Entry #39 Pick It Up, Pick It Up, Pick It Up

For those of you in Chicago this week, stop by Sharp Studios 107 (1st floor of Sharp Building, 37 S Wabash, Chicago, IL) on Friday, November 5th.  Friday is open studios night at SAIC and the doors to every building on campus housing at-work students will be propped open, granting access to the public, other students, and anyone else drifting by

I'll be hosting a reading/performance series in my studio from 7:30 - 8:15.  That's the full length of time Sharp will be open to the public, so come as quickly as you can and stay as long as you'd like.  There will be 14 performers/readers/lecturers and each segment will last 3 minutes. 

Here's a list of featured artists:

Michael Meyers (michaelkmeyers.com)
Dorian Mckaie
Ben Chaffee (benjaminchaffee.com)
Lesley Dixon
Edmund Sandoval
Colin Winnette (allofthisbeforeeleven.blogspot.com)

Alexis Buryk Thania Rios Jillian Schiavi Ben Clark Nick Fraccaro Joni Murphy and Becky Grajeda

It should be a great night through and through, so come one come all.

***

I'm rounding the corner on a first draft of a short collection.  For those of you who attended the last Tex Gallery, you were privy to some of the work featured in the collection.  For those of you who didn't, where were you?

Here's an excerpt of something from the collection:

F’ed by CW

            I fucked a fire truck.  More than once.  Didn’t realize how busy it was, leaving at all hours of the night without a word. 

            I wanted my fire truck to be happy, but this was all a bit much.  So I kept it up late one night, my fire truck.  I refused to let it sleep, though it was tired. 

            “You’re a cold fire truck,” I scolded.  “Cold cold cold cold cold cold cold…”

***

I've been reading the Review of Contemporary Fiction's newest issue all morning, Slovak Fiction, and it's definitely worth checking out.  If you haven't already, and you're interested in reading short fiction in your free time, get a subscription to these guys.  It's an offshoot of Dalkey Archive Press and they're consistently publishing engaging work, from all over the place.  They offer a good range of great work being written right now, all around the world, that's not otherwise getting the attention it deserves here in the states.