Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘NYC’

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THIS WEEKEND: clmp's Lit Mag Marathon Weekend (NYC)

This weekend, CLMP (The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses) is hosting its 12th annual Lit Mag Marathon Weekend. Here’s the scoop, courtesy of CLMP’s newsletter: The Magathon: Saturday, June 11th, 4-6:30 PM New York Public Library’s DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room, 5th Ave. at 42nd St. In this “marathon” reading, editors of lit journals will present selections from their first issues. The GIANT Lit Mag Fair at Housing Works: Sunday, June 12th, 11-4PM Housing Works Used Book Café, 126 Crosby Street in Soho Lucky you, New Yorkers—you can pick up tons of lit mags for only $2 a copy! Magazines […]


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So you're NOT in DC right now…

Maybe the holidays left you broke. Maybe you couldn’t take vacation days off work. Or maybe you got stranded by the SnOMG! XVIII that snarled flights from the Midwest to the east coast. Whatever the reason, you’re not at AWP this weekend. What to do instead? Well, if you’re in Brooklyn, there’s always the first annual Fake AWP. Slice Magazine has the scoop: To provide a haven for those either too broke, too busy, or too disillusioned (with the fact that really it ought to be AWWP, jeez) to attend the massive four-day conference in Washington, D.C., an assortment of […]


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CLMP's 11th Annual Lit Mag Marathon Weekend

NYC-based readers: On June 19-20, check out the CLMP’s Lit Mag Marathon Weekend, an annual celebration, showcase, and discount extravaganza of literary magazines and journals. – Events kick off on Saturday at 4 PM with The Magathon at the New York Public Library (main branch: Fifth Ave @ 42nd Street). For 2.5 hours, a number of journal editors will present favorite selections from their latest issues. – Then on Sunday from noon to 5, get your discounted periodical fix at the 11th Annual Literary Magazine Fair (also known as the Giant Lit Mag Fair) at Housing Works Bookstore Café (126 […]


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Short Stories Out Loud

I frequently happen upon Selected Shorts on NPR midway through a story and go through a predictable course of thinking: I’ve missed the first part of the story. I should just download the podcast and hear it from the top. Wow, that sentence was brilliant. What the heck is going on here? And then I end up listening to the conclusion of the story and enjoying it immensely. Now that I’m in New York, I hope to make it to one of the live stage performances of Selected Shorts. If you’re lucky enough to already have a ticket, on May […]


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Bloggers Host Authors at Greenlight Bookstore

Next Monday, March 22, at 7:30 PM, Brooklyn’s Greenlight Bookstore continues their Blogger/Author Pairings series, wherein lit bloggers host and talk with authors whose books they love, and the authors read from their work. Next up is Brooklyn’s own blogger/critic Maud Newton (of MaudNewton.com, one of the finest lit blogs, exclamation point) and award-winning author Victor LaValle, whose work has drawn comparisons to the likes of Ralph Ellison, Shirley Jackson, and Thomas Pyncheon, and whose novel (of the same title) inspired Mos Def’s The Ecstatic. LaValle will read from and discuss his new novel Big Machine, which Greenlight’s newsletter describes […]


Reviews |

Sima's Undergarments for Women, by Ilana Stanger-Ross

In her moving debut novel, Sima’s Undergarments for Women (Overlook, 2009), Ilana Stanger-Ross renders her title character so startlingly real, and with such empathy, that we cannot help but root for her. In the Jewish neighborhood of Boro Park, Brooklyn, Sima and her husband, Lev–both in shuffling middle age–have long accepted (but are forever marked by) the disappointment of not being able to have children. Sima has withdrawn into the world of her shop, away from the shroud of tragedy cast over her marriage. The story begins when a vivacious young Israeli woman, Timna, enters Sima’s shop and changes everything. The story begins when a vivacious young Israeli woman, Timna, enters Sima’s shop and changes everything.


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THIS WEEKEND: Haiti Relief at Greenlight Bookstore

In my old (and much-missed) neighborhood of Fort Greene in Brooklyn, the fabulous Greenlight Bookstore is doing its part to raise money for Haiti. NYC-based readers, shop at Greenlight today and tomorrow to help! Via the store’s newsletter: A lot has been given to us at Greenlight Bookstore. It’s high time for us to give back. The earthquake in Haiti has affected many of our Brooklyn neighbors, and we want to do what we can to assist in the relief efforts there. So, this weekend, Saturday January 23 and Sunday January 24, Greenlight Bookstore will donate 10% of all sales […]


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Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival

On Saturday, August 22 at 3 PM, come to the monument in Fort Greene Park (Brooklyn, NY) for the (FREE) fifth annual Summer Literary Festival; the event is presented by the New York Writers Coalition (NYWC), Akashic Books, GTHQ, the Fort Greene Park Conservancy, and the Walt Whitman Project. Brooklyn-based authors Colson Whitehead, Toure, and Stacey Ann Chin will share the reading podium with young writers (ages 7-17) from the NYWC’s free creative writing workshops in the park. Visit the NYWC’s website for more details. Sadly I just moved away from Fort Greene, but I highly recommend a visit to […]


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before the grande non-fat caramel macchiato

New Yorkish writers, take note: Where Edith Wharton grew up on 23rd St., there is now a Starbucks. On the one hand, I picture a quiet afternoon writing in this shop, imagining that Wharton once shared my same view of a (much changed) street. And on the other…I’m envisioning a new walking tour for NYC: “Starbucks and the City.” In my fantasy (wherein the coffee giant would not sue), tourists would amble from identical looking shop to shop whilst a green-aproned guide lectured on what once stood there or who once lived in the building. In addition to excavating layers […]