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ZYZZYVA Events
May 4, 2019Bay Area Book Festival
Location: Outdoor Fair, Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Park, Berkeley
Description: Come visit our booth featuring new and select back issues, hoodies, T-shirts, and totes. More info here: https://bit.ly/2v0bedC
May 9, 2019The Art Issue Celebration, San Francisco
Location: 7 p.m., City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Ave., San Francisco
Description: Featuring contributors Cate Lycurgus, Dean Rader, Jordan Cantor, Rusty Morrison, and Mira Rosenthal; hosted by Managing Editor Oscar Villalon. Free. More info here: https://bit.ly/2D6VZ7k
May 16, 2019The Art Issue Celebration, East Bay
Location: 6 p.m., Traywick Contemporary, 895 Colusa Ave, Berkeley
Description: Featuring contributors Heather Altfeld, Dan Alter, Toni Martin, Troy Jollimore, and Diana Guerrero-Macia. Emceed by Managing Editor Oscar Villalon. Free.
May 30, 2019In Conversation with Kathleen Alcott
Location: 7:30 p.m., The Bindery, 1727 Haight St, San Francisco
Description: Alcott, author of the novels "Infinite Home" and "The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets," discusses her new book, "America Was Hard to Find" (Ecco), with Managing Editor Oscar Villalon. https://bit.ly/2IEY2Ty
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Monthly Archives: June 2018
A Blossom on a Chain Link Fence: ‘Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God’ by Tony Hoagland
Tony Hoagland’s books probably have the most intriguing titles of any contemporary poet. The newest one, Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God (74 pages; Graywolf Press) follows hard on Recent Changes in the Vernacular, from Tres Chicas Books, out late last year. What Hoagland does better than any other poet is select the exact details to throw the cognitive dissonance inherent in contemporary American life into stark relief. Never sentimental, often fond, and always accurate, his lines cut through to the essence of experience. Yet they are leavened by tenderness and longing, a wry acceptance of the human condition. …Continue reading
The Texture of the Light: Q&A with ‘Edith’ author Meg Freitag
Meg Freitag’s Edith (83 pages; BOAAT Books), winner of the inaugural Book Prize from BOAAT Press, comprises a series of vivid, voice-y lyrics addressed to a pet parakeet—the titular Edith—who dies halfway through the book. It turns out speaking to a pet bird makes a certain kind of affectionate disclosure possible; the experience of reading these poems is often one of overhearing an earnest speaker struggling to explain herself to a tiny, mute beloved. But the speaker’s love for her pet is also inextricable from her tenderness toward the world, and her mourning for Edith is bound up in other …Continue reading
Interoffice Memorandum 6/25
Date: June 25th, 2018 To: All Quest Industries Employees From: President Bryan Stokerly, Esq. Subj: Staying the Course Please ignore any and all rumors you might be hearing in these hallways about the financial health of Quest Industries. Everything is fine, ladies and gentlemen. It really is. Take my word for it. One other matter before I conclude: Whoever has been sticking wads of chewing gum on the underside of my office doorknob, here is a warning, just for you: Stop this evil, puerile business immediately or I will be forced to hire an unscrupulous acquaintance of mine who will beat …Continue reading
Original Sins: ‘Animals Eat Each Other’ by Elle Nash
Elle Nash’s first novel, Animals Eat Each Other (121 pages; Dzanc Books), opens with a pair of quotes from Wal-Mart’s Vice President and shock rocker Marilyn Manson, offering readers their first clue as to what kind of milieu Nash is about to immerse them in. It’s one where big box stores encroach uncomfortably on property lines, where meals are more often microwaved than cooked, and teenagers rifle through their parents’ medicine cabinets in search of opioids. The setting is Colorado Springs, a predominantly white town in a county where the majority of voters cast their lot with Donald Trump in …Continue reading
Babylon Burning: ‘High Life’ by Matthew Stokoe
When Matthew Stokoe’s gritty noir High Life (380 pages; matthewstokoe.com) was published by noted indie Akashic Books in 2002, the book, which received very little coverage, managed to attract a fan base, thanks partly to Stokoe’s fearless depictions of upper-crust society at its worst. His novel eventually went out of print, but now that the rights to High Life are back with Stokoe, he has self-published his own edition of his hard-to-find book. In High Life, Stokoe takes readers on a nocturnal tour of the seediest parts of late ‘90s Los Angeles, while gleefully subverting noir’s most ingrained tropes: there’s …Continue reading
