Rhapsodomancy: A Reading Series in Los Angeles

Next reading: Sunday, February 12, 2012

Thank you, audience, and thank you, writers, for making Rhapsodomancy what it is. Happy holidays, and stay tuned for details about the reading on 2/12/12!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, December 4th, 2011:

JILLIAN LAUREN
KHADIJA ANDERSON
MELISSA CHADBURN
LISA CHEBY

Sunday, December 4, 2011
Doors open at 7:00pm - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door. There will be a cash bar.

Jillian Lauren is a writer and performer with an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. She is the author of the memoir Some Girls: My Life in a Harem and the novel Pretty, both from Plume/Penguin. Her writing has also appeared in The Paris Review, The New York Times, Los Angeles Magazine, Vanity Fair and Flaunt Magazine, among others. Jillian has appeared at spoken word and storytelling events across the country. She recently premiered her solo performance piece, Mother Tongue, in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and son.

Khadija Anderson, returned in 2008 to her native Los Angeles after 18 years exile in Seattle. Khadija's poetry has been published in Pale House (forthcoming), The Ark Magazine, Unfettered Verse, CommonLine Project, Qarrtsiluni, Gutter Eloquence, Unlikely, The Citron Review, Killpoet, Wheelhouse, and Phantom Seed among others. Her poem "Islam for Americans" was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize. Khadija holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and her first book will be published in 2012 through Writ Large Press.

Melissa Chadburn is a lover and a fighter, a community organizer, a social arsonist, a writer, a lesbian, of color, smart, edgy and fun. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in Guernica, PANK Magazine, WordRiot, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Splinter Generation, Northville Review and she is a regular contributor at The Nervous Breakdown. She interns at dzanc books and is a proud member of the Advisory Board for Antioch University’s Lunch Ticket.  She loves pit bulls and cheese.

Lisa Cheby is a poet and educator in Los Angeles, CA.   She recently completed her poetry manuscript, Stop and Read Yourself for the First Time, and is developing her critical writing on confessional poetry and gender, both projects she started while completing her MFA at Antioch University.  Lisa is currently working on a chapbook, Harmony was Always Here, and a series, Love Lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Lisa worked on the Board of Directors of the Valley Contemporary Poets, a non-profit organization working to promote quality poetry to the San Fernando Valley and is the new editor of Annotation Nation Poetry. 

Year 7

Thanks to our amazing writers and lovely audience for making the 7th anniversary a night to remember. Stay tuned for details about the next reading on Sunday, December 4th.

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading at the 7th Anniversary, Sunday, October 16th:

BERNARD COOPER
ELOISE KLEIN HEALY
DAVID HERNANDEZ

Sunday, October 16, 2011
Doors open at 7:00pm - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
$3 suggested donation at door. There will be a cash bar.

To join the email list and be notified of future readings: rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com.

http://www.rhapsodomancy.org

Bernard Cooper is the author of five books, the most recent is the memoir The Bill From My Father (Simon & Schuster). Cooper is the recipient of the 1991 PEN/USA Ernest Hemingway Award, a 1995 O. Henry Prize, a 1999 Guggenheim grant, and a 2004 National Endowment of the Arts fellowship in literature.  His work has appeared in several anthologies, including The Best American Essays of 1988, 1995, and 1997, 2002, and 2008.  His work has also appeared in magazines and literary reviews including, Harper's Magazine, The Paris Review, Story, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine.  Mr. Cooper teaches Creative Non-Fiction at Bennington College and at The Master of Professional Writing Program at USC.

Eloise Klein Healy is a lover of dogs, opossums, chocolate and coconut in combination, biographies, iPad apps, and poetry.  She is currently working on her next collection, Wild Surmise: New and Selected Poems, which is forthcoming in Spring 2013.  Arktoi Books, her imprint with Red Hen Press, is stocked with miraculous lesbian authors.

 

  David Hernandez is the recipient of a 2011 NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry.  Hoodwinked, his third collection, won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry and was recently published by Sarabande Books.  His other collections include Always Danger (Southern Illinois University Press, 2006), winner of the Crab Orchard Series, and A House Waiting for Music (Tupelo Press, 2003).  His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Threepenny Review, The Missouri Review, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, and Poetry Daily.  He is also the author of two YA novels, No More Us for You and Suckerpunch, both published by HarperCollins.  David teaches at the University of California, Irvine and poetry workshops at California State University, Long Beach.  He lives in Long Beach and is married to writer Lisa Glatt.

 

 

 

October 16, 2011: Our 7th Anniversary Reading

Readers to be announced shortly. Mark your calendar & join us to celebrate 7 years!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, August 14, 2011

LIDIA YUKNAVITCH
CAMILLE ROY
JANICE LEE
ELIZABETH J. COLEN

Sunday, August 14, 2011
Doors open at 7:00pm - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door. There will be a cash bar.

This event is supported by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation.

http://www.rhapsodomancy.org

lidia yuknavitch is the author of the memoir The Chronology of Water (Hawthorne Books), as well as three books of short fictions and a forthcoming novel based on Freud's famous bisexual case study titled, Dora: A Head Case.  Her work has appeared in Ms., The Iowa Review, Exquisite Corpse, Another Chicago Magazine, Fiction International, Zyzzyva, The Rumpus, Pank, HTML Giant, and elsewhere, as well as in the anthologies The Way We See it, Representing Bisexualities, Wreckage of Reason, Forms of War, and Men Undressed.  She is the editor of chiasmus press and teaches writing, literature, film and women's studies in Oregon.

Camille Roy is a writer and performer of fiction, poetry, and plays. Her book, Sherwood Forest, a collection of poems and prose, is just out (June 2011) from Futurepoem. She co-edited Biting The Error: Writers Explore Narrative, a book of essays by writers on their own experimental practices (CoachHouse). Her books include Cheap Speech, a play, from Leroy, and Craquer, a fictional autobiography from 2^nd Story Books , as well as Swarm (two novellas, Black Star Series). Earlier books include The Rosy Medallions (poetry and prose, from Kelsey St Press) and Cold Heaven (plays, from Leslie Scalapino's O Books). Her writing has appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Book of Practical Pussies (poems with art by Michelle Rollman, from Krupskaya Press with Tender Buttons Press), Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women (Talisman House), and The New Fuck You: Adventures in Lesbian Reading (Semiotexte). She was a founding editor of the online journal Narrativity. Roy has taught creative writing in multiple genres and forms at several institutions, including San Francisco State University, California State University SummerArts, and Naropa.

  Janice Lee is a writer, artist, editor, designer, and curator. She is interested in the relationships between metaphors of consciousness and theoretical neuroscience, and experimental narrative. Her work can be found in antennae, sidebrow, Action, Yes, Joyland, Luvina, Everyday Genius, elimae, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of KEROTAKIS (Dog Horn Press, 2010), a multidisciplinary exploration of cyborgs, brains, and the stakes of consciousness,  Daughter (Jaded Ibis, May 2011), and a chapbook Red Trees. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from CalArts and currently lives in Los Angeles where she is co-editor of the online journal [out of nothing] and co-founder of the interdisciplinary arts organization Strophe. She can be found online at http://janicel.com.

 

Elizabeth J. Colen is the author of prose poetry collection Money for Sunsets (Steel Toe Books, 2010), flash fiction collection Dear Mother Monster, Dear Daughter Mistake (Rose Metal Press, 2011), and forthcoming poetry collection Waiting Up for the End of the World: Conspiracies (Jaded Ibis Press, 2012). Poetry editor of Thumbnail Magazine, she lives in the Pacific Northwest and occasionally blogs at elizabethjcolen.blogspot.com.

See you in August!

Thanks to our writers and our audience for making June such a great reading. Stay tuned for details about the August reading, but in the meantime, save the date: Sunday, August 14th.

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, June 5, 2011

 

JAMES BROWN
STACY GNALL
PATRICK O'NEIL
WYNNE RENZ

Sunday, June 5, 2011
Doors open at 7:00pm - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door. There will be a cash bar.

http://www.rhapsodomancy.org

James Brown has received the Nelson Algren Award for Short Fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.  He has written several novels, and the memoirs The Los Angeles Diaries, and This River.  His writing has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and Ploughshares.  He teaches in the MFA program at Cal State San Bernardino.

 

Stacy Gnall is from Cleveland, Ohio.  She earned her BA at Sarah Lawrence College and her MFA at the University of Alabama. Her poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, The Florida Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Indiana Review, The Laurel Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner.  She is currently working on her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles.

Patrick O’Neil writes nonfiction and makes short films. His essays have appeared in numerous literary journals, most notably: Fourteen Hills, New Plains Review, Weave Magazine, Whistling Fire, Word Riot, Blood Orange Review, and The Coachella Review. His memoir, about his former life as a junkie bank robber titled Gun, Needle, Spoon, is busy being read by indie presses and agents. His short punk themed documentaries have been rejected from every low budget film festival in America – however his latest film: Girls on Girls, is slated to play MoMA NYC for Juxtapoz Magazine's annual event. He assistant teaches English comp at a community college to students who stare at him as if he is speaking in tongues. He currently lives in Hollywood California and holds an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles. You can find more of his writing online at: http://patrickseanoneil.blogspot.com 

Wynne Renz is a writer (TV/Film, fiction, & poetry), advertising copywriter, and professional namer.  She co-wrote the feature film, Bedrooms, currently airing on Showtime Networks.  Her first chapbook collection of poetry, Nobody Loves Nobody (the fussfactory press), received critical acclaim from Al Young, the Poet Laureate of California, emeritus, who stated her poems are "drunk with language, and bright with youthful worry and wonder for the world...with texts as recklessly scored and punctuated as Emily Dickinson's originals."  She is presently at work on her first novel.  You can find her naming work at www.nomnaming.com.

Next reading: Sunday, June 5th, 2011

Please save the date. Check the website in May for details. Thank you and see you in June!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, April 17, 2011

 

SARAH MANGUSO
COLLIER NOGUES
TOMAS MOURNIAN
JESSICA GOODHEART

Sunday, April 17, 2011
Doors open at 7:00pm - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door. There will be a cash bar.

http://www.rhapsodomancy.org

 

Sarah Manguso is the author, most recently, of the memoir The Two Kinds of Decay. It was named a New York Times Editors' Choice and a Best Book of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and Time Out Chicago, and was published in five countries. Her other books include the story collection Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape, published as one of three volumes in McSweeney's 145 Stories in a Small Box, and the poetry collections Siste Viator and The Captain Lands In Paradise, which was named a Favorite Book of the Year by the Village Voice. Honors for her writing include a Hodder Fellowship and the Rome Prize. After a decade in New York, she recently moved to Los Angeles, where she teaches poetry in her living room. Her next book, The Guardians, a prose elegy, is forthcoming next year from FSG and Granta Books.

Collier Nogues’s first book, On the Other Side, Blue, has just been published by Four Way Books. Poems of hers have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Pleiades, Jubilat, The Massachusetts Review, Blackbird, and The Pinch, and she was the 2010 Fishtrap Writer-in-Residence in Wallowa County, Oregon. She lives in Long Beach with her husband, and teaches at UC Irvine.

Tomas Mournian's widely praised debut novel, hidden, is about Ahmed, a 15 y.o. boy who escapes from a reparative therapy facility to San Francisco & underground network of safe houses. hidden was the subject of a short film produced by George Michael. Mournian has written for The Huffington Post, Queerty, Marie Claire, & Los Angeles, among others. Mournian was awarded the Eli Cantor Chair at Yaddo, studied at UC Berkeley & lives in Los Angeles.

Jessica Goodheart’s work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, The Antioch Review, Blue Arc West:  An Anthology of California Poets, Mudfish, Salamander, Cider Press Review, Pearl and other journals. Her poetry was featured four times in the Poetry in the Windows exhibit, sponsored by the Arroyo Arts Collective in Los Angeles. She was featured in the Newer Poets reading, sponsored by the Los Angeles Poetry Festival and Beyond Baroque for the ALOUD series at the Los Angeles Public Library.  Her first book, entitled Earthquake Season, was published by Word Press in 2010.  She leads a green jobs project for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, an advocacy organization dedicated to building a fair and sustainable economy.

Save the date: April 17, 2011

Please join us for the first Rhapsodomancy of spring on Sunday, April 17th, 2011. Check back in March for details. Happy new year!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, February 13th, 2011:

ALEXANDRA TEAGUE
NORIKO NAKADA

Sunday, February 13, 2011
Doors open at 7:00pm - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door. There will be a cash bar.

http://www.rhapsodomancy.org

  Alexandra Teague’s first book of poetry, Mortal Geography, won the Lexi Rudnitsky Prize and was published by Persea Books in 2010. Her poetry has appeared in Best American Poetry 2009, Best New Poets 2008, and journals including The Missouri Review and New England Review. She was a 2006-2008 Stegner Fellow at Stanford and received a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She usually lives in Oakland, CA.

 

Noriko Nakada is the author of Through Eyes Like Mine, the story of her early childhood years growing up in rural Oregon. She completed her MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles in 2005 and continues to write, blog, tweet and facebook about life, food, education and sports.  She teaches English, history and advises the school newspaper at LAUSD's Emerson Middle School where she also helped found the Emerson Sports Academy.  She lives with her man and dog in Los Angeles, California and is represented by Judy Heiblum at Sterling Lord Literistic.

 

*Richard Katrovas & Thaisa Frank will not be reading tonight as planned. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Save the date: February 13, 2011

The first Rhapsodomancy reading of 2011 is on Sunday, February 13. Details will be posted shortly. Hope to see you there!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, December 5th, 2010:

DIANE LEFER
STEVE DE JARNATT
ROBIN EKISS
CANDACE PEARSON

Sunday, December 5, 2010
Doors open at 7:00pm - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door. There will be a cash bar.

http://www.rhapsodomancy.org

Diane Lefer is an author, playwright, and activist whose most recent books are the short-story collection, California Transit, which received the Mary McCarthy Prize and was published by Sarabande Books, and The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation, nonfiction co-authored with Colombian exile Hector Aristizábal, which was published in June by Lantern Books. Diane taught for 23 years in the MFA in Writing Program of Vermont College of Fine Arts, short-term in the MFA program at Antioch-LA and the Writers Program, UCLA-Extension, and has led workshops for youth in (and later out) of the juvenile in/justice system. Her plays have been produced on both coasts and as far afield as Afghanistan and she has performed her fiction at Beyond Baroque and at San Francisco's pleasantly notorious Makeout Room.

Robin Ekiss is a former Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford, recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award for emerging women writers, and author of the book, The Mansion of Happiness, winner of the 2010 Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize, and a finalist for the Balcones Poetry Prize, Northern California Book Awards, and the Commonwealth Club’s California Book Awards. She’s received grants, awards, and residencies from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Millay Colony for the Arts, MacDowell Colony, and Headlands Center for the Arts. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, POETRY, APR, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and elsewhere. She lives in San Francisco with the poet Keith Ekiss, their infant son, and their cats, Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein.

  Steve De Jarnatt grew up in the small logging town of Longview, Washington. He attended Occidental College, graduated from The Evergreen State College and recently completed the Creative Writing MFA program at Antioch University Los Angeles after a long career as a writer and director in film and television. The indie cult film, Miracle Mile, among many credits. His story, Rubiaux Rising, (Santa Monica Review - Spring 2008) was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2009, guest edited by Alice Sebold. He has new work forthcoming in Meridian. 

Candace Pearson is the author of Hour of Unfolding, which received the 2010 Liam Rector First Book Prize for Poetry from Briery Creek Press at Longwood University. David St. John called Hour of Unfolding, “A truly striking portrait of life in the American West . . . nothing less than a superb debut.” A Pushcart Prize nominee, Candace’s poems have been published in fine journals nationwide, including Ploughshares, Crab Orchard Review, Comstock Review, 5AM, and MARGIE. Her work is in several anthologies, most recently Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose About Alzheimer’s Disease and Sharing the Seasons: A Book of Poems.

Next reading: Sunday, December 5th, 2010

Thanks to everyone who celebrated our anniversary with us in October! Our next reading will be on Sunday, December 5th. Stay tuned for details!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading at our Sixth Anniversary:

DAVID L. ULIN
ROB ROBERGE
ANDREA QUAID
WENDY C. ORTIZ

Sunday, October 17, 2010
Doors open at 7:00pm - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door. There will be a cash bar.

http://www.rhapsodomancy.org

David L. Ulin was book editor of the Los Angeles Times from 2005–2010. He is the author of The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith (Viking, 2004; Penguin, 2005), selected as a Best Book of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune. He has edited two anthologies of Southern California literature: Another City: Writing from Los Angeles (City Lights, 2001), a Los Angeles Times Book Review Best Book of 2001; and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology (Library of America, 2002), which received a California Book Award from the Commonwealth Club of California, and was selected by the Los Angeles Times Book Review as a Best of the Best for 2002. He has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, LA Weekly, Los Angeles, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered; his essay "The Half-Birthday of the Apocalypse" was nominated for a 2004 Pushcart Prize. For the 2008–2009 academic year, he was a visiting professor in the MFA in creative writing program at the California Institute of the Arts. Currently, he teaches in USC's Masters of Professional Writing program, and in the low residency MFA in creative writing program at the University of California, Riverside's Palm Desert Graduate Center.

Rob Roberge is the author of the story collection Working Backwards From the Worst Moment of My Life and the novels More Than They Could Chew and Drive. He teaches writing at the Antioch University Los Angeles, MFA in Creative Writing, UC-Riverside’s Palm Desert MFA program and the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, where he received the Outstanding Instructor Award in Creative Writing in 2003. His stories have been featured in ZYZZYVA, Chelsea, Black Clock, Other Voices, Alaska Quarterly Review, and the Ten Writers Worth Knowing Issue of The Literary Review. His work has also been anthologized in Another City (City Lights, 2001), It’s All Good (Manic D Press, 2004) SANTI: Lives of the Modern Saints (Black Arrow Press, 2007) and Orange County Noir (Akashic, 2010). Non-fiction appears, or has appeared, in The Nervous Breakdown and Penthouse. He plays guitar and sings with several LA bands, including, among others, the punk pioneers, The Urinals. In his spare time, he restores and rebuilds vintage amplifiers and quack medical devices.

Andrea Quaid is currently a Ph.D. candidate in literature at UCSC where she co-coordinates the Poetry and Politics Research Cluster, which hosts on ongoing lecture/reading series. Her publications include The Alembic, aPlod, Carquinez Poetry Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Fox Cry Review, Limestone, Lana Turner, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Phantasmagoria, Prairie Winds, Rio Grand Review, South Carolina Review, Soundings East, West Wind Review, and Xavier Review.  In addition to teaching within the university system, she has taught in creative writing-education outreach programs throughout the greater Los Angeles area.  She is the co-founder of Rhapsodomancy. 

  Wendy C. Ortiz lives in Los Angeles, California, where she was born and raised until she moved to Olympia, Washington, where she lived for eight years. She was awarded writing residencies at Hedgebrook in 2007 and 2009. Her work has been published in Spillway, Palabra: A Magazine of Chicano and Latino Literary Art, Eclipse, Cranky, KNOCK, Calapooya, and 4th Street, among others. She has read at various venues, including the West Hollywood Book Fair, The Knitting Factory, World Stage, the Echo Park Poetry Festival, and the first Ladyfest in Olympia, Washington in 2000. Wendy recently finished an M.A. in Clinical Psychology, and she also holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. Wendy is co-founder and literary curator of Rhapsodomancy. Her website is www.wendyortiz.com. 

 

October 17th, 2010

Our sixth anniversary. Details forthcoming. Please mark your calendar!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, August 15, 2010

MARISA MATARAZZO
MARIANA DIETL
MATTHEW SHINDELL
STEVEN REIGNS

Sunday, August 15, 2010
Doors open at 7:00pm - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door. Proceeds will benefit The Saban Free Clinic. There will be a cash bar.

http://www.rhapsodomancy.org

Marisa Matarazzo holds an MFA from the University of California at Irvine, where she was the recipient of the Dorothy and Donald Strauss Endowed Thesis Fellowship. At Yale, she received the Wallace Prize for fiction writing, the Arthur Willis Colton Scholarship, and was a two-time recipient of the Elmore A.Willets Prize for fiction. Drenched is her first book. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

 

Mariana Dietl is an Argentine-American writer with a major in International Relations from St. Andrew’s University in Argentina. She worked for Clarín, the leading newspaper in that country, and for the Argentine Consulate in Los Angeles, as Chief Communications Officer. She studied fiction writing at UCLA Extension and at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center. Her novel, Confined (The Litchfield Review Press, 2009), was awarded The Litchfield Review’s Fiction Prize. Argentina: Se Me Hace Cuento, her first story collection, received third prize in UC Irvine’s Chicano/Latino Literary Award and was published by Ahadada Books (Argentinos: Stories, Ahadada Books, 2010), and other stories were finalists in contests from the U.S and abroad. Her work can be found in hotmetalpress.net, Literary Chaos, Tertulia, Luces & Sombras, The Externalist, Revista Baquiana, Rattle, The Litchfield Review, Tonopah Preview and in Palabra. She is a member of PEN Center USA. For more info, please go to www.marianadietl.com

Matthew Shindell’s first full-length book of poems, In Another Castle (3 Candles Press, 2008), was a finalist for the 2008 Tupelo Press First Book Award. He is also the author of the Poetry Postcard Project and a limited edition chapbook, Were something to happen it would be both funny and interesting (University of Iowa Type Kitchen, 2001). His poems have appeared in numerous journals including American Letters and Commentary, The American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, FENCE, and Jubilat, and in the anthologies Digerati: 20 Contemporary Poets in the Virtual World (Three Candles Press, 2006) and The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel (No Tell Books, 2006). He currently lives and writes in La Jolla, California where he is in the dissertation stage of a Ph.D. in the history of science at the University of California, San Diego.

Steven Reigns's newest collection Inheritance came out in May of 2010 by Lethe Press. A two-time recipient of The Los Angeles County’s Department of Cultural Affairs’ Artist in Residency Grant, Reigns organized and taught the first-ever autobiography poetry workshop for GLBT seniors and edited an anthology of their writings, My Life is Poetry. He has taught writing workshop around the country to GLBT youth and people living with HIV. Visit him at www.stevenreigns.com.

See you August 15th

Thanks to the writers and audience members that made the June 13th reading a success! Stay tuned for details about the August 15th reading.

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, June 13, 2010:

 

JILLIAN LAUREN KEVIN MOFFETT
HEATHER DERR-SMITH JOE HALL

 

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Doors open at 7:00pm - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door. Proceeds will benefit a nonprofit to be determined. There will be a cash bar.
http://www.rhapsodomancy.org

 

 

Author and performer Jillian Lauren grew up in suburban New Jersey and fled across the water to New York City. She attended New York University for three minutes but promptly dropped out to work with Richard Foreman’s Ontological Hysteric Theater and with The Wooster Group, among others. Her memoir, Some Girls, was published by Plume/Penguin in April 2010. Her novel, Pretty, is scheduled to be released in January 2011. Jillian has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. Her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Flaunt Magazine, Pindeldyboz Magazine, Opium Magazine, Society, Pale House: A Collective and in the anthology My First Time: A Collection of First Punk Show Stories, among others. She has read at spoken word events in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco and has recently worked with directors as diverse as Steve Balderson, Lynne Breedlove and Margaret Cho. She is married to musician Scott Shriner. They live in Los Angeles with their son.

 

 

Kevin Moffett was born and raised in Daytona Beach, Florida. His first collection of stories, Permanent Visitors, won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award, judged by George Saunders, and was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. His stories have appeared in The Better of McSweeney's Vol. 2, Tin House, the Chicago Tribune, New Stories From the South: The Year’s Best, and in three editions of The Best American Short Stories (2006, 2009, and 2010). He has received the Nelson Algren Award, a National Magazine Award, the Pushcart Prize, and a literature fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. He teaches in the graduate creative writing program at Cal State University, San Bernardino.

 

 

Heather Derr-Smith was born in Dallas. Texas. She spent her early childhood sitting under an orange tree, zillions of hummingbirds buzzing around her head in her backyard in Los Angeles (or at least, that’s the way she remembers it). She spent most of her childhood in Fredericksburg, Virginia roaming the woods with civil war ghosts. She earned her undergraduate degree in Art History at the University of Virginia, where she also took poetry workshops with Rita Dove, Charles Wright, and Greg Orr. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop with an MFA in Poetry. Her first collection of poems, Each End of the World (Main Street Rag Press, 2005) was about the war in Bosnia. Derr-Smith volunteered in a refugee camp during the war in Gasinci, Croatia. She continues to travel to the region, most recently to lead poetry workshops in Sarajevo and Tuzla, Bosnia. In 2008 Derr-Smith went to Damascus, Syria to interview Iraqi and Palestinian refugees, which led to her second collection of poems, The Bride Minaret (University of Akron Press, 2008). These poems explore boundaries and exile, geo-political and psychological. Her third collection is called Breath Hold Break Point, poems about floods in Iowa and fires in L.A. and the way desire reasserts itself out of disasters, both environmental and personal. Her poems have also appeared in numerous literary magazines such as TriQuarterly, New York Quarterly, Crazyhorse, Fence, Nashville Review, Phoebe, Sycamore Review, Valparaiso, and Diode among others.

 

 

Joe Hall is the author of the book of poems Pigafetta Is My Wife. The editors of HTMLGIANT, Rooms Outlast Us, Barrelhouse, Versal, Octopus, Gulf Coast and other journals were kind enough to accept his poems and essays for publication. He co-organizes the DC area reading series Cheryl’s Gone with Wade Fletcher.

See you June 13th

We hope you enjoyed the April reading! We're sorry Antoinette Brim couldn't join us. We hope to have her read in 2011.

Stay tuned for details regarding the June 13th reading, which will feature writers Jillian Lauren and Kevin Moffett and poets Heather Derr-Smith and Joseph Hall.

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, April 18, 2010:

JAMES MORRISON
SARAH MACLAY
HAZEL KIGHT WITHAM

 

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Doors open at 7:00pm - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door. Proceeds will benefit a nonprofit to be determined. There will be a cash bar.
http://www.rhapsodomancy.org

 

*Antoinette Brim is unfortunately unable to read tonight. We hope to host her in 2011.

James Morrison

is the author of a memoir, Broken Fever (2001), a novel, The Lost Girl (2007), and a collection of short stories, Said and Done (2009), as well as several nonfiction books on film and numerous short stories and essays in literary quarterlies such as Ploughshares, Massachusetts Review, Raritan and Michigan Quarterly Review. Jim grew up in Detroit, an experience that furnished sufficient trauma for both his memoir and his first novel, two books largely set in his hometown. He attended Wayne State University, majoring in English. Trading in one snow-swept industrial landscape for another, he went on to graduate school at the State University of New York at Buffalo, receiving a Ph.D. in English. For several years, he taught in the English department of North Carolina State University, before moving to Southern California, where he currently teaches literature, film and creative writing at Claremont McKenna College.

Sarah Maclay is the author of The White Bride (University of Tampa Press, 2008), which was selected for Best Books, Spring 2009 by The Montserrat Review, and Whore, which won the Tampa Review Prize in Poetry in 2003, as well as three chapbooks. Her poems, essays and reviews have been published widely, appearing in spots such as APR, FIELD, Ploughshares, The Writer’s Chronicle, VerseDaily, and The Best American Erotic Poems: 1800 to the Present. A recipient of a Special Mention in Pushcart Prize XXXI, a 2005 Albert & Elaine Borchard Fellowship, and the 2003 dA Center for the Arts Prize in Poetry, she teaches creative writing and literature at Loyola Marymount University, and serves as book review editor for Poetry International and as artistic director of THE T H I R D  A R E A, a reading series currently hosted by Frank Pictures Gallery, at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica.  She conducts periodic workshops privately, at The Ruskin Art Club and at Beyond Baroque.

Antoinette Brim teaches Creative Writing, World Literature and Composition at Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock, Arkansas. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Antioch University Los Angeles and a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Language with an emphasis in Creative Writing from Webster University. She is a Cave Canem Fellow and a Harvard University W.E.B. Du Bois Fellow, (the National Endowment of the Humanities Summer Institute) and is a recipient of the Archie D. and Bertha H. Walker Foundation Scholarship to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. The recipient of a Pushcart Prize nomination, her work has appeared in various journals, magazines and anthologies.  Psalm of the Sunflower (Willow Books, 2009) is her debut poetry collection.

 

Hazel Kight Witham is a writer, artist, and middle school teacher in Los Angeles, California. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University-Los Angeles and is working on a novel set on a small island off the coast of Maine and a memoir about her family’s history with mental illness. Her work has been published in Bellevue Literary Review, Two Hawks Quarterly and California English. Her writing and prints can be found at www.hazelwitham.com.

Thanks for a great start in the new year.

We could not have packed one more person in the house on February 7th--a tremendous beginning in the new year. Stay tuned for details of the April 18th reading. Until then, look through our photo album for shots of recent readings. Enjoy!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, February 7, 2010

  FELICIA LUNA LEMUS BRENDAN CONSTANTINE ANTONIA CRANE MANDY KAHN

 

Sunday, February 7, 2010.

Doors open at 7:00pm - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door. Proceeds will benefit Partners In Health. There will be a cash bar.
http://www.rhapsodomancy.org

Felicia Luna Lemus is the author of the novels Like Son (Akashic Books; 2008 Ferro-Grumley Award Finalist) and Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Her writing has appeared in anthologies including Lengua Fresca: Latinos Writing on the Edge (Mariner Books), Fifteen Candles: 15 Tales of Taffeta, Hairspray, Drunk Uncles, and other Quinceañera Stories (HarperCollins), and That's So You (Seal Press), as well as in magazines including BOMB, ZYZZYVA, and Latina.  For more information: www.FeliciaLunaLemus.com.

Brendan Constantine is a poet based in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in numerous journals, most notably Ploughshares, Ninth Letter, The Cortland Review and RUNES.  His collection, Letters To Guns, was released in 2009 from Red Hen Press.  New work is forthcoming in Ploughshares (again!), Chaparral, Black Crow, Luvina, and the anthology Bright Wings. He is currently poet in residence at Loyola Marymount University Extension and the Windward School. In addition, he regularly offers classes in hospitals, elder care centers and shelters for the homeless.

Antonia Crane is a freelance journalist, editor and sex worker from Humboldt County. She was behind the unionization effort in 1996 for Lusty Lady Theatre: SEIU Local 790: The Exotic Dancers Alliance. After graduating from Mills College in 2002, Antonia moved to Los Angeles to pursue HIV/STI counseling for the porn industry at Aim Health Care. She has been a sex educator and harm reduction counselor for at-risk youth and women in San Francisco and Los Angeles. She holds an BA from Mills College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. She edits The Citron Review and is a contributing columnist for The Rumpus.  Excerpts from her forthcoming memoir “Tales of a Sexual Outlaw” have been published in the Black Clock Journal and the Coachella Review. Her forthcoming novel is titled “Kill the Day." Excerpts have been published in the Sylvan Echo. She has received scholarships from College of the Redwoods, Mills College, Antioch University and The Squaw Valley Community of Writers. She can be spotted hanging upside-down in precarious positions from various poles in Los Angeles and New Orleans. check out her blog at: http://blog.antoniacrane.com/

 

Mandy Kahn's poetry has been anthologized in From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900-2002, edited by Ishmael Reed.  She is co-author, with Aaron Rose, of the forthcoming book Collage Culture: Examining the 21st Century's Identity Crisis. She has been a guest columnist for The Los Angeles Times, a guest poet on LA radio station KXLU and is a frequent contributor to Foam magazine. She served on the editing staff at Cutbank and has taught writing and media literacy at The University of Montana and UC Berkeley. A member of The LA Ladies Choir, Mandy lives in Echo Park.

 

See you in February 2010!

Thanks for making the last five years a success! The next reading will be on Sunday, February 7, 2010. Stay tuned for details, or email rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com to be added to the email list. You will receive only one email per reading--that's 6 per year. Happy holidays!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, December 13th, 2009:

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK STEVE ABEE DIANE J. WRIGHT MEEHAN RASCH

Sunday, December 13, 2009
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla at gmail dot com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door. Proceeds will benefit The Bridge Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.
There will be a cash bar.
http://www.rhapsodomancy.org

Susan Taylor Chehak is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers Workshop and the author of five novels, including Smithereens (a Hammett Award nominee), The Truth About Annie D. (an Edgar Award nominee and New York Times Notable Book), and Harmony (a Literary Guild Editor's Choice), as well as a book of nonfiction, Don Quixote Meets the Mob: The Craft of Fiction and the Art of Life. Her short stories have appeared in Guernica Magazine, L.A. Under The Influence, Sisters in Crime 5, and The Chariton Review. She is Executive Editor of ZinkZine, an online literary journal at www.ZinkZine.com, and teaches fiction writing in the low residency MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles, as well as in The UCLA Extension Writers' Program and the Summer Writing Festival at the University of Iowa. Susan grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, spends as much time as possible in Colorado, and at present divides her time between Los Angeles and Toronto.

Steve Abee was born in Santa Monica, California and began writing after high school when he held a job as an orderly at St. John’s Hospital, the same hospital he was born in. His mind started to unfold itself as he witnessed the unfolding and closing of human life and he thought if he was going to save it, his mind, he better start writing things down. “I saw the fragility and blessedness of lives and started to come apart in the wonderment of it all.” His work seeks the ecstatic universal in the common grains of the day. Beck Hansen has called Abee "The Love Powered Bull Horn blasting down from the altitudes," and  Lydia Lunch has remarked that his "... savage poetry demands the reader devour passage after passage, only to be left soul seared and simultaneously  re-invigorated." He is the  author of the new poetry collection, Great Balls of Flowers out now with Write Bloody books, and the upcoming novel Johnny Future with MacAdam/Cage; also he authored the Los Angeles underground classic The Bus: Cosmic Ejaculations of the Daily Mind in Transit (Phony Lid Books), and the collection of short stories and poems King Planet (Incommunicado). He lives and teaches in Los Angeles.

 

Diane J. Wright is a novelist, screenwriter, and partner in MilkBoss Industries with filmmaker Jeff Renfroe. She is the founder and editor of  THE STORY SPOT, a story consultation website and service for writers by writers and, with novelist Kathryn Pope, is co-founder of  Seedpod Publishing, a home for literary fiction and memoir in a digital age. Diane has collaborated on screenplays with studios, independent production companies, and filmmakers in LA and Toronto. She has been a judge in the Carl Sutter Screenwriting Competition and contributed to feature films that earned competition spots in the Sundance and Tribeca film festivals. She has been the honored recipient of the Eloise Klein Healy Award for new writers and twice received Telefilm Canada's Writer's First Award.Diane earned her master’s degree from the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Antioch University Los Angeles and lives and writes in British Columbia, Canada and Southern California where the fictional world of Birthday Girl is set.

 

Meehan Rasch is a writer, academic, and attorney originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. A long-time Angeleno, her writing and music are a Watts Tower of shards from the collisions of desire and loss, ecstasy and absurdity. Meehan is a grateful alum of Writers at Work in Silver Lake, the Naropa Summer Writing Program, the Beyond Baroque fiction workshop in Venice, and the songwriting workshops of Nicola Gordon in Santa Barbara. In 2008-09, she was active in the Live to Dream and Santa Barbara Open Mic nights sponsored by Free Culture Arts Foundation and the Santa Barbara Independent, and one of her favorite creative endeavors was hosting and curating the FROG Salon series of art, music, and literature house parties in 2007-08. Meehan's poetry and short stories have appeared in literary journals including Masque, Westwind, and Twittering Machine, and she received the Best Poem award from genesis literary magazine at Indiana University-Indianapolis. Law pays the bills, though; Meehan is currently a Sidley Austin Pro Bono Fellow at the Public Counsel Appellate Law Program in Los Angeles. Her legal scholarship has been published in a variety of law reviews.

We're Five Years Old Now

Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate the 5th Anniversary of our series. You're an amazing audience to read for. Photos will be posted shortly.

Stay tuned for details about the Sunday, December 13th reading!

Rhapsodomancy's Fifth Anniversary Reading, Sun. October 25th, 2009

SALVADOR PLASCENCIA ELOISE KLEIN HEALY WENDY C. ORTIZ ANDREA QUAID

Sunday, October 25, 2009*The 5th Anniversary of Rhapsodomancy!
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla (at) yahoo dot com. RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door.
There will be a cash bar.
www.rhapsodomancy.org

Salvador Plascencia was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and raised in El Monte, California. His debut novel, The People of Paper, was named a best book of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times, and has been translated into ten languages. He is the recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize and the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. His next novel, a shuffle roman, is about a time derailment, oceans, and shapeshifters.

Eloise Klein Healy, Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing Emerita, was the founding chair of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles. She is the author of six books of poetry. Her most recent collection, The Islands Project: Poems For Sappho, is from Red Hen Press. Ms. Healy directed the Women’s Studies Program at California State University Northridge and taught in the Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles. She is the co-founder of ECO-ARTS, an eco-tourism/arts venture and founding editor of Arktoi Books.

Wendy C. Ortiz is a Los Angeles native. She is currently a graduate student of psychology and marriage and family therapy trainee. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. Wendy was a 2007 and 2009 Writer-in-Residence at Hedgebrook. Recent and forthcoming publications include Spillway, Blood Orange Review, Palabra: A Magazine of Chicano and Latino Literary Art, Cranky, KNOCK, and Eclipse. She has read at various venues, including the West Hollywood Book Fair, The Knitting Factory, World Stage, the Echo Park Poetry Festival, and the first Ladyfest in Olympia, Washington in 2000. Wendy has been a creative writing teacher of Los Angeles youth in juvenile detention facilities, as well as a journalist, mudwrestler, library worker, and editor and publisher of a handbound literary journal. She received a B.A. from The Evergreen State College in 1995 and lived in Olympia, Washington for eight years before returning to Los Angeles. She is currently at work on various projects including a memoir and a poetry collection. Wendy is co-founder and curator of the Rhapsodomancy reading series.

Andrea Quaid co-facilitates the Poetry and Politics Research Cluster and Reading Series at UCSC where she is a Ph.D. candidate in literature. Her work focuses on contemporary avant-garde movements, experimental writing, the urban city and gender.  She earned an MFA in creative writing with an emphasis on poetry, and her publications include The Alembic, aPlod, Carquinez Poetry Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Fox Cry Review, Limestone, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Phantasmagoria, Prairie Winds, Rio Grand Review, South Carolina Review, Soundings East, West Wind Review, and Xavier Review.  She is the co-founder of the Los Angeles reading series Rhapsodomancy and co-editor of Lounge-Lit: An Anthology of Poetry and Fiction by the Writers of Literary Cocktail and Rhapsodmancy.  In addition to teaching within the university system, she has co-created and directed creative writing-education outreach programs throughout the greater Los Angeles area.

Five Year Anniversary Coming Up

Thanks to everyone who attended our August reading! Photos from the evening will be posted shortly.

Please mark your calendar for the 5 year anniversary reading on Sunday, October 25, 2009. Details are forthcoming, so check back in mid-September!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, August 9th, 2009

TARA ISON ROBERT KRUT ALEXANDRA TEAGUE

Sunday, August 9, 2009
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla@yahoo.com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door.
There will be a cash bar.
www.rhapsodomancy.org

 

*Due to unforeseen circumstances, David Ulin will not be reading on August 9. Please check back for a future date.*

 

Tara Ison's first novel, A Child out of Alcatraz (Faber & Faber, Inc.), was a Finalist for the 1997 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, "Best First Fiction."  Her new novel, The List (Scribner), was published in February 2007.  Her short fiction, essays and book reviews have appeared in Tin House, The Kenyon Review, Nerve.com, Black Clock, The Mississippi Review, LA Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, and numerous anthologies.  She is the recipient of a 2008 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship and a 2008 COLA Individual Artist Grant, as well as Yaddo fellowships, Pushcart Prize nominations, a Rotary Foundation Scholarship for International Study, a Brandeis National Women's Committee Award, a Thurber House Fiction Writer-in-Residence Fellowship, the Simon Blattner Fellowship from Northwestern University, and a California Arts Council Artists' Fellowship Award. 

Robert Krut is the author of The Spider Sermons (BlazeVOX, 2009).  His poetry has appeared in a variety of journals, including Blackbird, The Mid-American Review, Barrow Street, and more.  He teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara and lives in Los Angeles.

Alexandra Teague has an M.F.A. from the University of Florida and was a 2006-08 Stegner Fellow at Stanford. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2008 and Best American Poetry 2009, as well as The Missouri Review, New England Review and other journals. Her first book, Mortal Geography, winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Prize, is forthcoming from Persea in April 2010. She teaches English at City College of San Francisco and lives in Oakland.

 

 

Stay tuned for August date

Thanks to everyone who chose a good reading over the Tony awards, the Lakers game and the Dodgers game. We wouldn't survive without you!

Photos will be posted soon, as well as information about the August reading. Thank you for your support!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, June 7, 2009

SARAH SHUN-LIEN BYNUM FARRAH FIELD ELENA MINOR JARED WHITE

Sunday, June 7, 2009
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla@yahoo.com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door.
There will be a cash bar.
www.rhapsodomancy.org
www.rhapsodomancy.org<br>

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is the author of two novels, Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award, and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a finalist for the 2004 National Book Award and winner of the Kafka Prize. Her work has appeared in several magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Tin House, The Georgia Review, and The Best American Short Stories. The recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and an NEA Fellowship, she directs the MFA Program in Writing at the University of California, San Diego. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.

 

Farrah Field's poems have appeared in many publications including the Mississippi Review, Pool, Typo, Harp & Altar, 42Opus, La Petite Zine, Pebble Lake Review, and Fulcrum, among others. Rising won Four Way Books' 2007 Levis Prize and is her first book of poetry. She lives in Brooklyn and blogs at adultish.blogspot.com.

  

elena minor is the founding editor of PALABRA A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art.  Her fiction and poetry have been published or are forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, Quercus Review, Verdad, Buffalo Carp, Mandorla, OCHO, Diner, Passager, Poetry Midwest, Segue, Magnapoets, Prism Review, BorderSenses and The Big Ugly Review, among others.  She is a past First Prize recipient of the Chicano/Latino Literary Prize for drama and her work has placed as finalist in several national writing competitions.  She’s also a high school creative writing instructor with Spoken Interludes Next and a veteran arts administrator.

 

 

Jared White grew up in Massachusetts and lives in Brooklyn. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in journals like Cannibal, Coconut, Fulcrum, Harp & Altar, Inscape, The Modern Review, Sorry 4 Snake, and Verse. He has published essays in Harp & Altar, Poets Off Poetry at Coldfront, and Open Letters, and a chapbook entitled Yellowcake was included in the recent hand-sewn anthology Narwhal from Cannibal Books. From time to time, he blogs at jaredswhite.blogspot.com and plays the piano.

April Photos Posted; June Announcement to Come

Please check out our photo album for photos of the April reading.

The June reading announcement will be up by May 22nd. Keep checking back!

Full House

Thanks to everyone who made last night's reading pure joy--from audience member to writer reading, you were fantastic!

June reading details will be posted shortly, as well as photos from the April 19th reading. Stay tuned!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, April 19, 2009

JERICHO BROWN CHING-IN CHEN SINA GRACE EDAN LEPUCKI

Sunday, April 19, 2009
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla@yahoo.com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door.
There will be a cash bar.
www.rhapsodomancy.org
Jericho Brown worked as the speechwriter for the Mayor of New Orleans before receiving his Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He also holds an M.F.A. from the University of New Orleans and a B.A. from Dillard University, and he has served as poetry editor at Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts. His poems have appeared in Callaloo, The Iowa Review, jubilat, New England Review, and Prairie Schooner. The recipient of a Cave Canem Fellowship, two scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and two travel fellowships to the Krakow Poetry Seminar in Poland, Brown is currently an Assistant Professor of English at the University of San Diego where he teaches creative writing. Western Michigan University's New Issues Poetry & Prose published his first book, Please. www.jerichobrown.com

Ching-In Chen is the author of The Heart's Traffic (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press), a novel-in-poems chronicling the life of an immigrant girl haunted by the death of her best friend. Daughter of Chinese immigrants and a Kundiman Fellow, Ching-In has worked in the Asian American communities of San Francisco, Oakland, and Boston. Her work has been recently published in Tea Party, Fifth Wednesday Journal, OCHO, Iron Horse Literary Review, and Water~Stone Review. www.chinginchen.com

Sina Grace is the author of the comic book series Books with Pictures and The Roller-Derby Robo-Dykes versus The Cannibals. His work has appeared in several prose and graphic novel anthologies. He illustrated More Adventurous, the Rilo Kiley comic to the eponymous album; and also illustrated inserts and promotional material for Common Rotation, Finest Dearest, and others. Cedric Hollows in Dial 'M' for Magic is his first novel. He lives in Southern California.

Edan Lepucki has published fiction in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, CutBank, Meridian, Avery, Narrative Magazine, and the Los Angeles Review. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and a regular contributor to The Millions book blog. She is the founder of Writing Workshops Los Angeles, private writing school for the brave, enthusiastic and talented. She's currently at work on a novel.

First reading of 2009 a beauty...

Thanks to everyone who came out to hear Carine Topal, Lynne Thompson, Gayle Brandeis and Paul Lisicky! Photos will be posted soon. The next reading is schedule for Sunday, April 19. Stay tuned!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on February 8, 2009

PAUL LISICKY GAYLE BRANDEIS LYNNE THOMPSON CARINE TOPAL

Sunday, February 8, 2009
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla@yahoo.com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door.
There will be a cash bar.
www.rhapsodomancy.org
Paul Lisicky is the author of Lawnboy and Famous Builder (Graywolf Press). His work has appeared in Five Points, Gulf Coast, Ploughshares, The Seattle Review, Subtropics, Truth in Nonfiction and other magazines and anthologies. His awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was twice a winter fellow. He has taught in the graduate writing programs at Cornell University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Antioch University Los Angeles. He currently teaches at NYU and in the low residency MFA program at Fairfield University. In the fall of 2009 he'll be a visiting professor in the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark. A new novel and a collection of short prose pieces are forthcoming. For more see: http://paullisicky.blogspot.com.

Gayle Brandeis is the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperSanFrancisco), Dictionary Poems (Pudding House Publications), The Book of Dead Birds: A Novel (HarperCollins), which won Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize for Fiction in Support of a Literature of Social Change, and Self Storage: A Novel (Ballantine) as well as the forthcoming novels, Pears (Ballantine, 2010) and My Life with the Lincolns (Holt, 2010). Gayle's fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in dozens of magazines and anthologies, including Salon.com, The Nation and the Mississippi Review, and have won several awards, including the QPB/Story Magazine Short Story Award and a Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award. In 2004, the Writer Magazine named Gayle a Writer Who Makes a Difference. Gayle is on the national staff of the women's peace organization CODEPINK and is a founding member of the Women Creating Peace Collective. Mother to two teenagers, Gayle teaches creative writing at UC Riverside and Antioch University. You can find her at www.gaylebrandeis.com.

Lynne Thompson won the 2007 Perugia Press Book Prize for her first full-length collection of poems, Beg No Pardon. Beg No Pardon was also awarded the 2008 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award. A frequent reader, both locally and nationally, Thompson is also the author of two chapbooks: We Arrive By Accumulation and Through A Window and her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Essence, Margie, Crab Orchard Review, Indiana Review, and Blue Arc West, An Anthology of California Poets. She is employed as the Director of Employee & Labor Relations at UCLA.

Carine Topal, a native New Yorker, writes and teaches in Los Angeles. She has lived in Jerusalem, Israel, where she worked with Palestinian merchants, traveling to villages and towns in the West Bank and Bethlehem. She was also employed by the Office of Assimilation, in a small town outside Jerusalem, working with Morrocan Jews. She then lived in Germany on the American army base in Heidelberg. Since 1982, she has anthologized the poetry of special needs children. She participated in the grassroots organization California Poets in the Schools. She was the Poet-in-Residence for the city of Manhattan Beach and Poet-in-Education for Manhattan Beach elementary schools. In 1994, her first collection of poetry, God As Thief, was published by The Amagansett Press. Her work has appeared in Water-Stone, Caliban, The Best of the Prose Poem, Pacific Review, Greensboro Review and many other journals throughout the U.S. and Canada. In 2004, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and in 2005, awarded a residency at Hedgebrook, as well as a fellowship in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 2006, Carine had the good fortune of teaching poetry at the VA Hospital in Los Angeles. She is the recipient of numerous poetry awards, including the Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize, and most recently, the 2007 Robert G. Cohn Prose Poetry Award from California Arts and Letters. A special edition chapbook, “Bed of Want,” was published by Black Zinnias in January 2008. Her new collection of poems, “In the Heaven of Never Before,” was recently published by Moon Tide Press.

Farewell to 2008

Thanks to everyone who came out on December 7 for the reading! Photos will be posted by the end of the year. Happy holidays and best wishes in the new year! Rhapsodomancy will return in February 2009. Join our mailing list by emailing rhapsodomancyla at yahoo dot com and check here for details in January.

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, December 7, 2008

TREBOR HEALEY JILLIAN LAUREN JERRY PYLE LAVONNE CAESAR

Sunday, December 7, 2008 Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pm The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst) 21 and over only. RSVP at rhapsodomancyla@yahoo.com (RSVP not required, but appreciated) $3 suggested donation at door. There will be a cash bar. www.rhapsodomancy.org

Recipient of the 2004 Ferro-Grumley and Violet Quill awards for his first novel, Through It Came Bright Colors (Harrington Park Press), Trebor Healey is also the author of a collection of poems, Sweet Son of Pan, (Suspect Thoughts, 2006), as well as the recently-published A Perfect Scar & Other Stories (Harrington Park Press, 2007). He co-edited (with Marci Blackman) Beyond Definition: New Writing from Gay and Lesbian San Francisco (Manic D Press, 1994) and co-edited (with Amie M. Evans) Queer & Catholic (Routledge, 2008). His short fiction and poetry were nominated for a 2008 Pushcart Prize. Trebor lives in Los Angeles. www.treborhealey.com.

 

Jillian Lauren's memoir Some Girls will be published by Plume/Penguin in the Spring of 2010. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. Her writing has appeared in Flaunt Magazine, Pindeldyboz Magazine, Opium Magazine,The Chiron Review, Society, Pale House: A Collective and in the anthology My First Time: A Collection of First Punk Show Stories. She has read at spoken word events in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, including Tongue and Groove, Talk, Talk, Talk and Words like Sugar. She has recently worked with directors as diverse as Steve Balderson, Lynne Breedlove and Margaret Cho.She is married to Weezer bass player Scott Shriner. They live in Los Angeles. Her website is www.jillianlauren.com.

  Jerry Pyle is a writer and filmmaker whose work has been screened in film festivals all over the world. His video, Zavislost, for the Czech band, Post-it, spent eight weeks at number one on the Czech TV Ocko hitparada in the summer of 2006. He's written on film and music for weeklies like the Copenhagen Post and the Prague Pill and on the web for Provokator magazine. He's currently an editor at Eqal Entertainment. He has an MFA in Creative Writing in Creative Nonfiction from Antioch University Los Angeles.

LaVonne Natasha Caesar was born in Canada and raised throughout South America, Europe, Mexico and various islands of the Caribbean. She is the recipient of Naropa University's Zora Neale Hurston scholarship and is currently completing her MFA at Naropa University. If you would like more information about her childhood, her past, her convictions or her general interests, you can buy her chapbook The Black Pussy Revolution Part 1 at www.lulu.com...it's kind of like a memoir.

Officially into Year 5

Please check out the photos from our fourth anniversary reading. Stay tuned for the December 7 reading announcement!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading at the Fourth Anniversary, Sunday, October 19, 2008

ELOISE KLEIN HEALY ELIZABETH BRADFIELD MICHELLE BITTING WENDY C. ORTIZ

Sunday, October 19, 2008
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla@yahoo.com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door.
There will be a cash bar.
www.rhapsodomancy.org

Eloise Klein Healy is the author of six books of poetry and three spoken word recordings. She was the founding chair of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles where she is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing Emerita. Healy directed the Women’s Studies Program at California State University Northridge and taught in the Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles. She is Resident Poet at the Idyllwild Summer Poetry Festival, the co-founder of ECO-ARTS, an eco-tourism/arts venture, and founding editor of ARKTOI BOOKS, an imprint of Red Hen Press. Her latest collection of poems is The Islands Project: Poems For Sappho.

Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of Interpretive Work (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press, 2008) and editor of Broadsided. Her poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, several anthologies, and are forthcoming in Orion and The Believer. Currently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, when not writing, she works as a naturalist.

Michelle Bitting grew up in Los Angeles, California. She was educated at U.C. Berkeley and in 2009, will graduate with an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Prairie Schooner, Narrative, Poetry Daily, Crab Orchard Review, Passages North, Many Mountains Moving, and Rattle. Thomas Lux chose her full-length manuscript, Good Friday Kiss, as the winner of C & R Press’s DeNovo First Book Award. Formerly a dancer and a chef, Michelle devotes a portion of her time to doing outreach work in Los Angeles where she lives with her husband, the actor, Phil Abrams, and their two children, Elijah and Vera Rose.

Wendy C. Ortiz is a Los Angeles native. She was awarded a writing residency from Hedgebrook in 2007. Recent publications include Blood Orange Review, Palabra: A Magazine of Chicano and Latino Literary Art, Cranky, KNOCK, Eclipse, and others. She is cofounder and curator of the Rhapsodomancy Reading Series at the Good Luck Bar in Hollywood. Wendy is currently a graduate student of psychology. Some of her work can be found at http://www.wendyortiz.com.

The Literati Cocktail/Rhapsodomancy Sampler at West Hollywood Book Fair

Rhapsodomancy will be sharing a stage with Literati Cocktail at the 7th Annual West Hollywood Book Fair!

featuring poets
Eloise Klein Healy
liz gonzález
Jamie Asae FitzGerald
Robert Montoya

September 28, 2008
The Robertson Coffee House Stage
11am sharp

West Hollywood Park: 647 N. San Vicente Blvd.
free admission and parking (at Pacific Design Center)
www.westhollywoodbookfair.org
www.litparlor.com

About the 2008 Sampler:

Tess. Lotta, editor of Media Cake eMagazine, and Wendy C. Ortiz, curator of Rhapsodomancy, are proud to present The Literati Cocktail/Rhapsodomancy Sampler. The 2008 Sampler showcases the literary selections offered in Media Cake eMagazine, a Los Angeles-based online lit and art magazine, and the Los Angeles reading series Rhapsodomancy, which presents outstanding established and up-and-coming poets as featured guests of a bimonthly reading held at the Good Luck Bar in Los Feliz.

Curated by Tess. Lotta, the Sampler reading series celebrates its third year at the West Hollywood Book Fair. After enjoying two fruitful years as Literati Cocktail, a bi-monthly reading series held at The Parlor Club and The Space at Fountain’s End, the Sampler continues to support the Los Angeles literary community as an annual event held at the West Hollywood Book Fair. Each year, Tess. partners with another literary curator to present a taste of the vibrant So Cal lit scene.

Thank you, August Audience

Photos are now posted of the August 10 reading. See you October 19!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, August 10, 2008

ALISTAIR MCCARTNEY JILLIAN WEISE MICHELE MATHESON KRISTI MAXWELL

Sunday, August 10, 2008
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla@yahoo.com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door.
There will be a cash bar.
www.rhapsodomancy.org

Kristi Maxwell currently lives and writes in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is the author of Realm Sixty-four (Ahsahta Press, 2008), Elsewhere & Wise (Dancing Girl Press, 2008), and Hush Sessions (Saturnalia Books, forthcoming in 2009).

Jillian Weise wrote The Amputee's Guide to Sex (Soft Skull Press, 2007) and Translating the Body (All Nations Press, 2006). Her work appears in A Public Space, The Atlantic Monthly, Tin House and others. Plays have been staged at the Provincetown Theater and the New York Fringe Festival. She now teaches at Clemson. In the winter, she will travel to Patagonia on a creative writing Fulbright.

Michele Matheson is the author of Saving Angelfish. She is currently working on a second novel and plays in a band called The Black Tales. Michele lives in Echo Park with Noodles and Harold, her two cats, and hopes to adopt a stray dog one of these days to join her on walks.

Alistair McCartney
is the author of The End of the World Book: a Novel (University of Wisconsin Press, April, 08). The End of the World Book is both a novel and an encyclopedia (A to Z) of memories, obsessions and philosophical fixations, working in and building upon the same metafictional terrain as Roberto Bolano and W.G. Sebald. Praising this novel, Dennis Cooper, author of Frisk, wrote, “If I’ve read a more deeply impressive, beautiful, sweeping, mindful, and innovative first novel than Alistair McCartney’s The End of the World Book, I have no memory of it. McCartney is a writer of peerless, brilliant originality and pure, giant talent.” Publishers Weekly described it as ". . . a surreal and self-referential encyclopedia for the 21st century... fans of alternative literature and Borges may discover a kindred spirit." And The Los Angeles Times characterized it as "...a giddy literary jape...'The End of the World Book' ...is an interrogation of literature -- how we think about writing, what we choose to write about and why." The book was recently chosen to be featured on Critical Mass, the blog for the National Book Critics circle. McCartney is currently at work on his next novel The Death Book: A Comedy, which is the 2nd book in a trilogy. Other writings of his have appeared in Fence, Bloom, James White Review, and numerous literary journals, as well as in a number of fiction and creative nonfiction anthologies, including Wonderlands (University of Wisconsin Press) and Between Men (Carroll and Graf.) Originally from Australia, since 1997 he has been based in Los Angeles, where he lives with his partner Tim Miller. McCartney teaches creative writing and literature at Antioch University LA, in the MFA Creative Writing and BA programs.

June Reading A Success

Thanks to everyone who came out for the June mix of poetry and fiction. Photos will be posted shortly, as well as the announcement of the August 10 reading. Stay tuned!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, June 8, 2008

NINA REVOYR JASON BREDLE LOUISE MATHIAS DENNIS FULGONI

Sunday, June 8, 2008
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla@yahoo.com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door.
There will be a cash bar.
www.rhapsodomancy.org

Nina Revoyr was born in Japan, the only child of a Japanese mother and a white American father. She grew up in Tokyo, Wisconsin, and from the age of nine, Los Angeles, and she received her MFA from Cornell University. Nina is the author of three novels, The Necessary Hunger, Southland, and The Age of Dreaming. Her second novel, Southland, was a BookSense 76 pick, won the Ferro Grumley and Lambda Literary Awards, and was one of the Los Angeles Times’ "Best Books of 2003." Library Journal has called her new novel, The Age of Dreaming, “Fast-moving, riveting, unpredictable and profound.” Booklist has said, “Rare indeed is a novel this deeply pleasurable and significant,” and Los Angeles Magazine writes that “Nina Revoyr…is fast becoming one of the city’s finest chroniclers and myth-makers.” Nina has taught at Cornell University, Antioch University, and Occidental College; and has worked for more than a decade in the fields of child welfare and public education.

Jason Bredle is the author of Standing in Line for the Beast, selected by Barbara Hamby as winner of the 2006 New Issues Poetry Prize, and A Twelve Step Guide, winner of the 2004 New Michigan Press chapbook contest. His most recent book, Pain Fantasy, was released by Red Morning Press in summer 2007. He lives in Chicago.

Louise Mathias grew up in England and Los Angeles, and currently splits her time between Southern California and South Bend, Indiana. She is the author of Lark Apprentice, which won the New Issues Poetry Prize, and published by New Issues Press in 2004. Her poems have been published in journals such as Prairie Schooner, Epoch, Boulevard, Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly and The Journal. Poems from her new manuscript-in-progress The Traps, appear or are forthcoming in Triquarterly, Massachusetts Review, and Pool. She was educated at the University of Southern California, and works as a fundraising consultant.

Dennis Fulgoni's stories have appeared in Parting Gifts, Quarterly West, the Colorado Review, and New Stories from the Southwest. He was the winner of an AWP Intro Journals Award, a James Kirkwood Award for Fiction through UCLA, and a Special Mention in the 2008 Pushcart Prize. He teaches high school English at John Marshall High School and is currently enrolled in the MFA program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

See you in June!

Thanks to the wonderful writers and great crowd who helped make the April reading phenomenal! Stay tuned for the announcement about June's line-up, and save the date: June 8.

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, April 6, 2008

ROB ROBERGE KAREN HARRYMAN ANA THORNE ROBERT D. MONTOYA

Sunday, April 6, 2008
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:30pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, 90027 (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla@yahoo.com (RSVP not required, but appreciated)
$3 suggested donation at door.
There will be a cash bar.
www.rhapsodomancy.org

Rob Roberge is the author of the upcoming book of stories Working Backwards from the Worst Moment of My Life (Black Arrow Press, scheduled for 2008), the neo-noir novels More Than They Could Chew (Perennial Dark Alley/Harper Collins, February 2005) and Drive (re-issue, Hollyridge Press, 2006). His stories have been featured in ZYZZYVA, Chelsea, Other Voices, Alaska Quarterly Review, and the Ten Writers Worth Knowing Issue of The Literary Review. His work has also been anthologized in Another City (City Lights, 2001) and It’s All Good (Manic D Press, 2004). Rob also teaches writing at a number of programs in the Los Angeles area, including the Antioch University Los Angeles, MFA in Creative Writing and the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, where he received the Outstanding Instructor Award in Creative Writing in 2003. In his spare time, he plays guitar and sings with the Los Angeles area garage/punk bands The Violet Rays, The Danbury Shakes and LA’s seminal (class of 78) punk band Urinals, and restores and rebuilds vintage amplifiers and quack medical devices. For news and more info, visit & or email at www.myspace.com/robroberge

Karen Harryman's poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Los Angeles Review, Poetry New Zealand, and other journals. Her first book of poetry, Auto Mechanic's Daughter, was published in 2007 by Akashic Books. Before moving to Los Angeles with her husband, Kirker, she lived and worked in Kentucky for most of her life. She teaches creative writing at YULA, an orthodox Jewish girls' high school.

Ana Thorne stays busy pursuing creative and academic dreams deferred. She will receive an MA in Humanities in May from Mount St. Mary’s College and will complete her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles in December. A finalist in the recent Santa Fe Writers Project competition, Ana’s creative nonfiction piece “No Thank You, Otto Titzling” will appear in the SFWP online journal and in the Mount St. Mary’s literary journal. Born in the Midwest, Ana lived in Seatlle, San Francisco, New York City, and the Virgin Islands before settling in Los Angeles. She is working on a series of essays about her parents and her biracial heritage.

At some point Robert D. Montoya was born in Los Angeles, CA. Having grown up in this sprawling setting, much of his writing is latently (and often overtly) influenced by the city’s multi-nodal, concrete urban environment and sporadic urban parks. Robert attended UCLA, receiving his B.A. in American Literature and Culture with a minor in Biological Anthropology. Other things happened. Robert is currently working toward his Masters of Fine Arts degree, with an emphasis on poetry. Domestic and international travel has strongly influenced Robert’s writing, as have literary figures such as Immanuel Kant, William Wordsworth, Ralph Waldo Emerson (go Transcendentalists!), Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Jorie Graham, and Reginald Shepherd. He currently lives in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles.

One of the Best!

Thanks to everyone who came out on Feb. 24, 2008. It was a fantastic reading! See you in April!

Rhapsodomancy Announces the Writers Reading on Sunday, February 24, 2008

ELLEN BASS FRANK X. GASPAR GLEAH POWERS ROBERT W. FOX

Sunday, February 24, 2008
Doors open at 7:00 - Reading begins at 7:15pm
The Good Luck Bar, 1514 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles (east Hollywood/Silver Lake: corner of Hollywood & Hillhurst)
21 and over only.
RSVP at rhapsodomancyla@yahoo.com
$3 suggested donation at door; after expenses, a portion of the proceeds will benefit a nonprofit to be determined.
There will be a cash bar.
www.rhapsodomancy.org

Ellen Bass's most recent book of poetry, The Human Line, was published by Copper Canyon Press this year and was named a Notable Book of 2007 by the San Francisco Chronicle. Her previous book, Mules of Love (BOA, 2002) won the Lambda Literary Award. Her work has been read by Garrison Keillor on The Writers Almanac and her poem “Gate C22” was included in Roger Housden’s best-selling anthology, Ten Poems to Change Your Life Again and Again (Harmony, 2007). Her work has been published in many journals and magazines including The Atlantic Monthly, The American Poetry Review, Ms., Ploughshares, Field, and The Kenyon Review. Among her awards for poetry are The Pushcart Prize, the Elliston Book Award, The Pablo Neruda Prize from Nimrod/Hardman, the Larry Levis Prize from Missouri Review, the New Letters Prize, the Greensboro Award, the Chautaqua Poetry Prize, and a Fellowship from the California Arts Council. She co-edited, with Florence Howe, the groundbreaking book, No More Masks! An Anthology of Poems by Women (Doubleday, 1973) and her nonfiction books include Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth and Their Allies (HarperCollins, 1996), and The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (HarperCollins, 1988) which has been translated into twelve languages. She teaches in the MFA writing program at Pacific University.

Frank X. Gaspar was born and raised in Provincetown, Massachusetts and now lives in Southern California. He is Professor of English at Long Beach City College. He also teaches poetry and novel writing in the summer program at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and at Antioch University, Los Angeles. He served three and a half years in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam Conflict and attended colleges and universities after his discharge, receiving an MFA from the University of California, Irvine. Gaspar is the author of four books of poetry and one novel. His short stories and poems have been published widely in literary journals, including The Nation, The Harvard Review, The New England Review, The Sewanee Review, Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, The Hudson Review, Provincetown Arts, The Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Antioch Review, The Tampa Review, The Denver Quarterly, and others. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies including, The Beacon Best Poetry of 1999, The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, and others. Gaspar is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, and his work is included in the 1996 Best American Poetry and in Best American Poetry 2000. He is the recipient of three Puschcart Prizes for literature, and the Edgar Stanley Award and a Readers’ Choice Award both from Prairie Schooner. He is currently working on new poems and a new novel.

Gleah Powers received her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles where she recently taught an undergraduate writing workshop. While in the MFA program she completed her first novel set in the 1960s southwest desert of Phoenix, the beaches of Ft. Lauderdale and the streets of Hollywood. Gleah has worked professionally as an actress, dancer and painter in New York, Los Angeles and Mexico City. She currently lives in Santa Monica and is at work on a second novel.

Born over a half a century ago during a different millennia in New York's scenic Hudson Valley, Robert W. Fox has been around, and mostly in a good way. Robert became a writer at the suggestions of friends who liked his witty e-mail responses. Much to his own surprise, Robert found out he is actually not that bad. He has a brand spankin new MFA degree in Creative Nonfiction. He has been published in LA Weekly, and even had a quasi-socialist letter to the editor printed in The Sunday New York Times Business Section. That must take talent. Not having found love, and therefore with no family, Robert has found his family and happiness teaching creative writing to teenage prostitutes and gang-bangers at Central Juvenile Hall in Lincoln Heights, LA.