By Ari Braverman Sheila Heti’s third book, How Should a Person Be? is about Sheila. The character is a Toronto-based writer grappling with a play she can’t seem to finish, stuck in a marriage that stifles her. Enter Margaux, a peroxide-blonde painter who “looked at the same time like a little girl, a sexy woman, … No One Lines Up That Simply: An Interview with Sheila Heti
Poet and native New Orleanian Brenda Marie Osbey will read from History and Other Poems, her newest collection, at 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 27, at the Uptown location of Maple Street Book Shop (7529 Maple St.). She will be on hand after the reading to sign copies of her book. Osbey writes in English … Brenda Marie Osbey at Maple Street Books June 27
Room 220 is pleased to present the first installment of “Stray Leaves,” a monthly(ish) series of articles written by Michael Allen Zell that illuminate oddities and rarities from New Orleans’ literary history. “Stray Leaves,” in Zell’s words, is “a lifting up of stones and crowing about that found underneath, led by the guiding notion that we … STRAY LEAVES: A Tomb for Marcus Christian
Pick up the current issue of the Oxford American to read a feature-length essay by Press Street co-founder Anne Gisleson, “Condolences from Death Row.” The essay, an early draft of which Gisleson read at a Room 220 event in May 2012, uses the author’s receipt of a letter from a death row inmate, who her … Contributor Hype: Anne Gisleson’s “Condolences from Death Row”
Join a bevy of local writers and James Joyce enthusiasts as New Orleans celebrates Bloomsday with a marathon reading of Ulysses beginning at 2 p.m. this Sunday, June 16, at the Irish House (1432 St. Charles Ave.). The event will last for at least two hours, with a docket of readers that includes local literati … Thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart: New Orleans celebrates Bloomsday this Sunday with a marathon reading of Ulysses
Please join Room 220 for a special event as part of the New Orleans Loving Festival—Black Rabbits and White Indians: Racially Controversial Children’s Books—at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, June 12, at the Press Street HQ (3718 St. Claude Ave.). NOTE: Unlike most Room 220 events, this one will start (sort of) on time. It will be immediately followed … Room 220 and the Loving Festival Present BLACK RABBITS AND WHITE INDIANS: RACIALLY CONTROVERSIAL CHILDREN’S BOOKS
The Bayou St. John outpost of the Maple Street Bookstore empire (3141 Ponce de Leon) will host local writers Adrian Van Young and Michael Jeffrey Lee for readings at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 4. Both authors have released well-received shorty story collections in the relatively near past, but they will present current work. Lee’s Something … Michael Jeffrey Lee and Adrian Van Young read at Maple Street Books (Bayou St. John) June 4
Local comic broadside extraordinaire FEAST will host the launch party for its 2013 anthology this Saturday, May 25, from 7 – 10 p.m. at Hey! Cafe (4332 Magazine St.). Published by Antigravity Magazine and founded by Ceasar Meadows, past anthologies have featured local comic artists and illustrators like Jeff Pastorek and Happy Burbeck as well as out-of-town artists Josh Neufeld (author/illustrator of A.D. New Orleans and bestselling graphic nonfiction piece The … Release the FEAST
Inside Orleans Parish Prison—one of the worst jails in the country—an English class takes place, not to help inmates fulfill GED requirements, but simply to facilitate their study of literature and books. In this three-part series, Room 220‘s Ari Braverman explores the parts of the program that make it work—and make it worthwhile—from the founder … OPP ENGLISH, Part III: In the Classroom
By Nathan C. Martin Like any historical novel—even one set in recent history—Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers is a convergence of the past and the present, the time before now rendered with the help of research but intrinsically influenced by the contemporary moment that shapes the author’s daily life. And like many novels, The Flamethrowers is … I’m not sure there is a clear distinction between “to communicate” and to “monologue”: An interview with Rachel Kushner
