I'm excited about this month's lineup particularly because I know very little about the theme. What does success mean? I don't really know! Why did I choose this topic? Good question! I'll just be there to host, listen, laugh, learn, and drink those Mr. Ginger cocktails (which I have actually been really successful at in the past) and I will ogle these special, super successful readers with all of you simultaneously. Nothing else really matters. Can't wait!
The How I Learned Reading Series presents:
HOW I LEARNED TO BE SUPER SUCCESSFUL!
Featuring:
PATRICE EVANS (AKA TAN)
("The Assimilated Negro," Gawker, New York Times, NPR, several enviable accomplishments)
DAVE HILL
(Dave Hill Explosion, King of Miami, This American Life, basically a renaissance man)
RACHEL SHUKERT
(Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories, Ars Nova, also gorgeous and crazy-popular)
S.L. WISENBERG
(The Adventures of Cancer Bitch, plus a list of successes that would seriously blow your mind)
Hosted by BLAISE ALLYSEN KEARSLEY
Wednesday, April 22nd, 8PM
FREE
HAPPY ENDING
302 Broome Street, NYC
between Forsyth & Eldridge
Look for the hot pink awning that says "XIE HE Health Club."
(212) 334-9676
Get directions
***
PATRICE EVANS is a writer whose blog, The Assimilated Negro (TAN),was cited by MSNBC and The Houston Chronicle as "first in a string of blogs that act as a virtual shrink's sofa for those tackling the tricky topics of race and class." Patrice and his work have sullied the reputations of venerable media institutions such as the New York Times, NPR, The Guardian, and, um, Gawker. His first book NEGROPEDIA, an encyclopedic send-up of the modern black experience in post-racial America, will be published by Crown/Three Rivers. When not tugging at the strings of his fraying sanity on TAN, he blogs for NBC New York, among others.
DAVE HILL is a writer, performer, musician, comedy-type person, artist, thinking man, and thief. Soon he is to steal your heart. He has written for the New York Times, Salon, Blender, Huffington Post, Guitar World, and a bunch of other people too. Aside from appearances on HBO, MTV, VH1, Spike TV, Court TV, you may also know him as the star of the wildly popular King of Miami program on the MOJO network or as the host of the live chat/variety/donkey show called the Dave Hill Explosion. In addition to having been on public radio's This American Life, Dave has also rocked America (and even parts of Canada) as a member of such critically-acclaimed-but-not-
RACHEL SHUKERT is a playwright, author and sometime performer. Her first book, Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories, was published in 2008 by Random House/Villard. Rachel's plays, which include Bloody Mary (NYIT Award nominee), Johnny Applefucker, The Worshipped, Sequins for Satan, and Perfection (with Neal Medlyn), have been produced and developed by Ars Nova, Soho Think Tank/Ice Factory, the Williamstown Theater Festival, the EVOLVE Series at Galapagos, the Prelude Festival at CUNY, as well as extensively throughout the Netherlands. She is also the co-founder of the theater group The Bushwick Hotel. Rachel's writing has appeared in Nerve, Heeb, and McSweeney's and in the anthologies 2033: The Future of Misbehavior and Best Sex Writing 2008, among others. She is currently working on her second book, The Grand Tour, which will be published by Harper Collins in the spring of 2010. Visit her at rachelshukert.com.
S.L. WISENBERG is in town from Chicago with The Adventures of Cancer Bitch, the only nonfiction book she knows of without a subtitle. Kirkus Reviews called her book "deeply personal, often darkly funny....Tart and scary." Her other books are Holocaust Girls: History, Memory & Other Obsessions (essays) and The Sweetheart Is In (stories). She co-directs the MA/MFA in Creative Writing program at Northwestern University. She's received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Illinois Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has learned to be successful at: emptying drains from a fresh mastectomy site, getting friends to decorate her bald head with peace signs and anti-war messages, and living one-breasted (sort of like an Amazon but not quite). Her blog is cancerbitch.blogspot.com.
