Get wrecked

Indichik says:

UNY, who I've mentioned before here once in passing and am now going to go ahead and all-out pimp, is a vast collective of artists and writers celebrating and exploring all that lies beneath NYC waterways. I am part of them; my short story "The Last Days of the Princess Anne," about a steamship that sank off Rockaway in 1920 and the crew who remained aboard it for 10 days, was published in their online anthology, and you can go the site and read it now (if you so chose of course).

They've just announced a writing contest in connection with the American Folk Life Museum, so now you, my friends, providing you have the wherewithal to spin a story about a local shipwreck, real or fictional, can be a winner. Note that if you win the contest, you'll be reading alongside me at the Folk Art Museum on March 10, which let's face it, is reward enough.

The Underwater New York Shipwreck Story Contest:

In conjunction with the American Folk Art Museum

Sunken on the floors of NYC's waterways are no fewer than 170 lost and wrecked ships. Underwater New York invites you to dive in and mine the wreckage. Draw your inspiration from their gallery of shipwreck images and tell a story—fiction, creative nonfiction or poetry—that brings these ghost ships back to life in 3000 words or less. The winning story will be published in Underwater New York, and its author will have the chance to read at Underwater New York Free Music Friday: Shipwreck Stories at the American Folk Art Museum, on March 5, 2010.

• Submit contest entries online at www.underwaternewyork.com/submission

• Deadline for entries is February 12, 2010.

Saturday Night Lit

UPDATE: See corrected date for issue release party below:


Grab this chance to hear writers read their selections from the past two issues of Epiphany Magazine; last spring's Naked Psyches and this fall's Who's Still Alive, at the Lillian Vernon House at NYU, 58 W. 10th St. It's the first of two Epiphany events taking place this week; the second one will be Wednesday at 7 at Pianos. The lineup tonight is as follows:

Part 1
7 - 9 P.M.
Last Spring’s Classic:
NAKED PSYCHES Issue

Keith Hendershot, “I Heart You Past August”
Susan Ruel, “Medium Shuffle Blues in E”

Part 2
9:30 P.M.
The New Issue:
WHO’S STILL ALIVE . . . / (l)ove = (o)cean
Lara Tupper, “Ting!”
April Naoko Heck, two poems
Michael Ferch, four poems
H.V. Chao, “Jewel of the North”

It's all curated by Epiphany editors Jeffrey Gustavson, Willard Cook and Karol Nielsen. Who knows, maybe next issue it will be YOU reading. Or even me.

Trying to do 5 things at once is not actually as fun as it sounds

I've been laid up for the two and a half days with an actual 48-hour-virus (or to make it more interesting, let's call it the 48-hour swine flu) and am now tragically, bitterly behind on absolutely everything, including Fashion Week (for which I'll be writing dispatches over on ChiChi212, look for updates later), Chikpiks, reviews, the Brooklyn Book Festival, and pretty much all things related to this blog . On the bright side I'm completely caught up on the first two seasons of Lockup: Raw. (Next big smash for XBox = Prison Riot: The Video Game.)

So, Thing One: The Brooklyn Book Festival is already half-over as I write this post, but because I'm clever and innovative and make lemonade and all that, I've decided to make this a If You Do One Thing At the Brooklyn Book Festival...post. Of course it just so happens to be an event that takes place at the very end of the day, but anyway:



Photo courtesy Miriam Berkley

If You Do One Thing At the Brooklyn Book Festival...make it Inside Music. From the Chicago avant garde to audiophile zealots to the New Weird America, three writers from across the musical spectrum explore how the world of music is connected to everything else: politics, ethnicity, technology, topography and culture. Featuring George E. Lewis (A Power Stronger Than Itself), Greg Milner (Perfecting Sound Forever), Peter Terzian (editor, Heavy Rotation) Moderated by Sukhdev Sandhu (Night Haunts). 5 pm, North Stage, Borough Hall Plaza.

Greg Milner's (pictured above) book, Perfecting Sound Forever, is presented as a "history of recorded music" from Thomas Edison to the Mp3. I am not by any means an audiophile (has anyone ever actually met a female audiophile?) but I am certainly intrigued at Milner's theory that Californication is the worst-sounding record of '90s. (Considering it happens to be one of the first albums I ever bought. Oh, god, I'm a fraud). Anyway, to the BBF to find out why!


Plus:


And if you happen to have time to do one more thing at the Festival (this is cheating I know), stop by the SLC Lumina booth in Borough Hall Plaza, to pick up deep discounts on the utterly fantastic and engrossing 2009 issue, for which I served as fiction co-editor, and meet some friendly, fresh-faced Bronxville literary gals from this year's staff (and maybe a guy, but the odds aren't good).

Speaking of the perfecting of sound, it brings me to Thing Two...tonight! Rasputina! Three cello virtuosos in metal bustiers plan an all-request show! At my formerly-least-favorite NYC venue (see top right) which may finally redeem itself by moving to Brooklyn! (But it's too late to make requests. Sorry. I missed the deadline, too, if that makes you feel any better).

Rasputina plays with The Shondes tonight at 7 pm at The Knitting Factory (361 Metropolitan Avenue, BROOKLYN). $15.

Mp3 - Rasputina - Wicked Dickie (via eashfa)

The early show: At-Large packs 'em in, literally

Editors and emcees Rohin Guha and Niina Pollari, the latter looking rather indignant.


Benjamin Dickerson.

Rebecca Keith and the crowd.

Kaveh Bassiri.

Rena Priest.



The scene: S. 6th St. in Williamsburg, in the doorway of a quaint, and shall-we-say intimate little space on the site of a bike repair shop-turned-DIY-venue, or so my investigative work turned up (i.e. talking to the bartender). Plus his outspoking curly-haired blonde companion, who, while flipping me the bird, wasn't shy about making her jealousy known about my plans for the second part of the evening-- seeing Chairlift at the Bowery Ballroom (see above). A stackful of PBR from the (as-promised) cash bar made things start to seem all right, while Rohin and Niina drew names out of a hat, and Rebecca Keith (look for an Mp3 from her band The Roulettes coming here soon) reading Craigslist ads encountered (like many of the rest of us) during her search as an underemployed writer and musician, and Brett Saxon (whose photograph eluded me as I crouched in a corner, but my opinion, but who I recall looking somewhat like Carrot Top, his musical talent notwithstanding) played with his beautiful cellist, and I reclined inreadings, events, recaps, At-Large Magazine, lit mags, the warm, dark sylvan sound of the instrument I love so much. Twenty minutes later, I dashed. Could it be, perhaps, time to rethink my strategy all this time for wearing out my welcome?

Continued above.

Fort Greene Park becomes a public space

A Public Space has long (well, since 2005, but that's longer than I've been in New York) been one of my favorite journals to find excellent writing that's unexpected but not gimmicky (usually), like their clever "If You See Something, Say Something" series. Tonight, they're coming to the lovely and local (to me) Fort Greene Park to do a writing with three of their writers. I never miss an opportunity to promote events in my hood.

Also of note, is that the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, the impressive obalisque you see above, has at some point this year been restored to its former majesty, instead of being inaccessible behind orange plastic fences and covered in ugly scaffolding, as it was ever since I've been living near Fort Greene. The monument, and the impressive stone steps leading up to it, as I discovered several weeks ago during a David's stay, are worthy of a D.C.-caliber walkdown.

Michael Schwartz is a poet, playwright, and Coney Island resident. He is an awardee of the Interpreting Brooklyn Project, founded by the Brooklyn Historical Society.

Elizabeth Gaffney is a writer and editor at large for A Public Space. Her first novel, Metropolis, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. She is now at work on a second novel and a story collection.

L.J. Davis is a prize-winning journalist and author of A Meaningful Life. A former Guggenheim Fellow and the winner of a National Magazine Award, he lives in Brooklyn.

It all gets started tonight at 6:30 at the Fort Greene Park Visitor Center.

Directions: G to Fulton Street; C to Lafayette Ave; 2, 3, 4, 5 to Nevins St; B, M, Q, R to DeKalb Ave

At-Large releases B-Sides and Rarities

The latest incarnation (and there have been many) of At-Large Magazine's Mixtape went live today. This is a magazine whose previous theme issues were delightfully bizarre, like Aiport/Motel, Teeth, Fame and Jungle. This one is B-Sides and Rarities, following on the heels of their very successful A-Sides. In other words, it's decent material that dates from basement sessions with bad acoustics, where something went wrong, like when the drummer coughed just before the end of the track, or sound guy spilled his yerba mate all over the mixing board. (Just kiddin' friends, it's great as always.) Naturally, there's music: this time by Piedra del Sol.

It features poetry by Benjamin Dickerson, Gregory Lawless, Nicole Steinberg, Megan Moriarty, Eric Amling, & Florencia Varela, and a translation project between Patrick Kosiewicz and Najwa Masri. There's also a poetic response to art featuring work by J. Mae Barizo and Mira O'Brien. Fiction by Roof Alexander and Patrick James.

Next up: Biology. Here's what I'm thinking: sheep's brain in a jar. I can't lose.

Support online publishing -- vote in the Million Writers Awards

For some time no, online writing has ceased to be the realm of poorly-written Harry Potter fanfic, gothic breakup poems written by suicidal 13-year-old girls, and slapped-together NaNoWriMo stuff written entirely without the letter "e." Legitimate literary magazines like Epiphany, AGNI and Narrative publish some of their best work exclusively online. Many young writers I know have gotten their start in online publications like Eyeshot, Barrelhouse, Wigleaf, etc. The excitement of seeing your microfiction one of these sites is, for my generation, nearly on par with what publishing two poems in the Antioch Review was for our parents'.

So, it was only a matter of time before somebody put together some cash awards to bestow on these worthy writers. Shove it, Pushcart Prize. The Million Writers Awards, which began in 2004, are sponsored by storySouth, and include some not-too-shabby cash prizes:

* Overall winner: $500
* Runner-up: $200
* Honorable mention (third place): $100

The nominees were chosen by writer Jason Sanford, the editor of story South and founder of the contest.



They are:

• "The Whale Hunter" by Steinur Bell (Agni)
• "Intertropical Convergence Zone" by Nadia Bulkin (ChiZine)
• "No Bullets in the House" by Geronimo Madrid (Drunken Boat)
• "Fuckbuddy" by Roderic Crooks (Eyeshot)
• "The Fisherman's Wife" by Jenny Williams (LitNImage)
• "Every Earth is Fit for Burial" by Cyn Kitchen (Menda City Review)
• "Interview With A Moron" by Elizabeth Stuckey-French (Narrative Magazine)
• "The Tale of Junko and Sayuri" by Peter S. Beagle (OSC's Intergalactic Medicine Show)
• "Grief Mongers" by Sefi Atta (Per Contra Fiction)
• "Nine Sundays in a Row" by Kris Dikeman (Strange Horizons)

The best part is, in the whole collaborative Web 2.0 spirit (sorry about that), readers get to vote. Voting will run from May 17 through June 17, and you can vote on the StorySouth site. More information about the awards and links to the all the stories can be found there.