Photos from Featherless #13

Edward Gauvin

Kate Durbin

Camille Roy

Thanks to everyone for coming out.  Our next event will be March 9th.

Featherless #13

February's Featherless surprises and delights.  On the lineup: Edward Gauvin, Kate Durbin, and Camille Roy.  On February 10th, 2012, at 8 pm, join us at Stories Books & Cafe for a literary evening. 

Bios to follow:

The winner of the John Dryden Translation prize, Edward Gauvin has received fellowships and residencies from the NEA, the Fulbright Program, the Centre National du Livre, and the American Literary Translators' Association. His volume of Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud’s selected stories, A Life on Paper (Small Beer, 2010) won the Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award and was shortlisted for the Best Translated Book Award. Other translations have appeared in Tin House, Subtropics, The Harvard Review, The Southern Review, AGNI Online, and PEN America. The contributing editor for Francophone comics at Words Without Borders, he translates comics for Top Shelf, Archaia, and Lerner.

Writing under the name H.V. Chao, his fiction has previously been published in Epiphany, Nanoism, and Diet Soap. He is a first year fiction PhD student at USC.

Kate Durbin is a Los Angeles-based writer and performance artist. Her books include The Ravenous Audience (Akashic Books), E! Entertainment (Insert/Blanc Press Diamond Edition, forthcoming), Gaga Stigmata (Zg Press, forthcoming), The Fashion Issue (Zg Press, forthcoming), and, with Amaranth Borsuk, ABRA (Zg Press, forthcoming).

Camille Roy is a writer and performer of fiction, poetry, and plays. Her book, Sherwood Forest came out in 2011 from Futurepoem. She co-edited Biting The Error: Writers Explore Narrative, a book of essays by writers on their own experimental practices (CoachHouse). Her books include Cheap Speech, a play, from Leroy, and Craquer, a fictional autobiography from 2^nd Story Books , as well as Swarm (two novellas, Black Star Series). Earlier books include The Rosy Medallions (poetry and prose, from Kelsey St Press) and Cold Heaven (plays, from Leslie Scalapino's O Books). She was a founding editor of the online journal Narrativity (http://www.sfsu.edu/~poetry/narrativity). Roy has taught creative writing in multiple genres and forms at several institutions, including San Francisco State University, California State University SummerArts, and Naropa.

Exciting!  Exciting!

Photos from Featherless #12

Ebony Williams

Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal

Tim Cummings

Thanks to the writers and audience for a magical night.  Stay tuned for our next event on February 10th.

Featherless #12

It's the first Featherless of 2012, and we have three exciting readers for January.  Ebony Williams, Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal and Tim Cummings will present their work at Stories Books & Cafe at 8 pm on Friday, January 13th.

Ebony Williams is a native New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn. Her work usually falls on the side of creative non-fiction and isn’t afraid to straddle the line between poetry and prose. Her work tends to explore the experiences of women in the Diaspora as well as the female body as container for memory, for culture, for an ancestral home often impacted by trauma. Ebony attended Wheaton College in Norton, MA for undergrad majoring in Sociology with a minor in English literature with a focus on creative writing. She spent two-years running the Women and Gender Program at Wheaton College’s Marshall Center for Intercultural Learning after graduating. Currently, Ebony is in her final year of pursuing her Master’s of Fine Arts in Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. In addition, Ebony is working on a work of hybrid creative non-fiction, How To Build A Ragdoll, as well as a mixed media visual art instillation and workshop series titled, The Ragdoll Project. Ebony is also on the third book of a Science Fiction trilogy, Grey Society.

Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal is a pop culture rubbernecker and NYC traitor to LA. Her writing has been published in The Collagist, PANK, and Work Magazine, presented at the 2011 &Now Festival of Innovative Writing, and is forthcoming in the inaugural Artists Among Artists collection Faggot Dinosaur. She recently received a Lambda Literary Fellowship and is finishing an MFA in Writing at CalArts.

Tim Cummings was born and raised in New York, and holds a degree in theater and writing from New York University.  He is a passionate storyteller who works in a variety of mediums: writing, visuals, theater, film, music, and dance.  His most recent collection of short fiction, ORPHANS, was released this past summer to critical acclaim.  His most recent stage appearances were in The Walworth Farce at Theatre Banshee, and the ten-year anniversary performances of Anne Nelson’s 9/11 play The Guys at The Flea Theater in New York City.  Tim is an octopus and spider enthusiast and is, in general, a lover of all octolegged creatures. 

Delicious snacks and coffee will be available in the bookstore cafe, so stay and mingle. 

Photos from Featherless #11

Kristoffer Huelgas

Angela Peñaredondo

Diana Salier

Many thanks to the poets and participants for a great reading.  Our next event will be January 13, 2012.  Happy winterfest!

Featherless #11

It's Fall!  This November features Kristoffer Huelgas, Angela Peñaredondo and Diana Salier at Stories Books and Cafe.   On Friday, November 11th at 8pm, the back patio at 1716 Sunset Blvd will be loud with poetry.

Their bios:

Kristoffer Huelgas originally got interested in poetry to impress girls. By the time he realized the assumption was unfounded, it was too late. Drawing influences from art, literature, and contemporary pop culture, he endeavors to find the heart of the matter; the most important aspects of the most minute and miniscule. In 2009 Kristoffer received his BA in English with a focus on creative writing, studying under the tutelage of Kenyon poetry prize winner Leilani Hall and Pushcart Prize winner Dorothy Barresi. Kristoffer was born in, raised on, and fed Los Angeles, but has also been known to get lost in the Pacific Northwest for considerable stints. He is a regular reader at Canoga Park’s Cobalt Café where he has been featured.  He currently resides in Sun Valley, California, where he considers himself laureate.

Angela Peñaredondo is an emerging Los Angeles poet and visual artist. She was born in Iloilo City, Philippines and grew up in Los Angeles and San Francisco areas.  She received her BFA from San Francisco State University and also studied mixed media arts in the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane, Australia.  Angela has a professional background in art management, curatorial practice and youth advocacy.  She was awarded a UCLA Community Access Scholarship for poetry and a Fishtrap Fellowship.

Diana Salier is a musician and person who writes.  Her first chapbook WIKIPEDIA SAYS IT WILL PASS  was released on Deadly Chaps Press in September 2011.  She's a graduate of NYU's creative writing program, and her work has appeared in Every Day Genius, Nap Magazine, Red Lightbulbs, 3:AM Magazine, and Robot Melon, among other places.  She's currently working on a full-length collection called Letters From Robots.  She grew up in a house in Los Angeles and now lives in an apartment in San Francisco.  She writes a lot about outerspace but has never been there.

Photos from Featherless #10

Diana Arterian reads from "The Catskill Eagle"

Stephen van Dyck reads "He."

Lisa Teasley reads from Heat Signature

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the first Featherless event at our new location, Stories Books in Echo Park.  Our next event will be Friday, November 11th at 8pm. Hope to see you then!