The New York City Reading Series Census is an ongoing project to catalogue the contemporary literary scene. Any reading series curator in the New York area can take the survey here.

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What is the name of the series, and what is the significance or meaning of the series name?
We are “An Angry Reading Series.” We wanted to put together a reading series that could be a space for impassioned, evocative pieces of work, centred around the theme of anger and frustration. This is a very political time in the world, and we wanted to be a literary platform where writers could come, share their work, and heal through a supportive community. And because we believe in saying it like it is, we didn’t want to play around with the name too much. So we went literal.

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What is the name of the series, and what is the significance or meaning of the series name?
The Difficult to Name Reading Series. I just couldn’t think of a name.

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David Burr Gerrard discusses The Epiphany Machine, why he doesn’t have tattoos and generational conflict.

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Joe Okonkwo and Jonathan Corcoran read from their Lambda Literary nominated books and talked about craft, research, and place.

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Hala Alyan discusses her debut novel, Salt Houses, feeling like an outsider, and convincing herself nobody would read her novel.

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By all accounts, 2016 could have been better, and I’m not even talking about the Presidential election or celebrity deaths. The year had just begun when St. Mark’s Bookshop, an East Village staple known for esoteric consignment zines, art books, and poetry, announced it would close for the second time.

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Scott Hess loves to tantalize a reader. His gorgeous prose soars off the page like the symbolic building in his latest novel, Skyscraper—a story of art, lust, and unexpected transformation. His previous novel, The Butcher’s Sons, was named a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2015, and in all of his books, Hess pushes boundaries while also pushing readers to the edge of their wildest fantasies. I caught up with Hess to learn more about Skyscraper and his unrelenting passion.

Amy Dupcak: Another new novel, congrats! Your last book, The Butcher’s Sons, was historical fiction set in 1930s Hell’s Kitchen, but Skyscraper takes place in present-day New York. How do you choose the time period and setting for your novels? And how else does Skyscraper differ from The Butcher’s Sons?

Scott Alexander Hess: The dynamics of the story guide me to the time period. With The Butcher’s Sons, I wanted to tell a tale of three brothers in a butcher shop in Hell’s Kitchen, and the grit and intensity of that neighborhood circa 1930 made sense to me. Also, the brothers’ conflicts, which include an interracial relationship and a gay affair, were really amped up due to the danger surrounding these types of relationships in the 1930s. Skyscraper is a sharp, modern book of obsession and boundary pushing sex. As I began writing that novel, it demanded a bristling modern city scene.

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David Szalay was read from his novel All That Man Is, a narrative that spans the perspectives of nine men over the course of nine months. He discussed the novel with Fiona McCrae, publisher at Graywolf Press.

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