Vermin on the Mount

Vermin in San Diego May 5

Holy Cinco de Mayo Ratman! A week after VOTM LA, Vermin returns to 3rdSpace on Saturday, May 5 at 7pm with an explosive line-up:

You've heard GRANT BARRETT on the popular show A Way with Words, now watch him work his magic live and in person.

BRIAN EVENSON's books can be found in the horror, mystery, and experimental lit sections of better bok stores. His latest is a post-apocalyptic tale called Immobility.

Traveling all the way from Louisville, Kentucky, the managing editor of Sarabande Books, KIRBY GANN will read from his new novel Ghosting. 

JUSTIN HUDNALL, So Say We All's head honcho and all around good guy, will try to fool you into forgetting he's from Arkansas. And suceed.  

AMELIA GRAY is preparing to destroy you and there's nothing you can do.  

ANNE-MARIE KINNEY is the production editor at Black Clock and the author of the debut novel Radio Iris. 

New York author CHRISTOPHER NAROZNY is crossing the country to celebrate his debut novel Jonah Man.

And a huge shout out to the man with 73 learning disabilities, poster artist Goodloe Byron! 

Look Who's Coming to Vermin (LA): Lauren-Eggert Crowe

VOTM: What's the most unusual experience you've ever had at a reading? 

EGGERT-CROWE: I haven't had many strange experiences at readings, but I did once sit next to a man who heckled and cat-called two of my favorite writers. I thought he was a lunatic who'd wandered in off the street, but it turned out he was their teacher and editor. Probably better that I don't name names.

Lauren Eggert-Crowe was born and raised in rural Pensylvania. After a four year stint in the magical fairyland of Santa Cruz, where she lived so close to the ocean she could hear sea lions from her bedroom window, she relocated to Los Angeles to work as a freelance writer. She has written for The Rumpus, L.A. Review of Books, The Murky Fringe, and Blue Jean Gourmet. Her poetry has been published in several journals, including Puerto Del Sol, DIAGRAM,Terrain.org, Water-Stone Review, Eleven Eleven, and We Are So Happy To Know Something. Her first chapbook, The Exhibit, is forthcoming from Hyacinth Girl Press in January 2013.

Hole up with Lauren for a while at 826LA East in Echo Park on Sunday April 29 at 8pm.

 

Look Who's Coming to Vermin (LA & SD): Chris Narozny

VOTM: What's the most unusual experience you've ever had at a reading? 

NAROZNY: I haven't had many strange experiences at readings, but I did once sit next to a man who heckled and cat-called two of my favorite writers. I thought he was a lunatic who'd wandered in off the street, but it turned out he was their teacher and editor. Probably better that I don't name names.

CHRIS NAROZNY has a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Denver and an MFA from Syracuse University in fiction writing. His debut novel, Jonah Man, was just released by Ig Publishing.

Get swallowed up in Chris's words at 826LA East in Echo Park on April 29 and at 3rdSpace in San Diego on May 5.

 

Look Who's Coming to Vermin (LA & SD): Anne-Marie Kinney

VOTM: What's the most unusual experience you've ever had at a reading?

KINNEY: I can't really remember any unusual experiences at readings.... but one time I went to a Dave Eggers reading and it was so crowded that I never even physically saw him. We were packed in like sardines and it got pretty hot in there, so I was kind of zoning out, listening to Eggers read from Zeitoun while I watched the T-shirt of the guy standing in front of me (my entire field of vision) get sweatier and sweatier. It was like a really quiet rock show.

ANNE-MARIE KINNEY is a writer based in Los Angeles, and holds an MFA in creative writing from California Institute of the Arts. Her short fiction has appeared in Black Clock, Indiana Review, and Keyhole, and in 2010, her short story Ask Us Anything was performed by Los Angeles’s Word Theatre. She is currently Production Editor of Black Clock. Radio Iris, to be published in May, 2012 by Two Dollar Radio, is her first novel.

Tune into Anne-Marie's prose at 826LA East in Echo Park on April 29 and in SD on May 5.

Look Who's Coming to Vermin (LA): Trinie Dalton

VOTM: What's the most unusual experience you've ever had at a reading?

DALTON: Hmm... I have not had any, really. Nothing is unusual to me when it comes to meeting new people and hearing their stories. Life experience to me often feels simultaneously unlikely and regular.

TRINIE DALTON's books include Wide Eyed (Akashic), Dear New Girl or Whatever Your Name Is(McSweeney's: co-edited with Eli Horowitz and Lisa Wagner), Mythtym (Picturebox), A Unicorn is Born(Abrams), and Sweet Tomb (Madras Press). Her new release Baby Geisha (Two Dollar Radio) is her fourth fiction book. Trinie’s books alternate between art projects and fiction, and sometimes combine the two. She has taught book/arts at NYU and at Pratt,and currently teaches fiction and critical writing at USC, Art Center College of Design, SVA and Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Come see Trinie read at 826LA East in Echo Park on Sunday, April 29 at 8pm

 

Vermin in L.A. on April 29: Now at a New Location!

 

With the unexpected closure of The Mountain Bar, Vermin creeps up the street from Chinatown to 826 LA East in Echo Park. The reading will take place in the back room of the Time Travel Mart at 1714 W. Sunset Blvd.

 

Fire up your flux capacitors and join us for a night of irreverent readings with...

TRINIE DALTON makes her second appearance on the Vermin stage in support of her new work of short fiction Baby Geisha.  

LAUREN EGGERT-CROWE recently moved to L.A. from Santa Cruz and has true tales to tell. She likes Julio Iglesisas. 

AMELIA GRAY is preparing to destroy you and there's nothing you can do about it!  

ANNE-MARIE KINNEY is the production editor at Black Clock and the author of the debut novel Radio Iris. 

New York author CHRISTOPHER NAROZNY is crossing the country to celebrate his debut novel Jonah Man.

And your host, resident windbag Jim Ruland. Big ups to poster artist Goodloe Byron who has never been accused of being full of hot air... 

There's plenty of parking behind the Time Travel Mart and attendees are asked to use the back entrance. See you in Echo Park on Sunday Night!

Look Who's Coming to Vermin (SD & LA): Joshua Mohr

San Francisco writer Joshua Mohr is reading at both Vermin on the Mount events in San Diego and Los Angeles. Check out this interview I did with Josh at San Diego Writers, Ink. 

 

Look Who's Coming to Vermin (LA): J. Ryan Stradal

 

VOTM: What's the most unusual experience you've ever had at a reading?

STRADAL: My most unusual experience was when Amelia Gray introduced a fellow reader by singing the Davey Crockett theme song and asked me to dance along onstage with a simple choreographed move. I completely lost the rhythm after about six bars and made that dance my own.

J. RYAN STRADAL's writing has appeared in Hobart, The Rumpus, McSweeney’s, The Nervous Breakdown, The Faster Times, The Foghorn and more. He volunteers for 826LA and has produced episodes of Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers, most recently working in Bolivia and Peru on the spin-off series Deadliest Roads.

Come see J. Ryan Stradal at Vermin on the Mount this Sunday, February 12 at 8pm at the Mountain Bar in L.A.'s Chinatown! 

Look Who's Coming to Vermin (LA): Samantha Dunn

 

 

VOTM: What's the most unusual experience you've ever had at a reading?

DUNN:  You mean the time that the throng of frenzied admirers broke through the barricades and trashed Barnes & Noble, demanding that I read for longer, yet longer? Yeah. Right. That happens all the time... Well, there was the time that I was reading in Saratoga Springs, New York, with my friend Darin Strauss (who has since become wildly famous and successful) (not that I'm envious) (at all) (I mean not at all). He and I were the writers-in-residence at the New York State Summer Writers Institute, which has a faculty full of major stars of the literati.

So Darin is getting ready to go up first, and I look out into the crowd. Sitting there is William Kennedy of Ironweed fame and founder of the program, with his wife, Dana; Russel Banks; Jay McInerney; Binnie Kirshenbaum (used to head the writing program at Columbia); poet Henri Cole; Phil Lopate; Lee Abbott and the directors of the program. These people have been mentors and friends to me, but just then it hit me hard that, shit, they're each a major big deal in their own right, and I am about to read my measly stuff in front of them, which, in that moment, felt a whole lot different than just sitting around at the bar or in a workshop or over dinner or whatever, they were becoming veritable titans by the second.

Nerves seized me so hard I thought I could pass out. My not-so-brilliant solution was to literally run next door to the bar, down as many shots of Jack Daniels as I could manage in three minutes, and then run back to the bookstore. By the time Darin finished I was so drunk I don't remember reading, only that I did finish and that people clapped. I fear they were polite, alas. At any rate, not my finest hour.

SAMANTHA DUNN has written about music and pop culture for BAM and Music Connection, Raygun, and the old LA Reader. Her books include the novel Failing Paris (just reissued by AmazonEncore), and the memoirs Not By Accident: Reconstructing a Careless Life, and Faith in Carlos Gomez. Dunn co-edited the short story anthology Women on the Edge; Writing from Los Angeles. Meanwhile she has written (and still does sometimes) for the great gaping maw otherwise known as consumer magazines, like O the Oprah Magazine, Shape, Redbook, Ms., Men's Health, Glamour, Self, as well as for newspapers like the LA Times and the Orange County Register. She also teaches at the UCLA Writers Program and serve as the adviser for PEN Center's The Mark program.

Come see Samantha Dunn at Vermin on the Mount this Sunday, February 12 at 8pm at the Mountain Bar in L.A.'s Chinatown! 

 

Look Who's Coming to Vermin (SD): Elena Velasquez

  VOTM: What's the most unusual experience you've ever had at a reading?

VELASQUEZ: Have I been lucky, or incredibly unlucky? Inappropriate, and hilarious come to mind. Why didn’t it occur to me that reading explicit poems to a high school audience might upset the administration? I must sound bad, but I was simply reading my most recent work at that time without thinking much at all about any administration. I have greatly appreciated the collective horrified gasp I’ve received when introducing my poem titled I Slept With George W… I don’t even get that kind of synchronized inhalation in my yoga classes.

ELENA VELASQUEZ began on the stage, self-published a collection of poems with best friend Eneri Rodriguez in 2008 (now out of print). Took it to the page, studied in the MFA Creative Writing poetry program at San Francisco State University for one year. Now interested in the intersections between the page and the stage. Loves yoga, craft beer, and Hamilton’s Tavern.

Come see Elena at Vermin on the Mount on Saturday, February 11 at 7pm at 3rdSpace in San Diego.

 

Look Who's Coming to Vermin (LA): David Shook

  VOTM: What's the most unusual experience you've ever had at a reading?

SHOOK: Dharma from Dharma and Greg was at the last reading I gave in LA, fawning over the poets and snapping our photos. She asked me for my Twitter handle so she could @ at me. She looked pretty familiar, but I had no idea who she was until I saw her tweet later. What's her real name? I think she's an Elfman. She kept closing the doors to keep out the noise, and she live-tweeted the whole thing. Dharma definitely respects poetry more than I do.

DAVID SHOOK is a poet, translator, and essayist whose work appears in magazines like Ambit, PN Review, Poetry, and World Literature Today. Kilometer Zero, a poetry documentary he covertly filmed in Equatorial Guinea, is forthcoming in 2012, along with his translation of Mario Bellatin's Shiki Nagaoka: A Nose for Fiction and a selection of Isthmus Zapotec poet Víctor Terán's love poems.

Come see David Shook at Vermin on the Mount on Sunday, February 12 at 8pm at the Mountain Bar in L.A.'s Chinatown!