Tag Archives: readings

Literary BFFs with Matt Dojny and John Wray [with audio]

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On Wednesday, June 27th at McNally Jackson, Brooklyn authors and long-time friends Matt Dojny and John Wray kicked off Book Boroughing’s new literary series, “Literary BFFs,” a conversation between friends about books and the writing life.

Matt Dojny’s debut The Festival of Earthly Delights (Dzanc Books) has been called “a glorious novel” by Gary Shteyngart and “large-hearted, bright-minded” by Ben Greenman.

James Wood, in The New Yorker, called John Wray’s novel, Lowboy (Picador), “exceptionally tender and acute” and called Wray, “a daring young writer.” Colson Whitehead called the book “a riveting and disturbing ride.”

Here they are talking about the impetus for Matt’s book, their time together in a band, and their attempt at 80s New Wave karaoke. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Listen in full here:


Book Boroughing’s PEN World Voices Picks

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PEN World (International PEN) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in 1921 “to promote friendship and intellectual cooperation among writers everywhere; to emphasize the role of literature in the development of mutual understanding and world culture; to fight for freedom of expression; and to act as a powerful voice on behalf of writers harassed, imprisoned and sometimes killed for their views.”

This year PEN American Center celebrates its 90th anniversary with the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. Every year, PEN brings writers from around the world together for conversations about art, culture, politics, and all the intersecting points between.

The festival begins Monday, April 30th, you can view the full schedule here. You can also follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

Please note that while many of the events are free, some are ticketed. Please check the individual pages for details. Here are our picks. 

Gabrielle suggests:

Reviewing Translations with Arne Bellstorf, Ruth Franklin, Julya Rabinowich, and Lorin Stein; moderated by Eric Banks and Susan Bernofsky
When: Thursday, May 3
Where: The School of Writing at The New School, Wollman Hall, 65 W. 11th St., New York City
What time: 6–7:30 p.m.

When a translated work is under review, what exactly is being critiqued? Is it the work itself or the quality of its translation? How does reviewing a translation differ from reviewing a work in its original language? Should the critic be bilingual? An expert in the literature and history of a foreign culture? Join an expert panel of international authors, critics, and translators as they explore the nexus of translation and criticism.

Dialogue Series: Jennifer Egan on How to Create Your Own Rules with Michael Kimmelman
When: Friday, May 4
Where: The School of Writing at The New School, Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th St.
What Time: 6–7:30 p.m.

What shapes a novel beyond its beginning, middle, and end? Does structure trigger narrative? Author of 2011’s genre-defying, A Visit From The Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan will explore the role of structure in writing and reading, sharing her perspective on the “rules” and her process in bending them.

Standard Talks: Alex Gilvarry, Nadia Kalman, Justin Torres, and others; Instigated by Randy Cohen; hosted by Sunny Bates
When: Friday, May 4
Where: The Standard, East Village, 25 Cooper Square
What Time: 6:30–9:30 p.m.

If I didn’t already have plans to go to the Jennifer Egan talk, I would go to this.

In Exquisite Corpse, a special writing game, a writing prompt is given and each player-participant becomes a collaborator in the writing assignment. At the 2012 Festival, acclaimed writers, including Nadia Kahlman and Justin Torres, will join forces with notable New Yorkers to launch the game. Audience participation may ensue.

Best European Fiction with Patrick Boltshauser, Róbert Gál, and Noëlle Revaz; moderated by Aleksandar Hemon
When: Saturday, May 5
Where: The School of Writing at The New School, Room 510, 66 West 12th St.
What time: 1–2:30 p.m.

Three authors—Noëlle Revaz (Switzerland), Patrick Boltshauser (Liechtenstein), and Róbert Gál (Slovakia)—read from their work, discussing their ideas about writing, and sharing their perspectives on what’s happening in literature in their parts of the world.

David thinks you should check out:

A Clockwork Orange Operetta (U.S. Premiere)
When: Monday, April 30
Where: The Standard, New York, 848 Washington St., New York City
What time: 10 p.m.

This operetta based on recently discovered lyrics by Anthony Burgess (and based on the seminal novel of the same name) may be the highlight of the festival for me.

TimesTalks: Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, and E.L. Doctorow
When: Wednesday, May 2
Where: The Times Center, 242 W. 41st St., New York City
What time: 6:30–8:30 p.m.

A.O. Scott interviews the three legendary fiction writers.

Marjane Satrapi: Persepolis and Poulet aux Prunes (Chicken with Plums)
When: Thursday, May 3
Where: The Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St., New York City
What time: 4:30–6:05 p.m. (Persepolis) and 8–10:15 p.m. (Poule aux Prunes)

Screening of Marjane Satrapi’s latest film, Poulet aux Prunes (Chicken with Plums).

Satrapi will discuss her strategies for storytelling in film with graphic artist Françoise Mouly and MoMA’s Sally Berger at the 8 o’clock sitting.

Dialogue Series: Margaret Atwood on the Writers’ Mind and the Digital Otherworld
When: Thursday, May 3
Where: The School of Writing at The New School, Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th St., New York City
What time: 6–7:30 p.m.

We both think you should know about this:

Continuing PEN’s American Classics series, Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan curates her top ten list of literary works. Swing by McNally Jackson for the complete list.

Largehearted Boy and Girls Write Now Take Over WORD

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Last night at WORD, David Gutowski celebrated his the 10th anniversary of his site, Largehearted Boy, with a fundraiser for Girls Write Now, a local organization that pairs at-risk girls from New York City’s underfunded public high schools with professional women writers. Through a network of volunteers, these girls receive individual and group writing instruction. While half of New York City’s youth fail to graduate from high school, 100% of Girls Write Now participants go onto college, often with awards and scholarships.

Lots of people came out to show their support and entered the raffle to win armloads of books donated by various publishers as well as a gift certificate to McNally Jackson.

David of Largehearted Boy and local author Emily St. John Mandel hang out upstairs before waiting for the appropriate time to attack the wine

Kiesha, The Brooklyn Baker, once again contributed amazing cupcakes.

Jason Diamond and Tobias Carroll from Vol1Brooklyn and Mike Fusco of M+E, a.k.a Emma Straub’s equally awesome half, chat before the reading — probably about books.

Angie Venezia, Alex Houstoun, and Courtney Allison came out to represent the Vintage / Anchor Publicity crew

Here’s Mike, Emma, and FSG’s Online Marketing Manager Ryan Chapman
enjoying cupcakes

WORD event coordinator, Jenn Northington, introduces Girls Write Now

Local author Jen Gilmore, in celebration of Largehearted Boy’s 10th, explained her hatred for birthdays and then delighted the crowd with a reading from her novel Something Red.

Local musician and author Alina Simone and her good buddy Maria Sonevytsky from The Debutante Hour, showed some Slav-pride by singing the Russian version of Happy Birthday, which might just be better than the English version. Maria then sang and played ‘Miracle Birth‘, which, I think, made everyone in the room an instant fan.

Here’s Tobias, frequent event-goer Molly Templeton, and their friend hanging out in between readers.

Yea, lots of people

The lovely, and also local, Emma Straub read from her short story collection, Other People We Married.

Stephen Elliott, Editor-in-Chief of The Rumpus, looks on as David reads off the winners.

Electric Lit contributor Ryan Chang goes home with an arm-load of books.

Ryan Chapman waves to the camera.

Jen Gilmore and Jason Diamond are getting ready to end the night — or maybe head
out to a local bar.

Girls Write Now Program Director Meghan McNamara and mentor Therese Cox
enjoying their party.

Disclaimer: David Gutowski co-runs this site. He is not writing this, Gabrielle is — and she would do it even if they weren’t buddies. It was an excellent event for an excellent cause.

SMITH Magazine Brings Their Moments to Greenlight This Thursday

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Although best known for their Six-Word-Memoir series, SMITH Magazine started out as a space for longer-form storytelling. Recently, they’ve published a collection of personal essays, “The Moment: Wild, Poignant, Life-Changing Stories from 125 Writers and Artists, Famous & Obscure”.

On Thursday, January 26, founder and Editor-in-Chief, Larry Smith, will host a reading at Greenlight with just a few of the outstanding contributors. The launch at McNally Jackson earlier this month was great, we suggest you don’t miss this one.

Larry spoke with Book Boroughing about the project and mentioned an upcoming Six-Word-Memoir reading at 92Y Tribeca on February 14th that we suggest you go to as well.

SMITH Magazine is best known for its Six-Word Memoir series, what made you expand into the essay?
The longer essay form was a return to the roots of SMITH. When I launched the site in January 2006, the idea was to create a place for personal storytelling in words, first and foremost, but also in photos, comics and video. We had an unexpected success with our graphic novels (such as A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, which recounted the true story of even people who survived Hurricane Katrina), but words were always the soul of the site. It wasn’t like we thought we were creating some monster site like YouTube here—and I never had funding or money for marketing—but people found SMITH and liked it and we grew day by day. At the end of 2006 we launched the Six-Word Memoir project, which became a bestselling book series. Its success gave me the opportunity to post “What’s your Moment” as a new prompt, with a pretty good sense we’d make a book.

This new book, “The Moment: Wild, Poignant, Life-Changing Stories from 125 Writers and Artists, Famous & Obscure,” is a collection of personal essays from writers and artists about the moment that changed their lives. You mention that it started as a writing prompt, how did the initial idea come about?
The idea came about mainly by just listening to the kinds of stories I loved telling and hearing. I got the chance to meet people from all part of the country when we toured for the Six-Word Memoir book series and I heard one refrain again and again: “I have the most amazing story to tell you.” These stories often revolved around a very specific event that had made a very big impact on the teller’s life and led to conversations — “That’s my moment, what’s yours?” It made sense to carve out space on smithmag.net for what we called “The Moment,” which was really getting back to the original notion of SMITH being a place for longer storytelling. The stories started coming in, and they were weird and wonderful, and like six words, some version of self-expression with a touch of therapy tossed in.

What were you expecting from people and how did your assumptions compare with what was submitted?
Having done SMITH for a while, especially reading hundreds of thousands of Six-Word Memoirs, I had a pretty good sense that people would dig deep and write honest, intense, weird, surprising stories in a public space. With six words, teens tend to write very much in “the moment,” some post hundreds of six-worders on SMITHTeens.com a day, like a daily diary, and of course there’s tons of angst and drama.

I knew that the adults, especially the older set, tend to look back more wistfully at their lives revealing lessons learned, with more comfort in their skin. That largely true generalization carried over to The Moment. What I mean is that many of the stories are by adults thinking about a time in their young lives—under the age of 20, let’s say—when they understand that life is hard, unfair, full of disappointments. In a comic-drawn Moment about watching the Red Sox lose the World Series with her dad, Molly Lawless writes, “I realized there was no connection between how badly you wanted something and whether you got it.” Adults, by and large, see that imperfections in ourselves and the universe make us better. In a story about her husband Paul West’s stroke, Diane Ackerman offer this lovely passage:

“Life changed dramatically, and we changed along with it. But that’s always the secret to a long marriage, isn’t it? It’s not really one marriage but several. People change, events change them, and their life as a couple evolves. To stay together and thrive, one has to make space for those changes, including both sun and shadow.”

You mentioned you had a few guidelines, what were they?
We didn’t post any restrictions as to what constitutes a person’s “moment,” but when people asked me for guidance, I gently suggested, “No births, Bar Mitzvahs or weddings.” A few birth stories slipped in there, both, as it turns out by fathers. The opening of this NPR segment includes a clip of John Carnett reading his moment about the birth of his first son. It’s short and mesmerizing, as so many Moments are.

You put on an annual reading at the 92Y Tribeca for your Six-Word Memoirs, what do you like best about live readings?
We did four shows at 92YTribeca last year. Our next one is the annual February 14 “Six-Words on Love & Heartbreak” story show. Hearing stories come out of people, in a room full of folks who could choose to do almost anything in the world but decided to spend their night hearing strangers tell true stories about their lives, is a total high. It’s a totally different experience than reading the words on a page, hearing them on a podcast or watching them on YouTube. When live storytelling is really humming, there’s nothing like it.

What can people expect at Greenlight on January 26th?
At McNally Jackson we had an intensely packed line-up of storytellers offering their moments, or excerpts of them, in words, images and video. On paper it looked like too much content, too long a reading. And what we saw was that no one moved. The audience wasn’t just receptive, but rapt. We have an almost completely different line-up for Greenlight, and I’m expecting a similar kind of evening: powerful, personal storytelling in front of a crowd that loves it. And then we’re going to go down the street and have a party.