Several series are held at the noted KGB Bar, including a fiction and nonfiction series, as well as Drunken! Careening! Writers hosted by playwright Kathleen Warnock, who enjoys mixing things up. “I’ve had playwrights read fiction, poets read memoir and writers bring musical instruments to accompany themselves,” she says. “I give each evening an arbitrary name: things like ‘Writers named Steve,’ ‘Writers Who Make New York Great,’ and ‘2 out of 3 Writers are from Brooklyn.’”Whereas reading series come and go (RIP Cupcake), many have longevity, chief among them Amanda Stern’s long-running Happy Ending Reading and Music Series, now held at Joe’s Pub.
Other series stick closely to a theme. Gelf magazine hosts Varsity Letters, about sports, Polestar Poetry Series features, yes, poetry, and Other Means Reading Series has an altruistic bent. Each month, they raise money for a local charity, and part of their aim is “to help people change their ideas about charity.” The Pen Parentis Parents After Work Reading Series is exactly what it sounds like.
David Farley, host of Restless Legs and travel memoirist (An Irreverent Curiosity), wanted to give his fellow travel writers a place to congregate, especially since “travel writing is not taken that seriously in the literary community.” To that end, his series, held at Lolita Bar, unites those who “are all stricken with wanderlust. I encourage attendees at the reading to hang around afterward and get to know one another.”
David Henry Sterry started up Sex Worker Literati, along with Audacia Ray, in part to promote his new anthology Hos, Hookers, Callgirls and Rentboys, as well as to give a voice to sex workers. “We can put our finger on the pulse of the sex worker community, tapping into the deep sexy well of both current workers, and people from various ages of sex worker history, from Hollywood in the ’70s, to Times Square in the ’80s, to the tenderloin in the ’90s and beyond,” explains Sterry. “We are also unique in that we can present everyone from people with Ivy League educations, to homeless immigrants, from crack-ho high school dropouts to PhDs.”
Another newcomer is Blaise Allyson Kearsley’s How I Learned Reading Series, also held at Happy Ending, in which performers tell a story about a learning experience, from breaking up to being super successful to knowing that adolescence was over.
Triptych Readings, curated by Mary Austin Speaker and Kaveh Bassiri and held at 11th Street Bar, is focused solely on poetry. “We both feel that a dedication to offering diverse work is extremely important and sorely needed in the New York poetry scene— meaning work that variously encounters different aesthetics, ideologies, races, cultures, sexual mores, national and state boundaries,” says Speaker.
When asked what makes a reading series successful, Sharon Preiss of Mobile Libris, an independent bookseller featured at many of these readings, said, “Authors should always discuss the book but not give too much away, maybe by talking about the book as much if not more than reading from it. At the best events, authors piqué the audience’s interest in their book and topic rather than sate it.” Mixer Reading & Music Series is organized by Melissa Febos and Rebecca Keith, and features authors and a musical guest, at Cake Shop.“The social spheres of music and literary folk pretend to be mutually exclusive, but they aren’t; there’s a ton of overlap, and we want to encourage that,” says Febos. “The boundaries between the arts are plastic, and that plasticity should be encouraged. Music inspires every writer I know.” For
Charlie Vázquez, who hosts PANIC! at gay bar Nowhere, the series in part to further his own work. “There’s a myth that only published writers are good writers, and it’s difficult for unpublished writers to be taken seriously. New York can be cliquish and when I first moved back in 2006, I had a difficult time getting readings,” explains Vázquez.
Marco Rafala, one of the hosts of the Guerrilla Lit Reading Series, claims the “relaxed atmosphere” of their home at Bar on A sets it apart. “I think that’s important to have a refuge from the noise, a place where people can sit and drink and listen to each other tell stories,” says Rafala.
What have been the highlights of these series? Kearsley claims graphic artist David Heatley’s impromptu breakdancing, while for Vázquez , it was “the time that Monica J. O’Rourke read a horror story that had people running outside screaming, covering their ears and mouths and dashing for the restrooms. I was touched.” See? Not boring at all!
