The Dancing Girl Press Show at Roar Shack, in Echo Park, Nov. 8, 2015

Thank you for coming out to The Dancing Girl Press Show yesterday, everyone!

From left to right: Rachelle Cruz, Lisa Cheby, Siel Ju and Cati Porter at The Dancing Girl Press Show at Roar Shack, in Echo Park, Nov. 8, 2015
From left to right: Rachelle Cruz, Lisa Cheby, Siel Ju and Cati Porter at The Dancing Girl Press Show at Roar Shack, in Echo Park, Nov. 8, 2015. Photo: Laura Warrell

Special thanks to series organizer David Rocklin, host David Kukoff, and my fellow readers Lisa Cheby, Rachelle Cruz, and Cati Porter. And a big thanks to Kristy Bowen of Dancing Girl Press, who really brought us all together.

One more photo from the reading after the break. Hope you can make it to my last upcoming birthday reading!

Continue reading “The Dancing Girl Press Show at Roar Shack, in Echo Park, Nov. 8, 2015”

I’m Reading at Roar Shack on Nov. 8

Come out to Echo Park this Sunday for cupcakes, dancing girls, and fun reads!

Feminist poetry press Dancing Girl Press is based in Chicago, but has many fans — and poets — in Los Angeles. Five L.A.-based women poets — including me! — who have chapbooks with Dancing Girl Press will be reading and celebrating:

What: The Dancing Girl Press Show at Roar Shack
When: Sun, November 8, 2015, 4 pm – 5:30 pm
Where: 826LA, 1714 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles

I’ll be reading from my chapbook Feelings Are Chemicals in Transit with fellow poet Lisa Cheby, author of Love Lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, pictured below in delicious cake form from her launch party:

as well as Rachelle Cruz, Cati Porter, and Nikia Chaney. Our Dancing Girl chapbooks will be available for $5-$7 each or $25 for a full set of five.

We’ll also have a musical guest — the talented Ramona Pilar — and a reading from last month’s Roar Shack Live Write winner B Deep.

The Roar Shack reading series is organized by David Rocklin, fabulous friend and author of The Luminist. Unfortunately he won’t be hosting this particular event due to schedule conflicts. In his place, David Kukoff, author of Children of the Canyon, will serve as guest host!

The Sweet Life will be delivering mini cupcakes to celebrate my birthday, which was last Sunday! Come eat sugar and hear poetry — and come to my one remaining birthday reading too. See you soon —

Crevasse in Los Angeles reading, Stories Books & Cafe in Echo Park, Nov. 4, 2015

Thank you for coming out to the Crevasse in Los Angeles reading last night, everyone!

 Zoë Ruiz, Doug Manuel, Siel Ju, Lisa Locascio, Brandon Som at the Crevasse in Los Angeles reading with Kaya Press at Stories Books and Cafe
From left to right: Zoë Ruiz, Doug Manuel, Siel Ju, Lisa Locascio, Brandon Som at the Crevasse in Los Angeles reading with Kaya Press at Stories Books and Cafe. Photo by Diana Arterian

The reading in brief: The women read fiction about sex; the men read poems about family.

Special thanks to host Zoë Ruiz and my fellow readers,  Lisa Locascio, Douglas Manuel and Brandon Som.

More photos from the reading after the break. Hope you can make it to my two other birthday readings!

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2 flash fiction pieces in The Los Angeles Review

Los Angeles Review Fall 2015

The Los Angeles Review‘s brand new fall 2015 issue is now out — and contains within its pages two of my flash fiction pieces! Here’s an excerpt from the first, “The Panel”:

We, the six closest friends of the couple, were called on to serve on the panel. Our task was to determine who was in the right, the wife or the husband. To aid us in our decision we received a twenty-minute recording of an argument between the two, which we listened to carefully three times over the four-hour deliberation period.

Read the rest of that — plus another piece called “Social Psychology” — by picking up a copy of The Los Angeles Review, Volume 18.

The issue also contains a short piece called “Delorean” by Bryan Hurt, one of my favorite writers and a friend from grad school. Also, don’t miss Ryan Habermeyer’s “A Cosmonaut’s Guide to Microgravitic Reproduction” — which combines space travel and sex and loneliness and madness.

Lastly: Come hear me read “The Panel” and more at The Los Angeles Review’s reading! That’ll happen Thursday, November 12, 7 pm at Flintridge Bookstore & Coffeehouse, 1010 Foothill Blvd, La Canada Flintridge, Calif. You’ll also get to hear The Los Angeles Review’s own fiction editor, Sean Bernard, and contributor Anna K. Scotti.

I’m Reading at Stories on Nov. 4

crevasse

Come celebrate Crevasse! The latest book of poems by Nicholas Wong is out from Kaya Press, and four Los Angeles-based writers — myself included — are reading to celebrate it.

What: CREVASSE in Los Angeles
When: Wed, November 4, 2015, 7:30 pm
Where: Stories Books & Cafe, 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Echo Park, Los Angeles, CA

I’ll be reading with Lisa Locascio, Joyland‘s L.A. editor, whose Halloween party I went to on Saturday —

Siel Ju and Lisa Locascio on Halloween 2015
Siel Ju and Lisa Locascio on Halloween 2015

as well as Douglas Manuel and Brandon Som. We’ll read our favorite poems from Crevasse plus our own work.

The reading is organized by the lovely Zoë Ruiz, editor extraordinaire and publicity director at Kaya Press, a USC-affiliated publisher of Asian Pacific Diasporas.

Some of my favorite lines from Crevasse to entice you:

Fetishes are simply details.
*
we are … caribous on a cruise to Malibu.
*
strangers met in the kenosis of sweat.

I’ll also be bringing cupcakes to celebrate my own birthday, which was yesterday! Come eat sugar and hear poetry — and come to my other birthday readings too. See you soon —

3 Birthday readings and cupcakes

cupcakes

Friends —

Instead of a birthday party, I’m having birthday readings! They’re actually just regular readings — meaning the organizers didn’t specifically plan the events to celebrate my birthday — but maybe they sort of intuitively did, because I happen to be giving three readings right around Nov. 1.

So — Celebrate my birthday with me by coming to a reading or three. There will be cupcakes! And my chapbooks. And me.

Kaya Press Reading
Wed, November 4, 2015, 7:30 pm
Stories Books & Cafe, 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Echo Park, Los Angeles, CA

Dancing Girl Press reading at Roar Shack
Sun, November 8, 2015, 4 pm – 5:30 pm
826LA, 1714 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Review Reading
Thu., November 12, 2015, 7 pm
Flintridge Bookstore & Coffee House, 1010 Foothill Blvd., La Cañada Flintridge, CA

Hope to see you soon —