Greetings from NYC!
June 2009 Blog Update:
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Since arriving in New York, I've been busy gathering ideas for Douglass Street 6, The Fall 2009 Lab, which starts Tuesday 9/8/9 and runs for 8 consecutive weeks. If you're interested, you can guarantee yourself a seat now. (The Fall session usually sells out a few weeks before it starts).
I've joined eventbrite to make signing up a breeze. Click Here for more info & to register. I'd also very much appreciate it if you'd forward this email to that friend who has been talking about taking a writing class for eons.
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Updates:
Douglass Street Lab, Session 5, had its public reading,"Douglass Speaks," on June 2nd at Farley's. What a joy is was hear the brilliantly re-visioned material generated in The Lab. I'm still gleaning inspiration from their work.
Thanks to the writers who read & thanks to everyone who came!
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On June 6th, fellow writer/teacher Michael McAlister, curator of "The Barbershop: A Reading Series" hosted an incredible night at Joe's Barbershop. 75 people showed up to the reading, fostering an incredible feeling of community.
This wasn't your momma's literary reading!
Sure there were the usual writers and word nerds gathered at the book table and sitting on barber chairs. Gathered among them were neighborhood regulars and flat-topped leather-queens and all genders of porn divas sharing cupcakes and vodkas and diet cokes as stories and poems were read.
Lorena Landeros, a former student from SFSU-turned-Labber-turned-friend brought my character Janis to life by reading a chapter from my almost-completed manuscript LETTERS TO THE DEAD. Lorelei Lee, another former-Labber, read her brilliant story before traversing the applauding crowd in a hot pink dress and cork platforms (she had to catch a cab and get to work). Wolf Larsen transitioned the shop from a buzzing intermission into stillness as she sang her hauntingly beautiful songs. As a finale, form-master Randall Mann seduced and bewildered the audience with his unflinching poems.
What a gift to be a part of such a special night. Thanks Michael & Lorelei & Randall & Wolf & Joe & Everyone who came out.
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NEW YORK HERE I AM!
I'm very lucky to have the chance to come New York for a few weeks every summer. My cousins Greg and Michael have no idea how valuable their hospitality. It's so much easier to find the extraordinary in the ordinary when I'm able to observe and explore another's ordinary for a while. (If that doesn't make sense to you, take The Lab, and it will).
NY's offerings light a fire under my you-know-what. I'll be participating in a reading here in NYC. Former-San Franciscans-now-Brooklynites and word nerds Evan Rehill and Anne-E Wood and I are reading at Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn on July 12th. I'll keep you posted with more details on Facebook in case you're in or will be in New York.
Here's to it! Thanks for reading.
Matthew
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