Skylight Books Podcast Series

Dennis Cooper

The Marbled Swarm (HarperCollins)

Cult-favorite writer Dennis Cooper (Ugly Man; God, Jr.) returns to Skylight to read and sign his new novel, The Marbled Swarm! "Disquieting, humbling, and sadly beautiful in the way only Dennis Cooper can be, The Marbled Swarm is a mystifying and courageous novel that represents his finest work to date." —Patrick deWitt, author of The Sisters Brothers and Ablutions "The Marbled Swarm is a mindbending masterpiece from one of my all-time favorite writers. It is vivid, slippery, ferocious, and rich with secrets. Nobody else could have written this novel and nothing else like it exists." —Justin Taylor, author of The Gospel of Anarchy and Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever Dennis Cooper is the author of the George Miles Cycle, an interconnected sequence of five novels: Closer, Frisk, Try, Guide, and Period. His other works include My Loose Thread; The Sluts, winner of France’s Prix Sade and the Lambda Literary Award; God, Jr.; Wrong; The Dream Police; Ugly Man; and Smothered in Hugs. His plays “Jerk” and “Them” are performed all over Europe and the United States. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Paris. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS NOVEMBER 17, 2011. Photo of the author by Yuri Smirnov.

Katherine Karlin

Send Me Work: Stories (Triquarterly Books)

Katerine Karlin will read and sign her new collection, Send Me Work: Stories (Triquarterly Books). Karlin has worked in oil refineries in Pennsylvania and Texas, a New Orleans shipyard, and a New York printshop, and she draws on her experiences to give voice to the unique experiences of women in the trades. Her narrators, who must daily negotiate the "man's world" of blue collar work, are keenly observant and attuned to the humor that arises when life doesn't turn out as planned. But even more remarkable is the fullness with which she renders characters who make us wonder how they've escaped the notice of other writers. In unadorned prose that evokes complete worlds with deceptive ease, Karlin shows us people immersed in the negotiations of survival, just at the edge of being able to make sense of their lives. "Karlin's stories are rich and deep, so fully lived you would think that each of her characters walks and breathes among us. A truly remarkable achievement."  --T. C. Boyle "These are such beautifully crafted stories, so satisfyingly nailed to time and place they begin to form like memories to a reader; Karlin's prose has hints of Philip Roth and Grace Paley, but the ringing specificity is all her own."  --Aimee Bender Katherine Karlin's stories have appeared in One Story, North American Review, ZYZZYVA, Alaska Quarterly Review, L.A. Weekly, and elsewhere. Her work has been selected for the Pushcart Prize and New Stories from the South. Her short story "Muscle Memory" was read as part of the "Stories on Stage" series at the Denver Performing Arts Center, and her essay "Corn" appears in One Word from Sarabande Press. Karlin currently lives in Manhattan, Kansas, with her dog, Rusty, and her husband, Chris. She teaches creative writing and literature at Kansas State University. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS NOVEMBER 16, 2011.

John Jeremiah Sullivan in conversation with Mark Richard

Pulphead (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Sullivan; House of Prayer No. 2 (Nan A. Talese) by Richard

Fans of kick-ass, can't-put-it-down nonfiction, take note: This event combines the funny, probing, insightful cultural musings of John Jeremiah Sullivan with the riveting Gothic-styled memoir of Mark Richard.

"Pulphead is upsettingly good. It’s the most inspired book of essays since David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. John Jeremiah Sullivan perceives the world with so much original wit and energy that when I put this book down, the roll of duct tape on my desk suddenly seemed like it might be full of funny secrets. I'm grateful that Sullivan is doing such outlandishly brilliant, enlivening stuff." —Wells Tower

"Read Richard's amazing memoir House of Prayer No. 2 -- read it as soon as you can, you'll barrel through it -- and you'll know after just two pages of his effortlessly killer prose that he's special all right ... Narrating, mostly, through the best use of second-person urgency since Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City, he describes being a disc jockey, a deckhand, a private eye, a ditchdigger. The man can tell a full story in the flick of a phrase ... Hallelujah. A"  —Entertainment Weekly

John Jeremiah Sullivan is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and the southern editor of The Paris Review. He has written for GQ, Harper’s Magazine, and Oxford American, and is the author of Blood Horses. He is the winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award, two National Magazine Awards for feature writing, and a Pushcart Prize. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he currently lives in Wilmington, North Carolina, with his wife and two daughters and, most weeks, his wife’s entire family.

Mark Richard is the author of two award-winning short story collections, The Ice at the Bottom of the World and Charity, and the novel Fishboy. His short stories and journalism have appeared in a number of publications, including the New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, Vogue, GQ, the Paris Review, Vogue, and The Oxford American. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Whiting Foundation Writer’s Award, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. He has been visiting writer in residence at Texas Tech University, the University of California Irvine, Arizona State University, the University of Mississippi, Sewanee: The University of the South, Sewanee, and the Writer’s Voice in New York. His television credits include Party of Five, Chicago Hope, and Huff, and movies for CBS, Showtime, and Turner Network Television.  He is the screenwriter of the film Stop-Loss. Richard is a lecturer at the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.  He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jennifer Allen and their three sons.

Photo of Sullivan (left) by John Taylor. Photo of Richard by Jeff Vespa.

Autumn De Wilde

Beck (Chronicle Books)

Photographer Autumn de Wilde (Elliott Smith, Death Cab for Cutie) will discuss and sign her brand-new collection of photographs of Beck, based on a 15-year collaboration between the two, and including portraits, photo sessions, and images from recording sessions and live performances. Autumn de Wilde is a photographer and a director best known for her portrait and documentary work in music, fashion and film. Some of her album covers include The White Stripes, Elliott Smith, Beck, Wilco, Norah Jones, and The Decemberists. Documenting the life and work of Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte has been an ongoing project since the designer's explosive beginning. Her portraits of actors, directors, designers, musicians and artists have been featured in Vogue, L'Uomo Vogue, Lula, Zoetrope All-Story, Interview, Elle, Flash-Art, Purple, Paper, Nylon, Black Book, Tar, The Lab, Spin, and Rolling Stone. She lives in Los Angeles. See more of her work at autumndewilde.tumblr.com. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS NOVEMBER 11, 2011.

Ry Cooder in conversation with David L. Ulin

Los Angeles Stories (City Lights Books)

Musician Ry Cooder will discuss and sign his new short story collection, Los Angeles Stories, in a conversation with Los Angeles Times book reviewer and author David L. Ulin!

Los Angeles Stories is a collection of loosely linked tales that evoke a bygone era in one of America's most iconic cities. In post-World War II Los Angeles, as power was concentrating and fortunes were being made, a do-it-yourself culture of cool cats, outsiders and oddballs populated the old downtown neighborhoods of Bunker Hill and Chavez Ravine. Ordinary working folks rubbed elbows with petty criminals, grifters and all sorts of women at foggy end-of-the-line outposts in Venice Beach and Santa Monica. Rich with the essence and character of the times, suffused with patois of the city's underclass, these are stories about the common people of Los Angeles, "a sunny place for shady people," and the strange things that happen to them.

Ry Cooder is a world-famous guitarist, singer and composer, known for his slide guitar work, interest in roots music, and more recently for his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries, including The Buena Vista Social Club. He has composed soundtracks for more than twenty films, including Paris, Texas. In September, Nonesuch Records will release his latest album Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down. Two recent albums were accompanied by stories Cooder wrote to accompany the music. And, in October, City Lights will publish his first book, Los Angeles Stories, a collection of loosely linked tales that evoke a bygone era in one of America's most iconic cities.

Photo of Ry Cooder by Vincent Valdez.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS NOVEMBER 6, 2011.

Kate Zambreno and Kate Durbin

Green Girl (Emergency Press) by Zambreno; E! Entertianment (Insert Press) by Durbin

Kate Zambreno and Kate Durbin join forces for an event launching Zambreno's new novel Green Girl and Durbin's new chapbook, E! Entertainment. Kate Zambreno's novel O Fallen Angel won Chiasmus Press' "Undoing the Novel" contest. Her novel Green Girl was published by Emergency Press in October 2011. A book of essays called Heroines, revolving around and obsessing over the wives and mistresses of modernism, will be published by Semiotext(e)'s Active Agents series in Fall 2012. She is an editor at Nightboat Books. Kate Durbin is a Los Angeles-based writer and artist. She is author of The Ravenous Audience (Akashic Books, 2009), E! Entertainment (Blanc Press, diamond edition, forthcoming), ABRA (Zg Press, forthcoming w/ Amarant Borsuk), as well as the conceptual fashion magazine The Fashion Issue (Zg Press, forthcoming), and five chapbooks: Fragments Found in a 1937 Aviator's Boot (Dancing Girl Press, 2009), FASHIONWHORE (Legacy Pictures, 2010), The Polished You, as part of Vanessa Place's Factory Series (oodpress, 2010), and Kept Women (Insert Press, forthcoming). She is founding editor of Gaga Stigmata, which will be published as a book from Zg Press in 2012.

THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS NOVEMBER 5, 2011.