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

Fitz Fitzgerald & Andrew Keating

You're Allowed :: Dec. 6th

Justin Sirois & Lauren Bender

You're Allowed :: Nov. 1

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

You're Allowed :: Oct. 4th

Michael Kimball reading from his new novel "Big Ray," followed by gypsy folk band Orchester Praceviza

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

You're Allowed :: May 3rd

Jen Michalski & Stephanie Barber

You're Allowed :: April 5th

Featuring Jessica Anya Blau & Sea Couch

You're Allowed :: One Year Anniversary

It's our One Year Anniversary Party, with two great writers from Publishing Genius:

-Rupert Wondolowski
-Joseph Young

That's right, we've been doing the "You're Allowed" series for one year... I know, it's hard for us to believe too. We'll have cake, party hats and glitter bombs... Hold on, are we having glitter bombs? I can't remember. Anyway, it'll be fun.

Open mic as always. Show up early to sign up.

P.S. This is not the first Thurs. of the month. Keep that in mind. We delayed the event a week because of AWP. Chicago!

"You're Allowed" :: Upcoming Readings

You're Allowed :: Magazine Release Party

This event is always a huge release for us. It marks the time following our frantic interactions with printers, hour-long arguments and circular discussions about the merits of a single comma. Yet now all of this is over and done with. Now it is time for us to relax, drink a few beers and listen to some of our favorite writers say some words into a microphone. For this reading we will feature a few of the local Baltimore writers that can be found between the pages of our new Spring 2012 issue: Chris Toll, C.L. Bledsoe, Lily Herman, and more TBA.

But until the 2nd we'll continue to have nightmares about the magazine not showing up in time for it's release. And when everything actually does work out, as it normally does, we'll get drunk and celebrate. Hope to see you there.

You're Allowed :: December 1st

Every month I run into the same problem: I try and think of a new thing or things to say about a reading that goes basically on the same trajectory from month to month. Maybe this month I'll  try metaphors, some of which may or may not explain the general ambiance of that room on that day when we're all sitting in it:

-Dramamine is used to prevent nausea and when the ocean is far from our heads we feel sad.
-Fireflies in a field appear as strange landing pads for the kinds of birds that don't exist or won't land.
-The oranges are in a bowl. The bowl is on the table. We cannot eat them. If we do it will no longer be summer. They rot. It is still summer. It is about to snow.