Luke Goebel’s debut novel, Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours, actually only contains thirteen stories. A poetic explanation might simply be that the fourteenth story is the one created when the individual parts come together as a amalgamated narrative, but Goebel confesses that he just “fucked up.” He liked the mistake though, and kept the title, explaining the title to Tobias Carroll, editor of Vol 1 Brooklyn. Greenlight Bookstore hosted the pair, in conjunction with Franklin Park Reading Series’s curator Penina Roth, on Monday for a reading and discussion.

More »

The London Review of Books hosted a panel on 21st Century Narrators at the Brooklyn Book Festival. LRB senior editor Christian Lorentzen moderated Elif Batuman, Ben Lerner, Christine Smallwood, and Lorin Stein in a discussion. Batuman is a non-fiction writer who regularly contributes to The New Yorker and author of The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. Lerner is the author of the novels Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04. Christine Smallwood is a columnist for Harper’s Magazine and Lorin Stein is the editor of Paris Review.

More »

As concerns over the football industry’s head traumas continue to rise, author Steve Almond has released a personal, moral examination of the sport implications for himself as a fan. Spoiler: he gave up watching. Against Football, described as a manifesto, explores Almond’s evolving views on the sport from the way players are treated to the message the game sends to viewers. He was joined at The Strand by Stephen Elliott, founder of The Rumpus, to discuss the book and the sport.

More »

“Angie felt like a throwback to another era, like she hadn’t evolved at the same rate as her classmates and friends.”

Bridgett M. Davis spoke these words Tuesday night as she read from the first chapter of her second novel, Into the Go-Slow (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2014). Davis’ sophomore publication tells the story of Angie, the college-aged protagonist, as she investigates the traces left by her mercurial older sister who died mysteriously while on vacation in Lagos, Nigeria. The more readers learn of Ella, the ill-fated sister, the more apparent her influence on Angie becomes. Into the Go-Slow is a story of Pan-Africanism in the 70’s, 80’s, and beyond, a story about pursuing your roots, no matter where they might take you.

More »

René Steinke read from her third novel, Friendswood (August 2014), for the Brooklyn launch of the novel. Minna Proctor, the editor of The Literary Review, introduced Steinke. Friendswood pans the perspectives of four primary characters in a small Texas town, Friendswood, as a toxic waste leak sickens local residents.

More »

A Brief Introduction:

This interview series is an attempt to engage with the people who work — and shape — the literary community in New York City. It will focus on the players behind the scenes, or behind the shelves, or whatever metaphor you choose: bookstore owners, event coordinators, reading curators, hosts, New York-based writers and editors, small press publishers, series and festival organizers, and bar owners with literary leanings. If you’d like to be interviewed, please do contact us.

It is our hope to regularly provide an interview focusing on the literary-minded men and women whose tireless efforts often times go unnoticed. Soon, features and profiles should make their way onto the site. Again, if you’re interested in being a subject, or if you’d like to write something, shoot us an email.

The first conversation is with Jenn Northington, the Events Director at WORD Bookstore in Greenpoint and Jersey City.

More »

Dolan Morgan launched his debut collection of short stories That’s When the Knives Come Down at WORD bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Joining him were B.C. Edwards and Chelsea Hodson. He gave out plastic knives to the crowd–a nod to the title of the collection–and brought with him vodka infused with the pages of his novel.

More »

People aren’t often taught how to deal with failure. Even watching interviews with famous people chat about missteps doesn’t seem to hit home because we never saw that part. Their disappointments seem cute as opposed to career questioning. For writers, failure is most evident on stage. Unlike piles of rejection slips one can stuff in a draw, light on fire, or scrapbook, in front of a crowd, a person has to respond. They must get comfortable with silence or deal with too much noise. This too is true of comedians and is why I sometimes pretend I’m a standup comic rather than a poet. Although maybe it’s because comics are the more socially acceptable of the low-paid artists. If you tell someone you’re a poet, they look confused; say you’re a comic, they fervently discuss Louis CK. Of course, a poet bombing looks rather different than a comic, but that image is fun to examine, and it still explores ideas of failure and heckling that are necessary for any artist.

More »