Portland, ME: Supernormal at Blue
Supernormal is having me back! This time at Blue. Details to follow. We may or may not play the song inbetween radio stations. Might be billed as Tank Farm Orchestra.
Supernormal is having me back! This time at Blue. Details to follow. We may or may not play the song inbetween radio stations. Might be billed as Tank Farm Orchestra.
City Feet, Swamp Mouths: A Louisiana Regional Offsite Reading
Cost: Free
Join us March 8, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Blarney Stone Pub (approximately 0.4 miles from the Convention Center) for a regional offsite reading showcasing Louisiana's finest literary journals and organizations! Editors and readers representing Rougarou, Bayou Magazine, Bear Review, Peauxdunque Review, Tilted House, and New Delta Review will read from their work. This is a reading you won't want to miss! Featured readers: Mag Gabbert, Melissa Crowe, Stacey Balkun, Rodrigo Toscano, Remi Recchia, Eric Tran, Christine Kwon, Bae Di, Nick Rees Gardner, Anne Elliott, Henry Cherry, Erin L. McCoy, Rusty Morrison, and more!
I’ll be performing with Supernormal again on Friday the 13th, Apohadion Theater, Portland. We’ll be showing you what we do every week at Tank Farm Studios, which is an improvisational free-for-all with loads of gizmos and interludes of sanity. We’ll be opening for Providence’s With Orbit, an amazing improv ensemble.
Apohadion Theater, 107 Hanover St., Portland, ME
Doors 7:30. $10
Here’s a little sample of what we’ve been messing about with lately.
Southern Mainers, mark your calendars! Next Thursday May 26 I'll be featured with Richard Russo, Kate Russo, Alana Dao, Debra Spark, and Deborah Joy Corey in the launch of BREAKING BREAD: ESSAYS ON NEW ENGLAND FOOD, HUNGER, and FAMILY, sponsored by Print bookstore and held at Bunker Brewing in Portland. Details here. Proceeds of the book will fight food insecurity in New England.
Sat Feb 19, 2022, Apohadion Theater, 107 Hanover St. Portland, ME. Doors 7:30. Süpernørmål with wild jazz combo With Orbit (Jeff Platz ensemble).
Supernormal and I have been rehearsing a new Talk/Music piece called “The Singularity.” Come give it a listen! World premier. Might be the last time we try it. Vax proof required. Here’s a taste from our rehearsal on 1/19. Never the same poem twice. (Content note: adult language.)
Personnel: Eric Eaton on bass and gizmos, Mike Dank on drums and gizmos, James Barr (engineer) on guitar and gizmos, Chris Rohde (not on this recording, but will be there at gig!) on pedal steel and gizmos, me on guest vocals with occasional gizmos.
Sun Tiki Studios will host an evening of really weird music featuring our house band Süpernørmål and Tantra/Tantrum. See me come out of my spoken word retirement. Plus, a theramin!
Here is a taste of the weirdness:
Local Writers Read in Lewiston, ME hosts monthly readings at Quiet City Books. Still online, for obvious reasons! The month’s theme is Legacy and Inheritance. Maybe I’ll be brave and read from a work in progress!
Friday Aug 20, 6PM
Saturday Aug 21 3PM
The reading is spread over two sessions on two days. Lineup: Lynne Schmidt, Morgan Talty, Michelle Menting, and me.
Playback available on Facebook Live or YouTube.
I’ll be Zooming with the Bristol, ME Public Library in celebration of the new anthology North by Northeast 2: New Short Fiction by Maine Writers, published by LIttoral books. Hosted by Jodi Paloni, and featuring me, Eleanor Morse, Joshua Rich, and Agnes Bushell (publisher).
7PM Eastern, but you can login from anywhere! Free.
For a Zoom link, email bal2021events@gmail.com.
Many of us learn fiction writing via short stories—and many of us fall in love with the form and stick with it. But how do we get our stories into the hands of readers, when agents aren’t interested in them? How do we know when a story is ready to send? And where to send it? What are realistic expectations with respect to response times, acceptance rates, payment, and editorial input? This class will go over the basic norms, procedures, and etiquette of being your own short story agent, review strategies for targeting markets and recordkeeping, and field questions. Your instructor has been finding readers via the slush pile for years—it can be done.
Rather than meet at the library, Cape Elizabeth’s Local Buzz Series has been moved onto Zoom. I’ll be reading with poet Jason Grundstrom-Whitney (bio below). The event will not be recorded.
In order to attend the event, you will need to pre-register in advance. Please use the following link to register for the Zoom meeting:
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0vduCtrTMjH9PL3lSfzAQLon05-JeMKU9C
After registering, you will receive a confirmation e-mail containing information about joining the meeting.
A Bear Clan member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, Jason Grundstrom-Whitney’s poetry has appeared in 3 Nations Anthology: Native, Canadian and New England Writers and in the Underground Writers Association’s Anthology of Maine Poets. The band Osha Root recently produced a CD featuring Jason’s music and poetry. Jason has spent a lifetime working on Native American Rights, Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence survival, Hospice and end of life care, homeless and environmental issues, and alternative medicine practice. Jason studied with native teachers and many others while he hitch-hiked across America for two and a half years. Jason is a father, grandfather, and husband, and has been in recovery for 37 years. His first book of poetry entitled, Bear, Coyote, Raven was published by Resolute Bear Press in 2019.
Since the pandemic is keeping us home, L/A (Lewiston/Auburn) Art Walk has gone virtual! Pre-recorded conversation with Claire Guyton and Josh Gauthier of Local Writer’s Read.
The Hollihock Writer’s Conference will take place from October 23-25.
Agenda here.
I will teach a craft class on Sunday morning at 10:00 Eastern time. Like church! Description:
Elasticity of the Sentence
This interactive class will examine several perfect sentences from published fiction—and then we’ll have the audacity to recast them (playfully), to figure out what they are by considering what they could have been. The purpose is to slow down and strengthen our revision muscle at the sentence level, to pay attention to the hundreds of microdecisions within each line of prose.
Local Writers Read, normally held at Quiet City Books in Lewiston, has gone online.
Tune in via their Facebook page here.
Part One takes place Friday night, July 24, at 6PM. (I will be one of the panelists after the reading.)
Part Two takes place Saturday afternoon, July 25, at 3PM. (I will be one of the readers.)
Readers/Panel: Sue Repko, Jen George, Anne Elliott, Jason Grundstrom-Whitney, Deborah Rosch-Eifert
Hosts: Claire Guyton and Josh Gaultier
More information here.
Local Buzz Readings
Thomas Memorial Library, Cape Elizabeth, ME
Postponed to Fall 2021 due to COVID-19. Maybe see you then!
Books in the Brook series
(With novelist/radical Agnes Bushell)
Walker Memorial Library
800 Main St., Westbrook, Maine
Pete’s Candy Store
709 Lorimer St., Brooklyn
with Andi Vinciquerra and Lillian Patterson
Hosted by Danielle Sinay
Drunken! Careening! Writers!
KGB Bar
85 E. 4th Street
Thursday 11/21/2019 7PM
(With playwrights Chris Harcum and Caridad Svich, poet Maria Lisella)
Facebook event here
Print: A Bookstore
273 Congress Street
Thursday 10/17/2019 7PM
Maine launch of The Artstars
Reading, Q&A, and signing
(Please support Print! They are awesome!)
Lit Youngstown Fall Literary Festival
Kilcawley Center, Youngstown State University
Saturday 10/5/2019, 2PM (with Quincy Flowers)
Reading from The Artstars (Elliott) and
Canebreak: African-American Mythmaking (Flowers)