You're Allowed :: March 6

C.L. Bledsoe, Tracy Dimond & music by The Mole Suit Choir 

You're Allowed :: Dec. 5

Justin Sirois, Chris Mason, & Kevin Sampsell

You're Allowed :: Nov 6

Heather Rounds & Rachel Carstens

You're Allowed :: June 6th

Scott McClanahan, Mira Gonzalez & Megan Boyle

You're Allowed :: May 2nd

Christophe Casamassima & Ryan Eckes

After a great start at our new spot, Yellow Sign, we are back again with a night of Furniture Books Press and an open mic. As always, get there early if you'd like to sign up to read.

Doors at 8. Reading starts at something that feels like it might be 8:30.

Lit, Carnival Games & Music. What More is There?

There is a really long story about how this event came to be. But I won't bother with it because ... well, because its long and who really cares. What is important is that this event is going to be so smacktabulous that we had to get a whole bunch of other people to help us contain the crazy. We teamed up with 5ive:Ten, Shattered Wig, Publishing Genius, and Ink Press to put on a night of great readings, excellent music and carnival-type madness that you will find nowhere else.

Sat., April 20th @ 8PM
Metro Gallery

Readings by:

Matthew Savoca ("I Don’t Know,” I Said, to be released this month by Publishing Genius Press)
Michael Kimball (Us, Big Ray, and the newly released Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (On a Postcard)
Sarah Jean Alexander (I Imagine You in Your House, Cleaning Your Chest)
Tracy Dimond (Sorry I wrote So Many Sad Poems Today)
Amanda McCormick (Ink Press)
Batworth (featured in Shattered Wig)

Music by: 

Drunk Monk

Suggested $5 at the door

You're Allowed :: April 4th

Thus begins our new season of readings. And there's a lot new about this one. A new venue. A new magazine. And all that in addition to two featured readers that we are thrilled to host. But that's not even all there is. As we always do, we will be hosting contributors to AH Vol. 5 (yeah, I know... I'm surprised too ... we made it through five issues!) So, in addition to Jordan Castro (link link link) and Laura van den Berg (link link link) you can also hear short works by:

Tracy Dimond 

Mark Cugini
Timmy Reed 

Fitz Fitzgerald
Brooke Carlton
Andrew Sargus Klein
CarlaJean Valluzzi
Peter Schireson

Around Town :: Readings in March

this

So if you're not completely wasted from AWP, and can stand the sight of another bunch of half-drunk literary types, here's our monthly list of readings in Baltimore that are certainly worth a bit of your time and (in some cases) your liver:

March 8th @ 7pm: Atomic Fiction Series presents both Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins, and Jen Michalski, author of Could You Be With Her Now.
Atomic Books, Hampden.

March 9th and 10, 12pm-17pm: Fourth Annual Publications and Multiples Fair.
D Center Baltimore.

March 10th @ 4pm: Essential Sunday featuring Tree Turtle, Dina Marie Varsalone & Matt Muirhead.
Minas, Hampden.

March 15th @ 7:30pm: Furniture Press Books Affair featuring Toby Altman, Martine Bellen, Alyse Knorr, Magus Magnus, Chris Mason, Alicia Puglionesi & Joshua Ware.
The Black Squirl, DC.

March 16th @ 5pm: 5ive: Ten featuring Elliott Holt, Marie-Helene Bertino, Meghan Kenny, and Scott McClanahan.
Minas, Hampden. 

March 24th @ 4:30pm: An Afternoon Toad Splendor, featuring Megan McShea's new book, A MOUNTAIN CITY OF TOAD SPLENDOR (as read by Lauren Bender, R.M. O'Brien, Bonnie Jones, Rupert Wondolowski, John Eaton and, of course, Megan McShea). Music by The Mole Suit Choir and Electric Junk Band
The Windup Space.

March 28th @ 7pm: Atomic Fiction Series presents both Micheal Kimball, author of Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (On A Postcard), and Leigh Newman, author of Still Points North.
Atomic Books, Hampden

March 29th @ 8pm: Shattered Wig featuring Michael Kimball, Josh Fruhlinger, and Mr. Moccasin.
14 Karat Cabaret at 218 W. Saratoga St.

Recently added:

March 24th @ 2pm: Benevolent Armchair featuring Steve Matanle and Kendra Kopelke.
York Arts, PA.

March 14th @ 8pm: Chris Toll Memorial Reading.
WindUp Space.

Neruda :: Editor's Picks

As an editor and writer, I read a lot. Sometimes it’s at ten at night sloughing - or what feels like sloughing - through the inbox, or at ten in the morning riding the eight bus trying to focus on the words instead of the smell of yeast, pee, and crushed dreams. Sometimes I love what I read and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes what I read makes me want to stop writing, sometimes it makes me want to write even more. One thing I can say is that the editor part of me can see when the writer part of me should read more. And the editor part of me can also see when the writer should read more.

As writers, or artists even, we are used to criticism. But sometimes, we try to ignore it so as to further avoid any depression we may be staving off, to avoid any discouragement. Or, sometimes we think we are just SO AWESOME criticism doesn't matter.

One thing that I have noticed as an editor is that the more good literature one reads, the better it influences one’s writing. Congratulations if you aspire to write like Stephanie Meyer or JK Rowling, we all can’t be the Joyce’s of the world. But those who do and can ascend to a higher level (or merit) of literature, should always be interested in the techniques, styles, voice, etc. that will help to better their own writing.

It's never a bad idea to have that one piece, a poem, a story, something to fall back on when you need an extra push toward not feeling like a total lump of shit. I read “Joachim’s Absence” by Pablo Neruda. Here's the first stanza:

From now, like a departure noticed from afar,
in funeral stations of smoke or solitary sea walls,
from now i see him plunging to his death,
and behind him I feel the days of time close in.

Surprise, or, What I Learned as an Editor

John Berryman singing hymns (or, frozen in the moment before a sneeze)

In my third semester of undergraduate study, I enrolled in a course called Syntax, Semantics, and Style. It was a required course, one of those over-regulated, over-evaluated staples of certain curricula that no student ever expects to like. I was lucky enough, however, to have been assigned an instructor who understood these things. On the first day of class, without speaking, she wrote two words on the whiteboard: “Good Writing.” She then asked each student to define the term in as few words as possible. 

I’ve tried over the years since to remember what I wrote, but I think memories have a way of prioritizing themselves; the simple two-word definition our instructor eventually revealed to us—after ten minutes or so of ripping through her students’ careful attempts—has stuck in my mind ever since. “Verbal surprise,” she said. “It’s that simple.”

Of course, nothing is that simple—not to say that little aphorism didn’t serve me well throughout the remainder of my undergraduate studies. I clung to it like a mantra. Each piece I read in workshop:
“Is this surprising?” Each passage I was instructed to analyze: “How does this surprise the reader?”  Simplicity certainly has its place.

That place, unfortunately, doesn’t extend far beyond the Bachelor of Arts degree, at least not in terms of literary criticism. Once I graduated, I began working as an editor for Artichoke Haircut. Finding myself increasingly in the company of better writers than I encountered in my undergraduate workshops, I quickly recognized the inherent fallacies of my beloved mantra.“This piece is/is not surprising,” may have worked for a few theses, but it didn’t exactly hold up to the scrutiny of an editorial staff hell-bent on putting together a quality collection of fiction and poetry, not only  to be read and enjoyed, but marketed as well.

Arround Town :: Baltimore Readings in Feb.

Our favorite new arrival to Baltimore is not The Vince Lombardi trophy (though we're really happy to have that, too) but the sudden influx of great writers, including Laura van den Berg, who seems to be just about everywhere (no less than Tracy Diamond--see below), and who recently highlighted Baltimore in a great review for Ploughshares. If you haven't read it yet, read it here. It'll give you a pretty comprehensive picture of the goings-on of this strange city of ours.

But to know when what's going on are going on, here's a list of things happening this month:

Tomorrow: Gin & Ink are holding a workshop at Liam Flynn's Ale House. Bring some poems and drink some beers with  two lovely, young ladies just featured on The Signal.

February 10: Essential Sundays Reading featuring e. megg magee, Melanie McCabe & Jennifer Dove at Minas. Doors at 4pm.

February 12: Poetry & Conversation, featuring Adam Robinson and Chris Mason. Enoch Pratt Central Library. Doors at 6:30pm.

February 13: Barrellhouse Issue 11 Launch Party. Before I tell you who's reading, I'll first mention that this is in Philly, not Baltimore. But it deserves a mention because everything we've ever seen Barrellhouse touch turns wonderful. So make the trip (consider yourself implored). Featuring: Sam Allingham, Joshua Isard, and Courtney Mauk. At (oddly enough) Raven Lounge. Happy hour from 5-7pm. Event will be held upstairs.

February 15: Stephanie Barber reads from her new book "Night Moves" at Atomic Books. Doors at 7pm 


February 15: A Dark Valentine, featuring two of our favorites, Mark Cugini and Tracy Dimond (see above). E.M.P. Collective. Doors at 8:30pm.

February 16: 5ive: Ten, featuring, Roy Kesey, Jen Michalski, Justin Sirois, and Tara Laskowski. Minas. Doors at 5pm.

February 19: Worms, featuring: Tracy Diamond (see above, again), Christopher Stackhouse, Jeremy Hoevenaar, and Brian Nicholson. Metro Gallery. Doors at 8pm.

February 21: Library Basement Reading Series, featuring MFA students from UB. Langsdale Library. Doors at 8:15pm.

February 24: Three Tents, featuring Laura van den Burg (some people just get around), Dan Gutstein, Matthew Salesses, and Sara Burnett. This is another one that's not in Baltimore that i just had to mention. I do it only with good reason. The Big Hut. Doors at 6pm. 

Just added:

February 21: MFA Reading Series @ UB, featuring Jehanne Dubrow. UB Student Center, Hilda and Michael Bogomolny Room. Doors at 7 p.m.

American Life in Poetry: Column 410

Mark Rothko "Untitled (Yellow and Gold)"

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

If you’ve followed this column through a good part of the seven years we’ve been publishing it, you know how hooked I am on poems that take a close look at the ordinary world. Here’s a fine poem by Eamon Grennan, who lives in New York state, about bees caught up against a closed window.


Up Against It

It’s the way they cannot understand the window

they buzz and buzz against, the bees that take

a wrong turn at my door and end up thus

in a drift at first of almost idle curiosity,

cruising the room until they find themselves

smack up against it and they cannot fathom how

the air has hardened and the world they know

with their eyes keeps out of reach as, stuck there

with all they want just in front of them, they must

fling their bodies against the one unalterable law

of things—this fact of glass—and can only go on

making the sound that tethers their electric

fury to what’s impossible, feeling the sting in it.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Eamon Grennan from his most recent book of poems, Out of Sight: New & Selected Poems, Graywolf Press, 2010. Poem reprinted by permission of Eamon Grennan and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

You're Allowed :: Dec. 6th

Justin Sirois & Lauren Bender

New Magazine Available (For Sale) Online

Artichoke Haircut Vol Four :: Fall 2012

This took a while. We know and we're sorry. But here it is. You can now, after many trials and tribulations, hellfire and gale-force winds, much yelling and tearing hair out because "what the hell, what mad bastard came up with HTML, I don't know that shit, who knows that shit, oh... hold on, did that work, that worked, why did that work, who gives a shit as long as it did, well that's stupid, I though I... I'm sure I tried that already, oh well" and anyway, now it works. And you can buy a copy of our latest magazine online.

Look to your left. That little grey rectangle with the tiny pics that look like magazine covers. That's our store. And you can get all of our available magazines there. It uses PayPal so its safe and works and I cannot begin to tell you how happy we are that it finally works.

Read all of your favorite, super-great writers in the shiny new volume of AH:

C.L. Bledsoe
Cliffton Price
Justin Sirois
Lily Herman
Rupert Wondolowski
Larry O. Dean
Brooke Carlton
Conner McNamara Stratton
Barrett Warner
Sid Gold
Kristi Carter
Joel Dailey
Ivan de Monbrinson
John J. Trause
Tonny Leuzzi
Elena Botts
Casey Lynn Roland
Richard Martin
Carabella Sands
Lindsay Daigle
Jeremy Dae Paden  

You're Allowed :: Nov. 1

Featuring the poetry of Chris Toll. Read by his friends.

John J. Trause :: Artichoke Haircut Vol. 4

Cezanne, "Still Life with Skull"

A poem by John J. Trause, a contributor in the current issue of the magazine (Vol. 4). If you want to read more, Vol. 4 will be on sale as soon as we unbreak our PayPal widget.

Kora in Palm Beach

She never really liked oranges,
but once while she was eating one
she accidentally swallowed six seeds.
She now spends half the year in Florida.

Readings in September

To go with the fall weather that is (hopefully) right around the corner, September is bringing you (people-of-Baltimore-and-surrounding-area) a harvest of readings to pick and choose from.

Of course, to start out with, Artichoke Haircut’s release party is tonight. (I hear it is a real blast, you should probably come). Readers include, but are not limited to:
Lily Herman, Barrett Warner, Rupert Wondolowski, Carabella Sands, CL Bledsoe, Brooke Carlton, Justin Sirois, & Sid Gold

Reading at Gallery 788, Saturday 8th at 8 pm.
Readers: Steve Roggenbuck, Timmy Reed, Sarah Jean Alexander, Buttercup McGillicuddy, Matthew Falk, Earl Crown, & Carabella Sands

Nikki Pattin feature @ Essential Sunday September 9 at 4pm 

Sundays Reading at Minás
featruing Sandy Pattin
$3

Stories on Stage, Wednesday 12th at 7:30 pm.
D.C., (this is you, "people-of-Baltimore's-surrounding-area).

5ive:ten Reading, Saturday15th at 5pm.
Readers: Noy Holland, Laura van den Berg, Sam Michel, and the Lauren Bender

Conversations and Connections Conference, Saturday 22nd at 8:30am.
Philadelphia. Come say 'hi' to us while you're there! There will also be a lot a lot of great panels and oppurtunities to get your work looked at by editors from around the east coast.

Smartish Pace Reading & Music at the Baltimore BookFestival, Saturday 29th at 5 pm.
Who will be reading? Glad you asked!:
Madeleine Mysko & Bro. Yao (Hoke S. Glover III)

Book Festival, September 28th-30th starting at noon.
A B-more staple.

You're Allowed :: Sept. 6th

Magazine Release Party

To celebrate the release of our fourth magazine we're doing something special... the same thing we always do: having ourselves a litty shindig.

As always, we are featuring some great talent from our brand new magazine:

Lily Herman
Barrett Warner
Carabella Sands
CL Bledsoe
Brooke Carlton
Justin Sirois
Sid Gold
Rupert Wondolowski

and more to be announced.

Doors open at 8:15pm, readings start at around 9.

You're Allowed :: July 5th

Carrie Murphy & Kate Wyer

You're Allowed :: June 7th

Adam Robinson & Davey Vacek