Skylight Books Author Reading Series

Inheritance (Lethe Press)

A launch party for the latest poetry collection by this acclaimed local poet!

"Steven Reigns explores the inexhaustible power of family to affect our lives and loves, and does so in a candid yet passionate manner remarkable for its evocative and wounding moments." --Wanda Coleman, author of Heavy Daughter Blues and Mercurochrome: New Poems

"This is such a naked book. It falls neatly into no school of poetry, nor does 'gay poetry' sum it up. I turned the pages of Inheritance pretty hungrily, glad to encounter such honesty about a gay life lived with pleasure and bitterness and companionability." --Eileen Myles, author of Sorry, Tree and Skies

Steven Reigns is a Los Angeles-based poet and educator. His newest collection, Inheritance, came out in 2010 by Lethe Press. After earning a degree in Creative Writing at the University of South Florida, he published his début poetry collection, Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat, in 2001. Since then, Reigns has published four chapbooks: Ignited, Cartography, In the Room, and As if Memories Were Not Enough.  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 and recently received his Masters in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University. Currently he is involved with S(t)even Years, a 7-year endurance performance under the mentorship of performance artist Linda Montano. Visit him at www.stevenreigns.com.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 23, 2010.

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And the Heart Says... Whatever (Free Press)

Emily Gould will discuss and sign her new humorous essay collection And the Heart Says Whatever.

"This is not a 'nice' book, but it comes by its anger and melancholy honestly, and it makes sense of much that is puzzling about our cultural moment."   —Jonathan Franzen

Emily Gould has written for The New York Times, the New York Observer, and Jezebel.com, among other publications.  Before becoming editor of Gawker.com, a job she quit and then described in a cover story for The New York Times Magazine in 2008, she was an associate editor at Hyperion.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 20, 2010.

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No Place for a Puritan: The Literature of California's Deserts (Heyday Books)+

Deanne Stillman, Rebecca K. O'Connor, and Ruth Nolan will read from their included pieces in No Place for a Puritan, a new anthology of California desert literature, edited by Nolan.

"You could argue that the great California desert is such an idiosyncratic landscape that stories of lives spent there are too regional to have universal meaning. But, as this thrilling and necessary collection attests, you'd be wrong. A landscape that captivates writers as diverse as Joan Didion and John Steinbeck, that provokes unexpected works of literary beauty from obscure Spanish missionaries and Chemehuevi Indians must be a place that reflects somethingdeep and true about us all."  --Marisa Silver, author of God of War

Ruth Nolan, a former Bureau of Land Management California Desert District helicopter hotshot firefighter and inner-city high school teacher, is the editor of No Place for a Puritan: the literature of California’s Deserts (2009) and a contributor to Inlandia: a literary journey through Southern California’s Inland Empire (2006.) Both books were published by Heyday Books. She is a poet and writer whose subjects range from desert noir to motherhood, and her writing has been published in numerous literary journals. She recently collaborated with the UCR-California Museum of Photography on a film, Escape to Reality: 24 hrs @ 24 fps, and is also an avid photographer. She and has published three collections of poetry: Wild Wash Road, Dry Waterfall and Lava Flow Petroglyphs.

Rebecca K. O’Connor, a professional animal trainer and falconer, is the author of Lift, a memoir published by Red Hen Press (2009), and was a Pushcart Nominee for the 2008 Prize. Her novel, Falcon’s Return was a Holt Medallion Finalist for best first novel and she has published numerous reference books on the natural world. As a professional animal trainer, O’Connor has worked with a variety of exotic animals in zoos and private facilities around the United States and abroad. She has been a falconer for fifteen years and is a nationally known parrot behaviorist. Her book A Parrot for Life: Raising and Training the Perfect Parrot Companion was published in 2007 by TFH and is required reading for those adopting parrots are several rescue facilities. She is also a nationally sought-after lecturer at parrot clubs and parrot festivals.

Deanne Stillman brakes for sand.  A widely published, critically acclaimed writer, she is the author of Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West (Houghton Mifflin, 2008), which was named a "Best Book of 2008" by the Los Angeles Times and won a California Book Award silver medal for nonfiction.  Deanne is also the author of the bestseller Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave, a Los Angeles Times "Best Book of 2001" which Hunter Thompson called "a strange and brilliant story by an important American writer." It was recently published in a new, updated edition by Angel City Press. She is also the author of Joshua Tree: Desolation Tango, a tribute to Joshua Tree National Park, published by the University of Arizona Press. She is currently writing Mojave Manhunt for Nation Books, based on her Rolling Stone piece of the same name, which was a finalist for a PEN journalism award. She is a member of the core faculty at the UC Riverside-Palm Desert MFA Creative Writing Program.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 18, 2010.

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Students from the University of California, Irvine MFA program will read from their work.

Reading this evening will be Greg McClure (poetry), Zana Previti (fiction), Rachel Hinton (poetry), and Ryan Hume (fiction).

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Wilson (Drawn & Quarterly)

Daniel Clowes, the acclaimed cartoonist behind Ghost World (the graphic novel and the Oscar-nominated screenplay), the minicomic (turned movie) Art School Confidential, and the Eightball comic series will be here to discuss and sign Wilson, his new first all-new graphic novel!

After a slideshow presentation, Clowes will be joined by comedian and tonight's special guest moderator Dana Gould for a discussion and Q&A!

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 14, 2010.

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I Thought You Were Dead (Algonquin)

Novelist Pete Nelson will read from and sign his latest book, about the heart-wrenching and hilarious relationship between a down-on-his-luck man and his talking dog.

Pete Nelson is the author of several books, including Left for Dead. He is also a singer-songwriter with a select but devoted following. He is not, however, the Pete Nelson who writes books about tree houses, although he has nothing against them. He lives in WesTchester County, New York.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 13, 2010.

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Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth (DC Comics)

The popular and prolific comic book writer Geoff Johns will be here to discuss and sign Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth, the deluxe edition of the series that relaunched one of DC Comics' greatest heroes.

Johns will be signing other books in addition to Absolute Green Lantern: Rebirth, but if you choose to bring something from home for him to sign, we request that you also purchase a book here.  There will be a large selection of Johns' work to choose from!

Geoff Johns has written highly acclaimed stories starring Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Teen Titans, and Justice Society of America. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling graphic novels Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns, Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps War, Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come, and Superman: Braniac. He is currently working on the story for The Flash feature film, which he will also co-produce.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 8, 2010.

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When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison (PublicAffairs)

We're thrilled to announce that Greil Marcus, music and culture critic, Believer columnist, and author or editor of many Skylight staff and customer favorites (Lipstick Traces, A New Literary History of America, and others) will be here to discuss and sign his new book of criticism on another Skylight favorite person: Van Morrison.

Greil Marcus is the author of The Shape of Things to Come, Like a Rolling Stone, and The Old Weird America; a twentieth anniversary edition of his book Lipstick Traces was published in 2009. With Werner Sollors he is the editor of A New Literary History of America, published last year by Harvard University Press. Since 2000 he has taught at Princeton, Berkeley, Minnesota, and the New School in New York; his column “Real Life Rock Top 10” appears regularly in The Believer. He lives in Berkeley.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 7, 2010.

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Los Angeles Review, Issue 7 (Red Hen Press)

Join The Los Angeles Review, the literary journal of Red Hen Press, as they release their seventh issue. Dedicated to Judy Grahn, Issue 7 features some of the finest poetry and prose from the West Coast, the nation, and the world.

Bonnie ZoBell lives in a cute casita in San Diego where she’s planted all kinds of succulents and has published in lots of places.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 5, 2010.

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Make/Shift Magazine

Two editors and five contributors will be here to present the new issue of this great feminist culture magazine!  Editor/publishers Jessica Hoffmann and Daria Yudacufski (pictured above), along with contributors Ruth Blandon, Emily Hobson, Erin Aubry Kaplan, James McKeever, and Christine Petit, will read.

Jessica Hoffmann is a coeditor/copublisher of make/shift. Her writing has appeared in publications including ColorLines, AlterNet, and the anthologies We Don't Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists and Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity. In 2008, Utne named her one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World."

Daria Yudacufski is a coeditor/copublisher of make/shift. She received a master’s degree in art history from UCSB, focusing on issues of race, gender, and sexuality in contemporary art and culture. She is the managing director of Visions and Voices, an arts and humanities initiative at USC.

Ruth Blandón recently completed her PhD in English at USC, looking at transamerican modernisms.

Emily Hobson is a lecturer in feminist studies at UC Santa Barbara.

Erin Aubry Kaplan is a contributing editor to "Opinion" at the Los Angeles Times and a columnist at make/shift.

James McKeever is an assistant professor of sociology at Pierce College.

Christine Petit is the president of the union for academic student employees at the University of California, a blogger, and a frequent contributor to make/shift.

Make/shift magazine creates and documents contemporary feminist culture and action by publishing journalism, critical analysis, fiction, poetry and visual art. Join coeditors/copublishers Jessica Hoffmann and Daria Yudacufski for an afternoon of readings featuring several make/shift contributors.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 2, 2010.

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Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives (W.W. Norton)

National Book Award finalist Brad Watson (for his first novel, The Heaven of Mercury)will be here to read from and sign his new short story collection, Aliens in the Prime of their Lives.

"Brad Watson’s stories worm their way through you. Watson’s talent is singular, truly awesome; he reminds me of Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Conner, Chris Offutt in his bravery, his unflinching willingness to look at what might set others running. And yet these are not exactly dark stories—that is part of their magic, they are infused with an uncanny beauty in which even at the most god awful moments, something is salvaged." —A. M. Homes, author of This Book Will Save Your Life

Brad Watson teaches creative writing at the University of Wyoming, Laramie. His first collection, Last Days of the Dog-Men, won the Sue Kauffman Award for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. His first novel, The Heaven of Mercury, was a finalist for the National Book Award.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 3, 2010.

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