Date: June 4th 2008

Hello from Soft Skull!

Here's a quick round-up of information on a whole bunch of great events that are happening in the next few weeks. But first, a couple of quick reminders:

TOMORROW, Thursday June 5, "The Mutating City" at Brooklyn Public Library from 1:20-Bomb the Suburbs, How to G2:30 PM, with the Summer Reading Kickoff, featuring Kevin Powell (No Sleep Till Brooklyn), William Upski Wimsatt (Bomb the Suburbs), and others beginning at 7 PM.

and

The Bandana Republic book launch will be happening MONDAY, June 9, from 6pm - 8pm at the Hue Man Bookstore, 2319 Frederick Douglass Blvd in New York. Editors Bruce George and Louis Reyes Rivera, along with several contributors, will be there.

Full information on this and the other upcoming events is posted below. Hope to see you there!

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The Brooklyn Independents Literary series: "The Mutating City" at the Brooklyn Public Library
Thursday, June 5, 1:30pm – 2:30pm

BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY’S DR. S. STEVAN DWECK CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY CULTURE: Summer Reading Kickoff. June 5, at 7 p.m. Authors Kevin Powell (Someday We'll All Be Free, No Sleep Till Brooklyn), Luc Sante, Favianna Rodriguez (Reproduce & Revolt), William Upski Wimsatt (No More Prisons, Bomb the Suburbs, How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office), and Josh MacPhee (Stencil Pirates, Reproduce & Revolt), debate the truths and consequences of the mutating city.

The Brooklyn Independents Literary series is a consortium of highly regarded, cutting-edge independent literary publishers including Akashic, BOMB Magazine, A Public Space, Tin House and Soft Skull.

http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/dweck/

Brooklyn Public Library, 1 Grand Army Plz # 1, Brooklyn, NY (map)

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BOOK LAUNCH: The Bandana Republic - Soft Skull's new anthology of gang literature.

Mon, Jun 9, 6pm – 8pm

The event will be at Hue-Man Bookstore, featuring editors Bruce George and Louis Reyes Rivera along with several contributors.

Contributors to the anthology include:

Alicia Benjamin-Samuels Oscar Brown Jr. Chairman Fred Hampton, Jr Commander
Comrade X Layding Kaliba Dead Prez Ruby Dee
Shaggy Flores Erica Ford The Last Poets Jesús Papoleto Meléndez
Akua Njeri Willie Perdomo T. Rodgers Luis J. Rodriguez
Leila Steinberg Kublai Toure Ted Wilson Malik Yoba



The Bandana Republic is a collection of creative literature written by Chaplains, Bishops, Sportsmen, Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, Black Spades, Neta, Black Gangster Disciples and others. Includes work by former gang members who have gone beyond gangbanging and into the social and cultural arenas.

Urban youth gangs and street associations are generally viewed as training grounds for thugs and felons. Left out of consideration are their members' emotional makeup, their political consciousness, their individual and collective capacities to assess the very social conditions that give rise to the need for such associations. The Bandana Republic showcases both the creative impulse and the social consciousness that is never included in any public dialogue on gangs.

Former gang members Louis Reyes Rivera and Bruce George present The Bandana Republic, an intergenerational, multiracial anthology that seeks to showcase the creative impulse that, along with violence, has always been a part of membership in urban gangs. Foreword by Jim Brown.

Hue-Man Bookstore & Cafe
www.huemanbookstore.com
2319 Frederick Douglass Blvd Between 124th and 125th Streets
New York, NY 10027
Tel: 212-665-7400

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TWO Douglas Martin Readings:

First
at Printed Matter as part of the BOOK LAUNCH for "Nothing Moments"
Saturday, June 7 5pm – 7pm

Printed Matter
195 10th Avenue (between 21 and 22nd Streets) in New York City.

Douglas Martin, author of Branwell and the recent poetry collection, In the Time of Assignments, reads as part of the book launch for Nothing Moments, a series of 24 collaborative book projects organized by Steven Hull and Tami Demaree with Annie Buckley and Jon Seuda. The book launch will include a reading by five of the other participating writers: Annie Buckley, Mark Kamine, Douglas A. Martin, Pamela August Russell, Jamie Schwartz and Lynne Tilman.

Nothing Moments consists of twenty-four limited edition books and more than four hundred original drawings. The project expands on the relay-inspired process Hull has explored in previous projects, whereby one artist responds to the written or visual work of another. In Nothing Moments, each book begins with a fiction text authored by a contributing writer. This text is then passed to participating artist who makes drawings in response to the story. Finally, the text and art are given to a designer who creates a unique design for each book. The resulting series emphasizes a fusion of writing, visual art, and design, inverting the traditional foregrounding of text over art in the book format.

The launch and reading will take place on Saturday, June 7 from 5:00 – 7:00 PM.

Printed Matter is located at 195 10th Avenue (between 21 and 22nd Streets) in New York City.
printedmatter.org
T: 212 925 0325
F: 212 925 0464


AND second

Martin reading with Elaine Equi at The Poetry Project
Wednesday, June 11 at 8:00 pm

The Poetry Project
St. Mark's Church,
corner of 2nd Ave. and 10th St., New York

Douglas A. Martin reads from his recent poetry collection from Soft Skull, In the Time of Assignments. His prose works include Branwell, a novel of the Bronte brother, They Change the Subject, a book of stories, and Your Body Figured, an experimental narrative forthcoming in September from Nightboat Books. Outline of My Lover, Martin's first novel, was an International Book of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement and adapted in part by the Forsythe Company for their multimedia ballet/live film "Kammer/Kammer." He teaches writing at The New School University and in the Low-Residency MFA Writing Program at Goddard College.

Elaine Equi's books include Voice-Over, which won the San Francisco State Poetry Award, The Cloud of Knowable Things, and most recently Ripple Effect: New & Selected Poems - all from Coffee House Press. Widely anthologized, her work appears in Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology and numerous editions of The Best American Poetry. She teaches at New York University and in the MFA Programs at The New School and City College.

$8, $7 for students and seniors, $5 for members
poetryproject.com
(212) 674-0910

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Eric Lyle and Cindy Crabb reading and signing
Wednesday, June 11 at Red Emma's Bookstore, Baltimore MD
Friday, June 13 at Bluestockings, New York City

Erick Lyle, creator of Scam Zine, reads from his recent book "On the Lower Frequencies: A Secret History of the City," a manual and memoir on creative resistance in a world awash with war and poverty. Lyle reflects on gentrification of San Francisco, tells of squatting in the ruins of the dot-com era, and of shutting down the city during anti-war protests. Joining him will be Cindy Crabb, the creator and author of DORIS zine.

at Red Emma's
Wednesday, June 13 from 7pm to 8pm

Red Emma's Bookstore and Coffeehouse
800 St. Paul St.
Baltimore, MD
redemmas.org
(410) 230-0450

at Bluestockings
Friday, June 13 from 7pm to 8pm

Bluestockings Books
172 Allen Street (between Stanton and Rivington)
New York, New York

bluestockings.com
212.777.6028


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This is a great line up of events, and we are awfully excited about attending them in the next couple of weeks. Hope to see you there!

Best,

Soft Skull Press




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