vermin on the mount was fun
paperhaus May 5th, 2008
Host Jim Ruland and his lovely wife hang out during the intermission.
I have more to say, but my plane is boarding. Adios!
Archive for the 'LA events' Category
All good news edition
paperhaus May 2nd, 2008
Good news: Maud Newton throws a story into the universe, the universe throws her a $1500 prize.
Good news: I’m catching up with back issues of One Story and “Bar Joke, Arizona” is great.
Good news: My coursework at Pitt is done! I turn in my thesis this summer. Looks like my grad school GPA is 3.9. Tra la!
Good news: when you go see a blockbuster at the big old Vista theater in LA, you’ll find that the manager has dressed up as the main character. Meet Ironman.
Good news: I will be in LA for Mark Sarvas‘ Sunday night book party at Vermin on the Mount!
Good news: I have an LA apartment! Three weeks from now I’ll be living in a 1923 apartment building with a front desk and a cloverleaf pool and one of my favorite LA bars on the ground floor.
Postglorious at Jacket Copy
paperhaus April 27th, 2008
With a posse of eager readers spread across UCLA’s campus, Jacket Copy has been hopping all weekend. That’s where I wrote about James Ellroy giving me grammar lessons (I swear). Check out the festivities.
LA Times Book Prizes: what, no Junot?
paperhaus April 26th, 2008
Last night Andrew O’Hagan took the book prize in fiction for Be Near Me. (complete list of winners). As Junot Diaz has been sweeping the big awards this year, O’Hagan’s win was a refreshing change of pace. Upset, even.
As for upset, that was me as I tried, unsuccessfully, to liveblog the awards. I couldn’t get online inside Royce Hall, although I’d easily connected 30 minutes before on UCLA’s network. After rebooting twice, with the awards underway, I was prying into my network settings to try — fruitlessly — to fix whatever was going wrong when the man behind me leaned over and asked me to put the laptop away. The man was Kenneth Turan. Oh, I love his criticism! Oh, I was so embarrassed!
Master of Ceremonies Gay Talese was mid-introduction, which as far as I could tell was about how all writers are overly attached to typing at their laptops. If he went on from there, I was too miserable to hear it; Royce Hall was darkened for the event and I was huddled near the wall, illuminated by a telltale rectangular glow of light.
I shut the laptop. For the rest of the ceremony, I used my old-style blogging device: pen and Moleskine.
Cuts like a knife and other linkages
paperhaus April 23rd, 2008
That comment I left about not knowing about voting problems? I take it back. My friend Katy had voting problems.
Claws are coming out for Sloane Crosley, the cutest book publicist turned memoirist ever. Rachel, try to be nice.
Small Beer is doing the free download thing with John Kessel’s new book, The Baum Plan for Financial Independence (no, it’s not really about finances). Highly recommended by Gwenda.
Heading to LA tomorrow! I’ll be at the LA Times Book Prizes Friday night and the Festival of Books all day Saturday and Sunday. Cecil is on two panels, Mark on one, Laila on one, Sarah on one, Antoine on one, Tod on two … I need a clone.
LA is just around the corner
paperhaus April 16th, 2008
Well, OK, it’s about 2600 miles away, but I’ll be there on April 24. There are several e-newsletters that I’ve remained subscribed to for the last 2 years — too lazy to unsubscribe — and this morning I realized that the events in the newsletter will actually be happening while I’m in town. Cool!
Sadly, the American Cinematheque’s noir festival will be over the day I arrive. But I can catch them at the Festival of Books, if I get time to visit the booths. Smart of them — they may not be all about books, but they know that bookish people like the classic and rare films they show.
Festival of Books, here I come
paperhaus April 2nd, 2008
So the LA Times Festival of Books is coming up and it turns out I’ll be moderating two panels, both chock-full of wonderful novelists.
Saturday, April 25, 4:00pm
First Fiction: New Voices
- Antonia Arslan, Skylark Farm
- Rebecca Curtis, Twenty Grand
- Pamela Erens, The Understory
- Ellen Litman, The Last Chicken in America
These women are all nominees for the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction (along with Dinaw Mengestu for The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, who apparently can’t make it).
And then on Sunday, at 10:30am
Fiction: Unconventional Voices
- Ben Ehrenreich
- Keith Gessen
- Lydia Millet
- Yannick Murphy
Please come. I promise to keep my moderator self out of the way so you can get the best of all these great writers. When we’re done, after you go to their booksignings, say hello to me, the redhead standing around with my hands in my pockets.
If you are in LA tonight DOH! next Wednesday!
paperhaus February 27th, 2008
You just might want to go to the M Bar to see the premiere Lit Thing, hosted by the inimitable Cecil Castellucci. You’ll be treated to readings and comedy (I think) and at least one short film. The theme is betrayal and assassination, in honor of the upcoming Ides of March. Cecil is one helluva hostess; I’d be there if I wasn’t way out here in my Pennsylvania winter wonderland.
Kibbles and bits
paperhaus August 6th, 2007
I went to the Swink reading at Tangeirs to see Mark Sarvas (that’s him there in the pic, blurrily) and hear more from his new novel. I agree with everything Callie already said.
I thought I didn’t need anything but Word to write a novel. But today Andrew told me about Journler, which seems more bloggy but possibly helpful, and look, Gwenda is using Scrivener. Are these truly organizational tools, or are they just software-based stalling tactics?
Dammit, I just missed Aimee Bender. Again.
Which reminds me: I’m writing the LA book updates for a new company called 80108. Sign up for and get pithy book events news texted to your phone. In advance of readings happening.
Which reminds me, v.2: if you have a readings series, book launch, poetry slam, magazine party,or any other special event involving the written word, email me the deets at paperhaus (at) gmail.com.
Reading & Chandler in LA
paperhaus July 17th, 2007
Over the weekend I got to see Jim Ruland read from his collection Big Lonesome. A year or so ago this would not be such a big deal, but now that Jim has shuffled off to San Diego and I’ve departed for Pittsburgh, us both being in the same place at the same time is rare. When I found out he was reading at Vroman’s, I couldn’t miss it. He’s a great, funny reader, and this time he even played a sea shanty on a recorder. Really.
Later on chatting I said I was reading a book by Raymond Chandler. “I hate that guy!” Jim shouted. I was confused. He berated me for liking Pynchon AND Chandler, saying it’s like liking James Joyce and DH Lawrence - you’re in one camp or the other. I was still confused. OH, it turned out, he thought I said Raymond Carver. “Raymond Carver!” I shouted back. “No way, I hate that guy!” High fives all around.
(Before you slap me around, throw me out of graduate school and malign me to professors and their wives who I like very much, let me say that I hate the precious place Raymond Carver’s work has in the minds of many who revere him. Personally he was probably pretty cool.)
So, back to Raymond Chandler, who passed muster. I had just re-read The Little Sister so I could attend the No One Reads in LA book club Thursday night. They focus on LA-based authors/stories, and talk about the true-life connections to the books on their list. I missed Fante (fine with me) and thought Chandler was just the ticket. But mob bosses and ambitious Hollywood starlets notwithstanding, I fear I won’t make it to the Barclay Hotel at 4th and Main at 7pm Thursday. Hope to hear about its success.