Southern Writers Reading Series

Schoonebeek, Pease, Stone, and Moharreri at Southern Writers!

epo513 — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:05:00 +0000

This past year, a lot happened at the Southern Writers Reading Series. Most of it was amazing, some of it was not. Though you may want to dwell on that one reading where you had to get your stomach pumped or the one where you woke the next day with a dead ostrich in your bed—this is not the time to think about that. This is the time to look to the future—the big bright glorious future with no vague memories of duct tape and an icy bathtub in Chinatown. So on Wednesday, January 11th, the Southern Writers Reading Series is getting the future kicked off with a fantastic reading by four of your favorite writers: Danniel Schoonebeek, Ben Pease, Bianca Stone, and Ata Moharreri. Join us around 7:30pm at Happy Ending Lounge and together lets build a bigger, brighter future full of beautiful poetry and fiction and none of that “someone stole my kidney at your reading series” business.*

More or less,
The Reverend

*Anyone accusing the Reverend or his apostles of engaging in the all-American free market exchange of human organs will immediately be excommunicated from the SWRS.

Fama, McLure, McLoghlin, and Hyde at Southern Writers!

epo513 — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 17:48:32 +0000

What is it about the SOUTHERN WRITERS READING SERIES that is so great? Is it the six-armed bartender? the fur-lined goblets? the lizard-women that slip into our pockets and nibble holes in them so we lose all of our money? All these things are great but what makes Southern Writers unique is that it is the only reading series which consistently features a real live four-headed cherub. And this month that four-headed cherub is composed of BEN FAMA, VIRGINIA MCLURE, DAVID MCLOGHLIN, and JEN HYDE (pictured above). If you don’t believe me, come to Happy Ending Lounge (302 Broome St.) this Wednesday (10/12) at 7:30pm and witness this marvel with your own eyes.

more or less,

The Reverend

TONIGHT: POWER, BUCKLEY, WHITAKER and EDWARDS at SOUTHERN WRITERS!

epo513 — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:27:50 +0000

Are you SINGLE? Are you still looking for the ONE? Then make a date with the SOUTHERN WRITERS READING SERIES! Just come to Happy Ending Lounge TONIGHT, August 10th and meet the reading series of your dreams. With this month’s readings by Allison Power, Jillian Quinn Buckley, Kayla Rae Whitaker and Jan Edwards, this Series is the ONE for you. Be sure to get there around 7:30pm and be prepared to experience some of the greatest poetry and fiction that this world has to offer. The SOUTHERN WRITERS READING SERIES is available and in your area. What are you waiting for!
See you there!
Velvet Jones

Southern Writers to participate in the first Annual New York Poetry Festival on Governor’s Island!

epo513 — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 22:54:53 +0000

On July 30th and 31st, an army of poets will descend on Governor’s Island and hold the first annual New York Poetry Festival. Everyone is jumping onboard. With readings from over 30 different series and 100 poets, it will be a showcase of all the different formats, aesthetics, and personalities of the New York poetry world. The Southern Writers Reading Series will take the ADMIRAL stage on Saturday at 2pm. With the Reverend as your host and readings by Curtis Rogers, Sarah Levine, Monica McClure, Patricia Spears Jones and Yusef Komunyakaa this is one event that you won’t want to miss. So put on some sunblock, hop on the ferry to Governor’s Island and be sure to bring your church fan cause we gonna make it real hot.

Reading October 13th 7:30PM

epo513 — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 19:52:02 +0000

Hey everyone,
The southern boys are bringing the heat to Happy Ending Lounge!! Please come out to 302 Broome Street this Wednesday October 13th to hear:
Angelo Nikolopoulos
JP Shuffman
Keegan Lester
Ronnie Yates
Angelo Nikolopoulos is a graduate from NYU’s creative writing program. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The AWL, Boxcar Poetry Review, Ganymede, Gay and Lesbian Review, Los Angeles Review, and Pha’titude: The Lavender Issue. He hosts The White Swallow, a reading series at Cornelia Street Cafe.
JP Schuffman misses Tennessee. He misses southern accents and deep long quiet. He only began to think of himself as a southern writer once he moved to New York. He blames northern winters and New Jersey for this. He is a poet, playwright and novelist, which means that he waits tables.
Keegan Lester, though born in Southern California, spent most of his summers and winter breaks in Morgantown, West Virginia, wandering in the back alleyways and small patches of wilderness near his grandmother’s porch, often playing at night in the cemetary at the edge of her street. At eighteen he moved from Southern California permanently to attend West Virginia University, and to live in the state in which he most identified with his entire life. He is currently a second year grad student at Columbia University’s School of the Arts MFA program in poetry, and is also the co-founder and curater of the monthly reading series and blog Metro-Rhythm, in Williamsburg. His first poem ever written (from when he was around 8 years old) still hangs framed in his grandmother’s house.
Ronnie Yates has studied at the University of Houston, Harvard Divinity School, and received an MFA from New York University. He has lived abroad, taught some, and is currently straight-drifting. Scuffing along the streets of Denver, rooting around the deserts and canyons of Southern Utah, riding the California Zephyr to the end of the line. Next stop, Maine, to wander off into the woods with Ethan.

Gulf Oil Spill: Poems of Protest 7:30PM Wednesday June 9th

epo513 — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:07:29 +0000

BP has committed a crime against the earth and a crime against US States along the gulf.
This must be documented not just in photographs, not just by newspapers, but, also by poets in verse.
Please come out for an environmentally conscious Southern Writers Reading Series!!
date: Wednesday June 9th
time: 7:30PM
venue: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth & Eldridge
cost: $5 suggested donation. All proceeds go towards relief efforts in the gulf!
featuring:
Ted Dodson
Jeffery Berg
Curtis Jensen
Myron Michael
Jeffery Berg‘s poetry has recently been featured in Harpur Palate, Hiram Poetry Review, the Gay & Lesbian Review, and is forthcoming in Inertia Magazine. He recieved his MFA from New York University and co-edits the online journal Clementine. He grew up in Six Mile, South Carolina and Lynchburg, Virginia and currently resides in New York.

Ted Dodson is a poet and translator living in Brooklyn. He was born and raised in Middleburg, VA, serves as the senior poetry editor for the Brooklyn Review, and holds an MFA in poetry from Brooklyn College, where he also teaches. Select publication and an interview can be found in the Providence-based journal, Interrobang.

Curtis Jensen is an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing Program at Brooklyn College. His work is published in The Bridge and forthcoming in Precipitate and The Equalizer. He is the author of 5 chapbooks, and he curates the Prospect literary series. Previous to Brooklyn, he has lived and worked in Utah, Wyoming, and Ukraine. He maintains a blog at theendofwaste.blogspot.com.

Proprietor of Rondeau Records Myron Michael is a recording artist and writing instructor. He received an MFA in writing from California College of the Arts and is a Cave Canem fellow. His poems appear online and in The Blink, Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds (City Lights, 2009), Tea Party, Reverie, Pluck, and Nanomajority, respectively. He is the founder of Move Or Die and lives in the Bay Area where he curates HELIOTROPE a monthly reading series.

Reading & Birthday Celebration May 12th at 7:30PM

epo513 — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:29:24 +0000

Hello hello friends,
Please come out on May 12th for a very special edition of the Southern Writers Reading Series!!
I am celebrating my birthday and would love nothing more than a packed house of friends, acquaintances, even a few strangers mingled in.
You’ll be sad if you miss:
**guest hostess Monica McClure & all her Texas charm
**the return of Saeed Jones and Susan Miller
**yours truly sharing 15 minutes of poetry
venue: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth & Eldridge
time: 7:30PM
date: Wednesday May 12th
featuring:
Susan L. Miller has been published in Iowa Review, Commonweal, Calyx, Sewanee Theological Review, Meridian, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. In 2009 her manuscript was a semi-finalist for the Alice James Kinereth Gensler prize and a finalist for the Autumn House Poetry Prize. She recently received a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Award for poetry. She teaches Creative Writing and Expository Writing at Rutgers University and lives in Brooklyn.
Saeed Jones received his BA in English at Western Kentucky University where he was the arts editor for Rise Over Run Magazine and recipient of the 2008 Jim Wayne Miller Award for Poetry. He’s currently a MFA student at Rutgers University – Newark. His poetry has appeared in StorySouth, The Adirondack Review, Word Riot, and Pluck! among other publications.
Ekoko Omadeke feels like a half million dollars in her new dress. She would like to thank all her friends and acquaintances who make NY feel more like home than VA.

Reading April 14th at 7:30PM

epo513 — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 20:35:08 +0000

Hello everyone,
The sun is shining; the weather is sweet. Makes you want to catch Southern Writers on April 14th!!
date: Wednesday April 14th
time: 7:30PM
venue: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth and Eldridge
Please come out and show much needed sunshiny love to Jan Edwards, Jill Shreve, Leah Winkler, and Mike Soto
Jan Edwards was born and raised in Monroe, Louisiana, which is better than West Monroe, Louisiana, because people in Monroe don’t keep horses in their front yards. Jan’s proudest accomplishment as of late is the fact that the two-year-old she babysits for pronounces the word “there” with two syllables, just like Jan does. Jan is a first year poet in New York University’s MFA program.
After growing up in rural south Texas, Jill Noel Shreve moved to Austin where she completed her BA in English at the University of Texas. She then went on to graduate-level study at Dallas Theological Seminary, graduating with a double masters. Currently, she’s working on her MFA in Memoir at Hunter College. Her project for the MFA program, tentatively titled The House on Highway 97, is a memoir, set in rural south-Texas, focused on the way three women (grandmother, mother and daughter) persevered through life events. Jill lives in Westchester County on the Hudson River with her husband Erik, but she daily pines for the mesquites, mockingbirds and sunshine of south Texas.
Leah Winkler was born in Kamkaura, Japan and raised in Kentucky. She is a co/founder of Everywhere Theatre Group and has directed her plays at HERE arts Center, the Ontological Hysteric Theater, The Wings Theater and random venues like boats and bars. She is the APA commissioned writer for the Japanese American National Museum for her essays about being a southern hapa on the East Coast. She will be reading her essay ” On Isolation” from her Discover Nikkei collection.
Mike Soto believes in discussions between trees. He grew up in Dallas overhearing trains on the Santa Fe Railroad, and in a small town in Mexico, overhearing swallows. His chapbook, Beyond The Shadow’s Ink, was published in February by Jeanne Duval Editions. He’ll be reading poems tonight.

Reading March 10th at 7:30PM

epo513 — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 02:18:48 +0000

Hi everyone!!
(Q) If April showers bring May flowers, what does February snow bring to March?
(A) The Southern Writers Reading Series, of course!
date: March 10th
time: 7:30PM
venue: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth & Eldridge
Please come out to hear the vivacious and talented: Linsday Turner, Peyton Burgess, Sativa January, Shane Manieri and Steve Roberts
Lindsay Turner grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee. She graduated from Harvard College with a degree in English and has since received a Masters degree in film studies from the Université Paris III Sorbonne – Nouvelle, where she also taught. Her poems and criticism have appeared or are forthcoming in Meridian, VERSE online, The Boston Review, Drunken Boat, and elsewhere. She is currently an MFA candidate at NYU, and she lives in Brooklyn.
Peyton Burgess was born in Richmond, Virginia, but was supposed to be born in New Orleans.
Sativa January is from Austin, Texas. Her work has been published in Joyland and in the International Journal for Transitional Justice. She’s a recent finalist for Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers and is Co Fiction Editor at The Washington Square Review. This year, Sativa is an NYU Iraq Veterans Writing Fellow. She’s working on a book of short stories and a novel based on her experiences as video producer for a war crimes tribunal in West Africa.
Shane Manieri, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, writes about growing up in the bayou state, its outcasts and its “who dats.” His mother, a genteel Southerner, was passive aggressive. His father, a preacher, obsessed with sex and religion, was at turns distant and adulterous. Although Shane spent much of his adult life in New York City, his work focuses on the Southern experience.
Steve Roberts is from Dallas, Texas. Not a suburb of Dallas, but actually from within city limits! He writes a little bit of everything, but for tonight, poetry. He is the co-curator with Lauren Ireland of the Reading at Chrystie St, and co-chairs the upcoming Invisible Magazine with Lauren as well. He believes Texans are the best people on Earth. P.S. George W. Bush is not a Texan.

Reading February 10th at 7:30PM

epo513 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:35:28 +0000

Hello southern writing friends!
Though the weather outside is frightful, the Southern Writers Reading Series is so delightful!
date: February 10th
time: 7:30PM
venue: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth & Eldridge
Please come out to hear the vivacious and talented: Linsday Turner, Peyton Burgess, Sativa January, Shane Manieri and Steve Roberts
Lindsay Turner grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee. She graduated from Harvard College with a degree in English and has since received a Masters degree in film studies from the Université Paris III Sorbonne – Nouvelle, where she also taught. Her poems and criticism have appeared or are forthcoming in Meridian, VERSE online, The Boston Review, Drunken Boat, and elsewhere. She is currently an MFA candidate at NYU, and she lives in Brooklyn.
Peyton Burgess was born in Richmond, Virginia, but was supposed to be born in New Orleans.
Sativa January is from Austin, Texas. Her work has been published in Joyland and in the International Journal for Transitional Justice. She’s a recent finalist for Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers and is Co Fiction Editor at The Washington Square Review. This year, Sativa is an NYU Iraq Veterans Writing Fellow. She’s working on a book of short stories and a novel based on her experiences as video producer for a war crimes tribunal in West Africa.
Shane Manieri, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, writes about growing up in the bayou state, its outcasts and its “who dats.” His mother, a genteel Southerner, was passive aggressive. His father, a preacher, obsessed with sex and religion, was at turns distant and adulterous. Although Shane spent much of his adult life in New York City, his work focuses on the Southern experience.
Steve Roberts is from Dallas, Texas. Not a suburb of Dallas, but actually from within city limits! He writes a little bit of everything, but for tonight, poetry. He is the co-curator with Lauren Ireland of the Reading at Chrystie St, and co-chairs the upcoming Invisible Magazine with Lauren as well. He believes Texans are the best people on Earth. P.S. George W. Bush is not a Texan.