writers, actors, dancers and musicians will take place during this evening-long romp through the city.

All Lit Crawl Seattle readings are free and open to the public (although some venues are 21 and over). They’ll be packed too, so bring cash to keep your vamoose to the next spot extra speedy.

Meet the readers: poetry

At DL’s Brooklyn Book Festival 2012 Bookend Event tonite, the poets of the evening are Austin LaGrone and Laren McClung, both NYU MFA program alums.

LaGrone, who is heading over from his home in Ditmas Park, is the author of the debut poetry collection, Oyster Perpetual, which was selected as the 2010 winner of the Idaho Prize in Poetry by Lost Horse Press. His poems have also appeared in Black Warrior Review, Brilliant Corners, Crazyhorse, Fourteen Hills, Hayden’s Ferry, Spoon River Poetry Review, Poetry International and Willow Springs. Born and raised in Louisiana, LaGrone holds degrees from St. John’s College and New York University and has been a faculty member at John Jay College since 2007, where he teaches composition, creative writing and modern literature.

Also reading poetry tonite is Laren McClung. McClung’s debut poetry collection, Between Here and Monkey Mountain was published by Sheep Meadow Press this past spring. She has taught poetry workshops at Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island and in New York University’s Veterans Writing Workshop for Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans. She is co-editing the anthology Inheriting the War: Poetry and Prose by Children of Vietnam Veterans and Refugees. Her work has appeared in journals and reviews including the Massachusetts Review, War, Literature & the Arts, and PN Review. She currently teaches at New York University.

Meet the readers: short fiction

At DL’s Brooklyn Book Festival 2012 Bookend Event tomorrow, Hugh Sheehy and Greg Gerke will be representing in the category of short fiction.

Gerke, a Brooklyn-ite and member of National Book Critics Circle, has published short fiction in a noteworthly list of literary journals. His debut short story collection, There’s Something Wrong with Sven, was published in 2009 by Blaze Vox Books. “There’s Something Wrong with Sven combines imaginative leaps worthy of Italo Calvino and Kurt Vonnegut with tragicomic irreverence of the George Saunders variety,” says The Rumpus.

Our other short fiction reader for the evening is this year’s selection for the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction from the University of Georgia Press. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly says Sheehy’s debut story collection, The Invisibles, “reveal[s] a wicked new talent.” 

Currently a  lecturer at Yeshiva College in NYC, Sheehy has taught at Kennesaw State University and Georgia State University and received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Alabama. His stories have also appeared in publications including Glimmer Train, Kenyon Review, and Best American Mystery Stories.

Introducing readers: Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

One of the illustrious readers for DL’s Brooklyn Book Festival 2012 Bookend Event on Sept 20 is debut memoirist, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan.

Tan is a New York-based writer who has written a memoir about discovering her Singaporean family by learning to cook with them. A Tiger In The Kitchen was published by New York City-based Hyperion in 2011. She is currently working on her second book, a novel.

Born and raised in Singapore, she crossed the ocean at age 18 to go to Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Unsure of whether she would remain in the U.S. after college, she interned in places as disparate as possible. She hung out with Harley Davidson enthusiasts in Topeka, Kan., interviewed gypsies about their burial rituals in Portland, Ore., covered July 4 in Washington, D.C., and chronicled the life and times of the Boomerang Pleasure Club, a group of Italian-American men that were getting together to cook, play cards and gab about women for decades in their storefront “clubhouse” in Chicago.

 

She started her full-time journalism career helping out on the cops beat in Baltimore — training that would prove to be essential in her future fashion reporting. Both, it turns out, are like war zones. The only difference is, people dress differently.

Tan was a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, In Style magazine and the Baltimore Sun. Her stories have also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Marie Claire, Every Day With Rachael Ray, Family Circle, Bloomberg Businessweek, Chicago Tribune, The (Portland) Oregonian, The (Topeka) Capital-Journal, The (Singapore) Straits Times and Elle.com.

Her first book was praised by the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, People magazine, NBC’s Today Show, Kirkus Reviews, Houston Chronicle, Denver Post and the Shanghai Daily among other publications. She has also lectured on writing, memoir-writing and the process of culinary anthropology — the archiving of culture via food and food histories — at the Museum of Chinese in America, Asia Society, Washington Embassy of Singapore, Commonwealth Club of California and various book festivals, including the prestigious Brooklyn Book Festival, Singapore Writers Festival and Miami Book Fair.

Come hear her read as part of Brooklyn Book Festival this coming Thursday, Sept 20 at 7pm at Pacific Standard Brewery in Brooklyn.

Cohosts for “New On Tap”

Introducing DL’s cohosts for Sept 20! The dynamic duo behind the culinary blog, PitchKnives & Butterforks will help introduce our fabulous line up of readers!

Shannon Dunlap and Jason Leahey live and write in Brooklyn, via Ohio, Virginia, and Cambodia.  Their blog PitchKnives & Butter Forks is dedicated to stories of food, from the seed to the platter, and serves up short and sweet explorations of what we grow in the ground and put in our bellies. 

Ever wonder what hole-in-the-wall joints serve the best food in those NYC neighborhoods past the end of the train line?  Or which foods have been banned by the Catholic Church, which beers pair best with Billy Collins, or how to concoct a strawberry-chipotle sauce for a dynamite brunch?  Shannon and Jason have.  And they continue to investigate new ways to combine the literary and the gastronomic.

New reader added to “New on Tap”

We have a debut novelist on tap for our Sept 20 event! Ralph Sassone, author of The Intimates, will join us for a night of fun, frolic and first time authors.

Official Brooklyn Book Festival schedule announced!

Today, BBF posted their full schedule for their 2012 Bookend Events (including ours) that lead up to the fest as well as the main event on Sunday, Sept. 23.

Thursday, Sept 20 at 7pm during the Bookend schedule, DEBUT LIT will be showcasing some fabulous new writers with our friends from Pacific Standard, a microbrew pub in the festival vicinity, and PitchKnives & Butter Forks bloggers Jason Leahey and Shannon Dunlap.

The event will be on the theme “New On Tap,” since, you know, it’s all about new writers and we’re in a brewpub. Get it? New on tap? Ah well, we try.

To entertain you, we’ll have a mix of poets, fiction writers and a memoirist who will each read a piece of original work on theme. Plus introductions, remarks and other interesting tidbits from your hosts Rebekah Anderson of DEBUT LIT and the Leahey-Dunlap duo from PK&BF.

 “New On Tap” will feature:

Austin LaGrone, author of the poetry collection Oyster Perpetual

Laren McClung, author of the poetry collection Between Here and Monkey Mountain

Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, author of the memoir A Tiger in the Kitchen

Greg Gerke, author of the story collection There’s Something Wrong with Sven

Hugh Sheehy, author of the story collection  The Invisibles, which is this year’s winner of Flannery O’Connor Prize from University of Georgia Press

Come out and join us in celebrating new work! And for Pete’s sake, bring some friends!

Fall events in Brooklyn and Seattle!

Coming up in Fall 2012, DEBUT LIT will host two showcases of new talent.

As part of Brooklyn Book Fest’s book end events, DEBUT LIT will host “New on Tap: a Showcase of Debut New York Authors.” The event will take place September 20 at Pacific Standard in Brooklyn.

Readers will include Greg Gerke (There’s Something Wrong with Sven), Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan (A Tiger In the Kitchen), Laren McClung (Between Here and Monkey Mountain), Hugh Sheehy (The Invisibles) and host Rebekah Anderson (Let the River Take It).

Then coming up on October 18, DEBUT LIT will be part of Lit Crawl Seattle, a literary extravaganza organized by DL’s Rebekah Anderson with more than 15 readings and performances throughout Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

The crawl is part of City Arts Fest and kicks off the festival’s first full night of programming. The showcase includes local debut authors, Suzanne Morrison (Yoga Bitch), Nicole Hardy (Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin), Lance Weller (Wilderness), Dan Coxon (Ka Mate: Travels in New Zealand), Jeff Bender (The Weight) and host Rebekah Anderson (Let the River Take It).

Debut author review: Matthew Battles

Check out Rebekah’s Culture Mob review of Matthew Battles’ debut story collection The Sovereignties of Invention…

http://culturemob.com/review-debut-story-collection-from-matthew-battles

Debut author review: Jamal Joseph

Check out Rebekah‘s Culture Mob review of Jamal Joseph’s debut memoir, Panther Baby.

http://culturemob.com/jamal-josephs-black-panther-memoir-tells-deeper-story