May 19, 2008

On Friday May 30th at 9 p.m. (no cover) I'll be read along with Lauren Hoffman at the McLeod Residency (McLeod Residency, 2209 Second Ave - 98121 - Seattle) as a guest of the Ghost Gallery. Along with the reading there will be music by The Duke and the Duchess and Troubletown. The event was put together by Laurie Kearney. I hope you can come.

November 5, 2007

I'll be reading at Clackamas Community College on Wednedsay this week. Here is the blurb and etc. from the CCC Blog: Novelist and short story writer Matt Briggs will read in Clackamas Community College's Literary Arts Center (Rook 220) at 7 pm on November 7. The event is open and free to the public. 19600 Molalla Avenue; Oregon City, Oregon 97045

June 3, 2007

Monday June 4th 2007: Matt Briggs, Sybil James:

StringTown Press presents local authors Matt Briggs & Sybil James reading from their recent works, Shoot the Buffalo and Ho Chi Minh's Motorbike. (Actually, I'm going to read new stories about homemade hydrogen and tree frogs.) Free 7 pm Ravenna Third Place 6504 20th Ave NE Seattle (Ravenna) 206-525-2347

April 23, 2007

Tomorrow I'll be reading with Kass Fleischer and Robert Archambeau at Series A in Hyde Park. Thanks to Mr. Archambeau on info regarding Ms. Fleischer... Free of Charge: Tuesday April 24, 7:00 PM, Hyde Park Art Center 5020 S Cornell Ave, Chicago, IL.

April 15, 2007

I'll be reading this next week (if you happen to be in Chicago) at Quimby's (1854 W. North Ave. Chicago, IL 60622 tel. 773-342-0910) on Sunday April 22nd (4 pm.) and at Series A on Tuesday April 24th in Hyde Park at 7 p.m.

At Quimby's I'll be reading out loud curtsey of Punk Planet with Ann Elizabeth Moore (editor of Best American Graphic Novels, author of Hey, Kidz! Buy This Book, etc.) and Patrick Somerville (author of Trouble). Mr. Sommerville has possession of a boomerrang and says he actually knows how to throw it so that it will return to his hand. I'm hoping to take lessons. I used to try to throw bommerrangs over my brother's head so that it would sail past him and return to my hand. Instead thes stick whirled into his shin. He yelped.

At Series A, I'll be reading with Robert Archambeau and the mysterious Kass Fleicher. Archambeau is the author of the forthcoming (forthwith) book Laureates and Heretics, 2004's Home and Variations, and others. Kass Fleicher lives in a windowless room overlooking a remote North Dakota mountain.

January 18, 2007

JANUARY 24TH (Bothell)
Next week on Wed. I am going to read from Shoot the Buffalo and conduct short lit-game, and the excellent musician Eli Moore whose first solo album is about to be released at any moment will play his songs. We're going to do this at lunchtime (1:30 p.m.) at the UW Bookstore in Bothell on the Cascadia CC / UW Campus. JANUARY 24TH Wed.1:30 PM (University Book Store (Bothell) 18325 Campus Way NE, Suite 102 Bothell (Up North) 425 352-3344)

JANUARY 29TH (SEATTLE)
Stacey Levine (Frances Johnson) and I will read in Seattle's UW Bookstore at 7:00 p.m. JANUARY 29TH MON 7:00 PM (UW Bookstore 4326 University Way NE Seattle 206.634.3400)

FEBUARY 15TH (PORTLAND)
On the day after Valentine’s day, I'll be in Portland, OR to read at Phase One (Words + Music). Phase One is hosted by Garett Strickland at the Someday Lounge in Portland (125 NW 5th, between Couch and Davis). Doors at 8. $5.

MARCH 6TH (BELLINGHAM)
I'll be reading at Western Washington University in Bellingham at 4 pm. Not sure which room, etc. (http://www.wwu.edu)

MARCH 18TH (EVERETT)
Sunday March 18th, I'll be at the Everett Public Library. (2702 Hoyt Avenue; 425-257-8000; http://www.epls.org) 2 pm. free.

November 30, 2006

Loudhailer

READINGS WITH FOOTNOTES: Jonathan Raban is going to read about an encounter with England's gloomy genius Philip Larkin. Matt Briggs is going to read a very short story involving a peach and an earwig. John Olson is going to read a prose poem that seems to boil insanely from within. Between readings by these past Stranger literary Geniuses [and now presumably washed up], various Stranger editors will present footnotes—alluring images, true histories, sidelong connections, and obitutaries. By the way, the Henry's exhibition Take the Cake is up for two more weeks. Henry Art Gallery, 15th Ave NE and NE 41st St, 543-2280. 7 pm, free.) -- Christopher Frizzelle, Stranger Suggests.

November 9, 2006

If you are on Vashon Island on Sunday, I'll be reading at the King County Library at 2 p.m. from my novel Shoot the Buffalo.

A brief article in the Vashon Island Loop. (PDF)

October 30, 2006

Friday, November 3rd, 11pm

This month's edition is our 2nd Annual 60 SECONDS MAX! Featuring over 50 acts, each no longer than 60 seconds, including:

• Music from Erin Jorgensen, Voxy, Rick Miller, Miss Mamie Lavona (the Exotic Mulatta) and Her White Boy Band, Kevin Cameron, Sumac, Scotto Moore, Niceol Blue
• Contemporary dance from Laura Curry, Lori Dillon, Juliet Waller, Dayna Hanson, Jessica Jobaris, and Crispin Spaeth
• Teatrics from Seattle School, Beth Peterson, Keith Hitchcock, Orla McGovern, La Nell Guiste, Val Bush & Cory Nealy, Mark Siano;
• Spoken word from Matt Briggs, Mary Purdy, Charles Legget, Annette Auger, Brian McGuigan
• Spontaneous painting by Susannah Anderson
• Plus a professional Britney Spears impersonator, belly dance, tap dance, banjo, opera, stop-motion porn, slam poetry, competitive tattoo application, grown men playing toy pianos...

...and much, much more. That list barely covers half of the acts.

All held together with the "my name is legion" panache of our host, BRUCE HALL.

Annex Theatre's Monthly Cabaret: the first Friday of every month, brand new performances every time and never the same show twice!

On the first Friday of every month Annex Theatre presents a late evening of unusual performance. Performers of every description present short works that range from the unusual to the simply indescribable. The show starts at 11pm at Capitol Hill's Oddfellows Hall, on the second floor in the East Hall Theatre, 1529 10th Avenue (map). Admission is only $9!

October 21, 2006

I'm going to be hosting The Jack Straw Writer's Program next year. You can check out several of the past years shows here, including readings by John Olson, Stephen Thomas, and Anna Balint.

The program consists of three readings by four readers at the Jack Straw studios in the University District in Seattle in the spring of 2007. Each event will be recorded and KUOW (Seattle's NPR affiliate) will select portions of the reading to go on the air. Jack Straw also produces a neatly designed, perfect-bound anthology of the readers, and has a long archive of past spoken word performances dating back to the 1950s. In past years, readers have read at additional venues such as Bumbershoot or The Seattle Public Library.

Please apply if you are interested in reading.

October 11, 2006

I'll be reading in my old hometown of North Bend at the King County Public Library Branch on Tuesday October 17th at 7:00 p.m. (for info) I'll be there around 6:30 for coffee.

It's been kind of fun and weird corresponding with the libraries at North Bend, Vicki Heck and Deborah Schneider. Part of this has been because growing up in Fall City and North Bend, the libraries were the only place where I could secretly find information about things like unicorns, perhaps not the most robust, burly interest of a boy growing up among flannel and air rifle toting young men.

It took me a long time to learn to read, but once I learned to read I couldn't help but become bookish. In age before the internet, if you wanted to know anything that wasn't right there in front of you, you had to read about it. This seems kind of banal, now, but it's kind of freakish to see the amount of information that my daughter who is just learning to read takes for granted. For her reading is less about finding information and more about reducing the amount of information to mere words on a page, framed in a context where she can concentrate on them.

On the Canadian border, there are sometimes seen animals resembling horses, but with cloven hoofs, rough manes, a long straight horn upon the forehead, a curled tail like a wild boar, black eyes, and a neck like that of the stag. They live in the loneliest wilderness and are so shy that the males do not even pasture with the females except in the seasons of rut, when they are not so wild. As soon as this season is past, however, they fight not only with other beasts but even with those of their own kind -- Olfert Dapper, Die Unbekante Neue Welt (1673)

This quote from a book with the authority of a German title and a very old date, made me convinced or allowed me to be convinced I would come across a unicorn on the face of Mount Si or when I was trespassing in the Cedar River Watershed.

I found the book with this quote in the tiny Fall City Library at the edge of the Fall City Elementary school campus, across the street from a recently erected totem pole (even though the Snoqualmie tribe didn't build totem poles) and the river that often jumped the banks and flooded the farmland north of the library. There was a red and white striped pole visible from the park across the street that measured the depth the river.

I wasn't aware I could reserve books from other branches and instead had my parents drive me to the different libraries, where I would discover different things on the shelves. In the 1970s, The Snoqualmie Library was in a more modern building and the biggest of the three. I found Tintin's comic books there -- confused at first by the amount of text. Everyone was talking all of the time. I was also confused about the lack of superheroes. Even though I read Peanuts -- Peanuts was a strip and Tintin was a book. They were bound in thick board and coated patterned papers. For years, I didn't know what the covers of the books looked like and still prefer my idea of the bright comic books hidden behind the abstract library bindings.

The North Bend Library which has since moved into a large, lodge-style building used to be in a small, plain building. It had a huge collection of pulp books, and I read all of Conan from this library.

At the time, the libraries were my only ready access to books. The nearest bookstore was a used bookstore and paperback exchange in Redmond and a B.Dalton in the Bellevue Mall. Even the tiny Fall City library had a better stock of books than the B.Dalton.

September 30, 2006

OLYMPIA - SUNDAY OCTOBER 8TH AT 4 P.M. (FREE) -- Join Clear Cut Press on the occasion the release of my first novel, Shoot the Buffalo, the release of Levine’s second novel, Frances Johnson, and the upcoming release of Corrina Wycoff first story collection, O Street (from Other Voices Books). We will be reading. Stacey will have a lit-game. Singing and music will be been provided by kick(kickball). I hope you will join us at Orca Books 509 E 4th Ave in downtown Olympia, WA, between Jefferson and Cherry Streets.

[Download a PDF of the handbill if you are at all interested.]

September 29, 2006

I'll be reading from my recent novel from Clear Cut Press at the White Center King County Public Library Branch at 7 p.m. next Thursday, October 5th. (11220 16th S.W. * Seattle 98146 * 206-243-0233) The reading is free.

White Center is the even more working class neighborhood than the working class neighborhood of West Seattle.

I wrote this sometime ago about White Center (which has genitrified a great deal in the last five years):

Although both the city facing slopes of Queen Ann and Capitol Hill are padded with pricey homes, in Seattle, the higher you go, the poorer the neighborhood. Nothing was taller in Seattle than White Center. The very tallest places rose up into the hazy white sky, washed by the chilly smell of the distant fir trees in the mountains and the perpetual grumble of airplanes falling toward Sea-Tac and Boeing field. These were the projects, the only actual government housing in all of Seattle, aside from the re-appropriated military housing below the Veteran’s Administration on Beacon Hill. The Hilltop projects housed the poorest of the poor in the poorest neighborhood in the poorest part of town that was the last to receive asphalt. Even the chain stores that tried to make a go of it elsewhere in Burien could not penetrate White Center. West Seattle was a middle class neighborhood populated with secretaries, waiters, and cooks, it supported a McDonald’s at one end and a business district at the other end--but the further the bus went up the hill, the more distressed the neighborhood became. The green belts grew wild. The blackberries grew thick and overgrown and crowded onto the sidewalk and scuffed vacant lots.

September 19, 2006

Garett Strickland is moving his great reading series in Portland from its digs at the Towne Lounge. This Sunday, September 24th will be the last installment. There is a great all night coffee shop nearby. At the end of the street, there is an actual forest right in the middle of Portland. The Towne Lounge (714 SW 20th PL 8:00 P.M. FREE!), one block up from PGE Park, where Morrison merges with Burnside. Large building with pillars, door on the left with 'LOUNGE' spelled out right above.

This is one of the few reading series that features writers from both Seattle and Portland in Portland on a regular basis. It promises to create greater peace and understanding between our two warring cities. This Sunday Portland writer Monica Drake (the only writer to ever publish an entire novel in The Stranger) will read alongside Seattle writer Doug Nufer. There is even music. The line up:

Monica Drake
Cynthia Nelson
Eric Greenwalt
Doug Nufer
and Swallows

And here is the new Phase One Web site.

September 10, 2006

I'm going to be reading around the Pacific Northwest this fall and early next winter from Shoot the Buffalo.

White Center - King County Public Library
11220 16th S.W.; Seattle, Washington
Thursday, October 5th, 7:00 p.m.

Orca Books
509 E 4th Ave; Olympia, Washington
Sunday October 8th, 4:00 p.m.

North Bend Library - King County Public Library
115 E. 4th In the Snoqualmie Valley
Tuesday, October 17th 7:00 p.m.

Jacksons Books
320 Liberty St SE; Salem, Oregon
Thursday October 26th, 7:00 p.m.

Spin the Bottle : 60 Seconds Max
Oddfellows Hall 915 E. Pine St. on Capitol Hill; Seattle, Washington
Friday, Nov 3, 11 p.m.

Vashon Island - King County Public Library
17210 Vashon Hwy. S.W.; Vashion, Washington
Sunday, November 12th, 2:00 p.m.

Watermark Books
Anacortes, Washington
Sunday November 19th, 5:00 p.m.

Federal Way Regional Library - King County Public Library
34200 1st Way S.; Federal Way, Washington
Thursday, November 26th, 2:00 p.m.

Henry Art Gallery: Take the Cake
Seattle, Washington
Thursday, November 30, 7:00 p.m.

September 6, 2006

I'll be reading at the Henry Art Gallery along with several other writers who've been given cash by The Stranger along with a bunch of arts organizations, performers, and artists over the last couple of years. I'll be reading on Nov. 30th along with Rebecca Brown, John Olson, the yet unnamed fourth lit recipient of the prize (provided they can make it), and others. Here is Betsy from the Henry on this topic at the Henry Art Gallery Blog, Hank Blog. Along with this event, the Henry has collected ephemera related to past recipient’s compositions, painting, etc.

August 30, 2006

Bumbshoot on Monday, 8:00 pm - 9:00 pm @ Alki Room
Bumbershoot's Page

I'm performing "Trapdoor 62: The Dream Interpretation Panel" as a prince along with Stacey Levine (as Maria von Franz), Anna Maria Hong, (as a Chinook Salmon), David Stutz (as Freud), Garret Fisher (as Little Hanz) and emcee Jeanette Allee. Interruptions will be provided by Shannon Borg and Amy Schrader. We recently performed the show in the Jewel Box Theater and I believed we actually provided a great deal of relief to audience members afflicted by troublesome dreams. People arrived to our Andre Breton Tent Revival carrying their phantom limbs and neurotic fantasies and using our patented, scientific spiritual formula of medication and righteousness set them right. If you have a troublesome dream, write it down and come in to have your suffering transformed into a beautiful song.

Co-produced by The Po Show, Fisher Ensemble, and GlobalArts.

Trapdoor 62 a Bumbershoot pick at:

Seattle PI's Books Editor Picks for Bumbershoot

Bumbershoot Lit Highlights from The Seattle Times.

August 20, 2006

Using only words, an Indian harmonium, and a Sonabulist, a panel of writers and musicians will interpret the meanings of all your dreams. Before the panel, enjoy aperitifs and Surreal conversation. Bring a dream to be analyzed or receive one at the door. Featuring dream interpreters Sigmund Freud, Jungian analyst Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz, Little Hans, Mini Ernst, and the charming Sir-Pants-A-Lot. Baroness Jzeannette, the Teutonic ToughLove Tywrant will moderate the evening.

This is the only night you will ever need to unlock the secrets of all your dreams.

When: Tuesday, August 22, 2006
The show begins at 8 PM. Doors open for aperitifs at 7:30 PM.

Where: The Rendezvous Jewelbox Theater, 2322 2nd Avenue in Belltown

Admission: $8 dollars (Advanced Tickets)

Trapdoor 62: The Dream Interpretation Panel will also take place on Monday, September 4th at the Bumbershoot Literary Stage, 8 PM in the Alki Room at the Seattle Center. For more info, go to www.bumbershoot.com .

Artist Bios:

Jeannette Allée (emcee) is a writer, monologist, and performer of social critique/comedy. She has performed solo works at On the Boards, Theatre Off Jackson, the Seattle Fringe Festival, the Vancouver Fringe Festival, the Freehold Studio Series, Mae West Fest, New City Theatre, and the Annex Theatre. A recipient of a 2006 4 Culture grant and the winner of the 2004 Richard Hugo House New Works competition, Jeannette has published poetry and short stories in the US and UK, including the Ian St. James Awards for fiction, the Portlandia Review of Books, and The Spoon River Poetry Review. Her animated video Inflatable Underwear and the 8 Drunken Immortals was voted audience favorite in its category at the Olympia Film Festival.

Erik Benson graduated from the University of Washington with a creative writing degree and self-published a novel titled, Man Versus Himself. He currently works at a small company he co-founded called The Robot Co-op, which builds weird social networking websites such as 43things.com, 43places.com, and 43people.com.

Shannon Borgs poetry collection Corset was published by Cherry Grove Books in 2006. She holds an MFA from the University of Washington and a Ph.D from the University of Houston. Her work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, The London Review of Books, The Paris Review, Gulf Coast, mobilecity.com, Pontoon, and other journals. She writes about food and wine in Seattle.

Matt Briggs (Sir Pants-a-Lot) is the author of three collections of short stories including The Remains of River Names. Clear Cut Press recently published his first novel, Shoot the Buffalo, a 2006 recipient of the Before Columbus Foundations American Book Award.

Garrett Fisher (Little Hans) is the Artistic Director of the Fisher Ensemble. His interdisciplinary works have been produced at such venues as Consolidated Works, On the Boards (Seattle), the AIR Gallery (NY, NY) and as part of the King County Performance Network. His opera The Passion of Saint Thomas More was produced on the BIS Label. In 2005, it was selected as one of 30 recordings to be featured on BIS's 30 Year Special Edition, and received a 10/10 rating from Classics Today. He has received honors and awards from 4culture, Allied Arts, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Foundation, Bossak/Heilbron Foundation, Centrum Center for the Arts, CityArtists, King County Arts Commission, Puffin Foundation, and the Seattle Arts Commission.

Anna Maria Hong (Mini Ernst) is the founder and producer of The Po Show and Trapdoor 62. Her first poetry manuscript, Fablesque, is a finalist in the 2006 National Poetry Series Open Competition. Her poems have been published in Hotel Amerika, Fence, Puerto del Sol, Black Clock, Revolting Sofas, Cranky Literary Journal, Golden Handcuffs Review, and other journals. Her prose has appeared in ARCADE, The International Examiner, poetryfoundation.org, Poets & Writers, and other venues. In 2005, she received grants from the Artist Trust and the A Room of Her Own Foundation. A 2004 and 2005 Pushcart Prize nominee, she was named One to Watch by The Stranger Genius Awards.

Stacey Levine (Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz) is the author of My Horse and Other Stories and Dra, a novel, both published by Sun & Moon Press. Her novel Frances Johnson was published in 2005 by Clear Cut Press. She also has worked as a freelance writer for The American Book Review, The Stranger, The Seattle Weekly, and scarier venues.

Maggie Santolla (cigarette girl) studied creative writing at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma and works as the marketing coordinator for a local architecture firm. Her work has appeared in Cranky Literary Journal.

Amy Schrader (associate producer, disrupter) is a recent graduate of the MFA program in poetry at the University of Washington, she is the Poetry Editor of Cranky Literary Journal, and was previously a co-editor of the journal Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review. She was the 2005 recipient of the Nelson Bentley Prize in Poetry and her poems have appeared in Cranky, Pontoon, The Mid-America Poetry Review, Pedestal Magazine, and the Amherst Review.

David Stutz (Sigmund Freud) has been making computers misbehave and singing professionally since boyhood. He continues to work as a singer, as a laptop and studio sonabulist, and as a composer. As if that is not enough, he also grows wine-grapes with his wife Beth in Oregon's Willamette Valley.

July 11, 2006

Sunday July 16, 3pm CAUSLAND PARK in Anacortes, Washington State

A PUBLIC ADDRESS EVENT hosted by Clear Cut Press
“I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You” ~ Writers reading writing.

Readers to include: Sam Lohmann, Bret Lunsford, Matt Briggs, Jay Chilcote, Emily White, Phil Elverum, Claire Evans, Matthew Stadler, Rich Jensen, and members of the public so moved.

What the Heck Fest 2006

June 19, 2006

Clear Cut Press :: Readings & Music for the Californias, North & South, June 21-25, 2006

Wednesday, June 21st, 2006, 7:00 pm, all ages
City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco, CA. Matt Briggs, Stacey Levine, Matthew Stadler, and Robert Gluck will be reading along with music and textural environments created by We Two and the Universe (Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans) and Mount Eerie.

Thursday, June 22nd, 2006, in the evening
Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA. Clear Cut Press authors Stacey Levine, Robert Gluck, and Matt Briggs will be kicking off a new quarterly reading series in Berkeley hosted by Kitchen Sink Magazine at Pegasus Books. Once again they will be accompanied by the music and textural environments of We Two and the Universe (Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans) and Mount Eerie.

Saturday, June 24th, 2006, evening
Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Boulevard, Venice, CA. Stacey Levine, Matt Briggs, and Matthew Stadler will read along with music and textural environments by We Two and the Universe (Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans).

Sunday, June 25th, 2006, 7:00 pm
The Smell, 247 South Main Street, Los Angeles, CA. After three music-laden readings in bookstores, the Clear Cut Press crew will grace this Sunday Los Angeles evening on a softer note, reading without the company of our musician friends, in a music venue.

May 14, 2006

From Steve Potter:

Wanted to let you all know that The Wandering Hermit Review # 2 is on the way! It's gained forty or fifty pages and a stylin'' heavyweight, glossy cover since issue 1 and is lookin' pretty sweet, if we do say so ourselves!

For those of you in the Seattle area, we’ll be having a reading at Richard Hugo House on Monday, May 22nd. The reading will start at 7:30 and feature Seattle area contributors to the issue. Much thanks to Richard Hugo House for co-sponsoring the event!

Writers expected to read include:

Matt Briggs, Eben Eldridge, Jonathan Evison, Harvey Goldner, Tom Hansen, David Hecker, David Horowitz, Paul Hunter, David Christopher LaTerre, Stacey Levine, Steven Lohse, Priscilla Long, Martin Marriott, Jesse Minkert, John Olson, Geoff Pope, MaryLou Sanelli, Monica Schley, Stephanie Skura, Bill White and Maged Zaher.

May 12, 2006

I'll be reading with John McFarland, Sybyl James, and others tonight for StringTown. 7:30 Friday at Ravenna Third Place Books.

March 16, 2006

Thursday March 16th I read at the Oseao Studios space as part of Doug Nufer's ongoing series, A Leg To Stand On. Anna Maria Hong read ear bending poetry (sonnets) and Charles Mudede read a sequence of "literature" about the fuzzy line between live and death. I read a new short story., "The Ice Cream Man Cometh." The readings take place at 7:45 $5 donation. 1402 E. Pike St., above the American Artificial Limb Co. info: 206-324-6379

A note from Mr. Mudede.

February 18, 2006

Clear Cut Press publisher Rich Jensen has made plans for an invasion of the lands edging the Atlantic Ocean and has equipped a van loaded with musicians [or "projective environmentalists" since music is just one of the media cast by We Two and the Universe, aka, Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans], Clear Cut sales force and archivists, and two writers of recent works issued by the press-- Stacey Levine and myself. We will be staging events in Philadelphia (Space 1026) , NYC (MoMA's P.S.1), and Providence. Sadly I will need to return to my "end cap" cubicle before the invasion has achieved its final stage in Rhode Island.

Jona wrote this on this site regarding the trip:

"As musical directors of the overall event, Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans will design an atmosphere or vibe zone which will pointedly suggest a new stance for readings, one more akin to the independent music subculture from which Clear Cut Press emerged. Using an overwhelming (to them) multimedia format, their presentation "We Two And The Universe" will collapse the staid and academic format of the reading event, and from its remains present a nascent perspective on science, music, and literature... aka an intellectual make-out space."

Check out his site, or Clear Cut's site.

February 11, 2006

Every third Wednesday former writers from the Jack Straw Writer program read in an event curated by a writer from the program. This upcoming Thursday, February 15th 7 pm (free), is hosted by Larry Laurence, who will have Ezra Mark, James, Reed, and myself read. The Jack Straw (formerly Crab Radio) studios are brown and warm and readings there always strike me as brown and warm. Come around if you are in the U District on Wednesday night.

About the host and readers:

Larry Laurence (1999) was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a Navy family and moved many times throughout his childhood. He began writing in his twenties, earning an M.A., English, studying poetry under Philip Levine and Peter Everwine. He earned a second M.A. 12 years later, this time in Rehabilitation Counseling, which he uses to work with disabled adults in Seattle. He has been awarded grants from the Seattle Arts Commission and Artist Trust, plus residencies at Squaw Valley Community Of Writers (California) and Cummington Center For The Arts (Massachusetts). He has published in Poetry Northwest, Southern Poetry Review, The Prose Poem, Raven Chronicles and other magazines. Scenes Beginning With The Footbridge At The Lake, a chapbook from Brooding Heron Press, Waldron Island, WA, was published in 1992.

Matt Briggs' (2002) first novel, Shoot the Buffalo, was published by Clear Cut Press this last winter. The Oregonian said, "Not since the emergence of Sherman Alexie has the Northwest produced such a unique narrative voice." Briggs is the author of three previous story collections including The Remains of River Names and The Moss Gatherers. His work has appeared in The North Atlantic Review, The Northwest Review, Spork, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. Briggs was raised in the Snoqualmie Valley.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Ezra Mark (2004) has cultivated certain typographical errors during his years in Seattle. His work has often dealt with the material aspects of language, involving silence, disjunction, skewed structures, fountain pens and the occasional grand gesture; he is increasingly fascinated with temporal structures, both theoretically and in terms of process. He is a member of the Subtext Reading Series Collective. Narthex and Tenet are among his poetry books; his prose works include "Two," "Intention," and "Retention," which has been described as “austere and very Old World, Old European.” He has recently completed "à," a 365-part digression that can be read or reconfigured in multiple ways.

James Reed (2004) is a poet living in Seattle with a long-standing involvement in the arts beginning as a teacher and performer on classic guitar. For the last many years he has worked in the design field doing residential architecture and designing and fabricating contemporary furniture emphasizing the use of mixed materials. His recent work has appeared in BirdDog and Organization & Environment. Shelter, a book of poetry, is forthcoming from dPress in Sebastopol, CA.

Selected excerpts from the Jack Straw Reading Series will be aired on KUOW-FM 94.9 during "The Beat," between 2 and 3 pm on the monday preceding the next reading.

The Jack Straw Reading Series is a joint venture between Jack Straw Productions and KUOW-FM. Readings will take place the third Wednesday of each month. An extension of the Jack Straw Writers Program, the Jack Straw Reading Series features an invited curator (a former writer or curator from the Jack Straw Writers Program) to program an evening of reading with three or four alumni from the Jack Straw Writers Program. Selections from each event will be broadcast on KUOW's "The Beat" on the third Monday of each month.

January 11, 2006

On Sunday January 22nd, I’m going to be reading in Snoqualmie at Isadora’s (8062 Railroad Avenue across the street from the Steam Train Depot) from Shoot the Buffalo. Eli Moore (Palisades) will play his music. Eli and I aim to deliver a complete reading with text and music integrated into a kind of complete thing cobbled together from the first thee chapters of my novel and assorted tunes written and performed by Mr. Moore. We’ll see if such a thing is possible, but it should be an enjoyable way to spend a rainy afternoon in any case.

In other news regarding Shoot the Buffalo, for what it is worth, the book was cited in The Oregonian’s Top of Best Books of 2005. I was cited, alas, as one of "several who didn’t make the top 10."

Also, Clear Cut Press will be touring the western edge of the Atlantic Ocean at the end of February with readings in Philadelphia (Feb 24 > Space 1026), Queens (Feb 25 > MoMA P.S.1), and Providence (Feb 27 > AS220). Music and Dancing will be provided by Jona Bechtolt (aka Yacht), words will be read aloud by Stacey Levine and myself, and inspirational unwritten words will be spoken by Richard Jensen. Daniel J. Mitchell will represent the Clear Cut Sales Force.

December 1, 2005

December 5th, 2005. 7:30 p.m. (free) I will be reading from Shoot the Buffalo and The Moss Gatherers with Polly Buckingham at the great independent bookstore in Spokane, WA, Auntie's Bookstore. Polly will read from one of her three amazing and oddly yet-unpublished novels.

About a month ago I suddenly became very, very nervous about driving over Snoqualmie Pass. I have no idea why this is so.I've never actually driven over the pass before, but have been there in other people's cars hundreds of times. I have been there more times than I have been to Portland or Everett. I can travel to Portland or Everett without any apprehension. And yet the drive over Snoqualmie Pass which I must do in order to get to Spokane has filled with me images of sliding off the road into an icy crevice where I will only survive by eating my own leg.

There have actually been in the last year many odd incidents involving travel in the region of Snoqualmie Pass. Last year a man lost his way near Commonwealth Basin. He survived on lichen and had to have both of his feet cut off due to frostbite when he was finally rescued. A woman driving in her SUV was crushed when a boulder broke free from a mountain and bounced over I-90. Even though efforts were undertaken to prevent this from happening again, more boulders bounced over the highway shortly thereafter. Even now I-90 only remains open with one lane due to the danger of bouncing, car sized rocks.

My mother talked to me about my nervousness. She asked me if I had a gallon of water in my car so that I would have something to drink when I slide off the road.

I contemplated flying instead, but failed to buy a ticket before the price of flying to Spokane because as much as it would cost to fly to New York City. I won't pay this price to get Spokane, although I may pay my life.

Everyday thousands of cars make it to Cle Elum with no incident. I tell myself this. Every single day.

November 22, 2005

Evening with the co-founder of Clear Cut Press, Matthew Stadler, features the authors reading from their new books. Matt Briggs reads from Shoot the Buffalo and Stacey Levine from Frances Johnson. There will be music and conversation and more. 7 p.m. Tuesday, November 22nd at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park.

* STRANGER SUGGESTS. "The works of Briggs and Levine are central to the real substances and identity of our region's literature."

October 29, 2005

I will be reading in Portland, Oregon, at Powell's World of Books in Burside with the novelist Stacey Levine on Monday the 7th of Nov, 7:30PM.

October 20, 2005

Stacey Levine and I will be reading throughout the region below the 48th parallel this fall from our recently released Clear Cut novels. We will be performing alongside a number of excellent writers and musicians including Denis Johnson (at Trapdoor62 on 10/20) and The Watery Graves (at Elliott Bay on 10/27).

Also, Stacey's novel (Frances Johnson) was recently reviewed in
The San Francisco Bay Guardian and my novel, Shoot the Buffalo, was reviewed in Publishers Weekly.

Schedule of Events

October 20: Trapdoor 62 - The Dream Interpretation in Seattle
7:30 PM. Theater Schmeater. 1500 Summit Ave. Seattle. $13.00.
info: http://www.trapdoor62.org
venue: http://www.schmeater.org
tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com

Using only words, a guitar, and a charcoal pencil, a panel of writers and artists will interpret the meaning of all your dreams. Before the panel, enjoy aperitifs and surreal conversation. (All attendees will also receive a dream to be interpreted at the door.) “Featuring dream interpreters Denis Johnson (yes, Denis Johnson who wrote Jesus' Son...!), Stacey Levine, Saya Moriyasu, James Nugent, and me. Kary Wayson and Shannon Borg will provide a musical disruption. Anna Maria Hong will moderate the panel.

October 27: Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle
7:30 PM. 101 South Main Street. Seattle. $Free.
info: http://www.elliottbaybook.com
music: http://www.marriagerecs.com

Clear Cut Press will present an evening of words, conversation, and music in the presentation of their two new books, Shoot the Buffalo and Frances Johnson. The Watery Graves will play music.

November 7: Powell’s Books and Music on Hawthorne in Portland
7:30 PM $Free
info: http://www.powells.com/calendar.html

Kevin Sampsell will host an evening of Clear Cut Press with evening of words, conversation and perhaps music.

November 22: Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park
7:30 PM $Free
info: http://www.thirdplacebooks.com

Clear Cut Press will present an evening of words, conversation, movies, and music in the presentation of their two new books, Shoot the Buffalo and Frances Johnson.

December 5: Auntie’s Books in Spokane
7:30 PM $Free
info: http://auntiesbooks.com

I will be reading from my recent books Shoot the Buffalo and The Moss Gatherers with Polly Buckingham. Polly will read from one of her three amazing and yet-unpublished novels.

October 3, 2005

In Baltimore, "The City that Reads" I could not find a place to read my novel. I finished the final draft of the novel five years ago while living in an apartment in Charles Village near the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus. I finally, though, did find a place to read: the sidewalk. Perhaps this is appropriate since so much of the real business of Baltimore City is conducted on the street.

If you are in Baltimore, I’ll be reading at 12:30 in the afternoon on the sidewalk at the intersection of N Charles and W University Parkway in Charles Village (1 W University Pky, Baltimore, MD 21218), Tuesday October 4th.

The height of this onerous process was my correspondence with the anarchist collective bookstore, Red Emmas. In my hometown of Seattle I’ve participated in several collective bookstores of the feminist and anarchist persuasion. Left Bank Books by the waterfront with her creaking floorboards and yellowed labor manifestos often features readings by poets and novelists in addition to lectures and talks. The press that published my book, Clear Cut Press, operates through collective action. However, in order to approach Red Emmas I need to send an application, following the correct process and justification of why this book means anything to anyone who cares about anything. I sent my application along to their events coordinator. This process was far more organized and than the one employed by the decidedly anti-anarchic Borders Books & Music Regional Manager of Annapolis. The Red Emma committee met, but no one would tell me what the committee decided until I applied for a response from the events coordinator who was in charge of responses to applications to perform.

On the receipt of my request for a response, I eventually received this note:

I apologize for the time it has taken me to respond. The collective discussed your event proposal and felt that it would not be a good match for our store. Most of our events are political in nature, or reflect important social issues. This is integral to the mission of the collective.

At first I was confused but then I remembered the directions in "The Dummy's Guide to Starting an Anarchist Collective." Imaginative literature and anarchism do not mix. There is an amusing piece in this guide in which DuChamp, Andre Breton and Arthur Rimbaud are stripped of their anarchist laurels. These men are entertainers and are workers in an organized industry, the guide contends. Remember the dictum, "Make it New," could easily be condensed to "Make New." "New" being a commodity essentially indistinguishable from soap, pork bellies, or M&Ms.

Although Red Emmas was my first choice of a place to read in Baltimore, every single scheme to find a place to read indoors in Baltimore encountered a baroque mix of protocol and inaction.

A query to my alma matter, Johns Hopkins where I graduated from the Writing Seminars, was turned down finally be Dave Smith the department chair. He said they couldn't "give me a reading," as if as reading was a gift. Dear sir, we give you the right to stand in front of people and sweat. Few writers I know actually like to read in public. Johns Hopkins had scheduled their gifts of standing and sweating months ago. Readings proposed within six months of the event, the implication was, did not provide adequate time to process.

The regional manager at Borders Books & Music didn't see the relevance of a book set in the Pacific Northwest for audiences in Baltimore. Oddly, people in New York and Baltimore do not hesitate to see the relevance of books set in Baltimore or New York for audiences in the Pacific Northwest.

Normals Books houses a reading series (they were quick to point out not affiliated with the bookstore, the Red Room). Despite being a welcome home to performance artists from the Oregon Territory such as Dan Raphael and Willie Smith only have one reading a month. The event was booked sometime in mid-2002. Would I be around in 2007? “Will the room be open sometime in early October?” I asked. We have a reading in the month of October, they said.

Atomic Books. No response.

The University of Baltimore would normally be open to something but they are already doing a reading of printed matter the first week of October. They can't have two events in one week involving printed matter. I'll perform, I said. No one needs to know it was written. Did I stutter? they asked. No.

Finally I did find a place in Baltimore that would “give” me a reading. The street. I'm going to read on the sidewalk on October 4th at 12:30 at the intersection of N Charles and W University Parkway to the statues of Confederate War Widows. My book is about hippies and the dissolution of their attempt to reinvent society because they based their utopia on marijuana. I will commiserate with them about utopian dreams gone wrong because these dreams were based on a cracked foundation.

September 18, 2005

You are invited to a party and reading for the release of Shoot the Buffalo
a novel by Matt Briggs and published by Clear Cut Press.

Sunday, September 18, 2005 at 2:00 p.m.

The Gallery of the Senses
Above The Artificial Limb Company
1402 East Pike Street | 206.568.0292 | no cover


Shoot the Buffalo
a novel by Matt Briggs
ccp 006 • 515 pp. • isbn-10: 0-9723234-7-3 • $14.95

The reading is hosted and will be broadcast by oseao.com.
Copies of the book and refreshments will be on hand.

Please RSVP > seedcake@comcast.net

August 20, 2005

On August 28th, I will be reading or speaking around 11 a.m. with Clear Cut Press in the aftermath of the 2nd Annual “Catch That Beat” public house style party in Astoria, Oregon at Shively Hall (noon to midnight Aug 27th) on various early morning topics and perhaps actually reading from my soon to be released novel, Shoot the Buffalo. The context is a pancake feed. Visit the Cach That Beat 2 site for more info. It is pay what you will or can from five bucks to one million dollars.

August 7, 2005

Reclaim Snoqualmie from two car garages and bicycle trails and help celebrate Douglas fir, fire trucks and steam.

Join writers Matt Briggs, Anna Maria Hong, Jared Leising, Jeannette Alee, Vincent Standley, and Matthew Simmons at the Snoqualmie Railroad Days Festival. They will read at Isadora’s Books and Café (8062 Railroad Avenue, Snoqualmie just across the street from the Snoqualmie Depot) on Sunday August 7th at 2:00 p.m. (425) 888-1345. Briggs will read from his new (soon to be published novel), Shoot the Buffalo, set in Snoqualmie. Hong and Alee will demonstrate historic logging lingo. Leising will discuss the province of Snoqualmie hops. Page and Simmons will read, perhaps, one sentence stories, among other things.

JEANNETTE ALEE is a finalist for the 2005 Iowa Review Award in Poetry and winner of the 2004 Hugo House New Works competiton. She has poetry in Fence, The Iowa Review, and Pontoon.

MATT BRIGGS was raised in the Snoqualmie Valley in the 1970s. His books The Remains of River Names, Misplaced Alice, The Moss Gatherers, and the soon to be released novel, Shoot the Buffalo are set in the valley. His stories have appeared in The Seattle Review, 5_Trope, StringTown, The North Atlantic Review and ZYZZYVA.

ANNA MARIA HONG is the Writer-in-Residence at Richard Hugo House. Her first poetry competition is a finalist in the 2005 National Poetry Series book competition. Her poems have been in Fence, Purto del Sol, Crab Orchard Review, Golden Handcuffs Review. The Stranger, an alternative weekly in Seattle, informed its readers that she was someone to watch in 2004.

JARED LEISING has published stories in poems in Pontoon, Crab Creek Review, Stringtown and on Metro Buses. He teaches English at Cascadia Community College.

VINCENT STANDLEY is the editor and publisher of Monkeybicycle.net, and does something computer related for the U Bookstore.

Snoqualmie Six Pack is sponsored by The Greasy Hussy Research Institute and Isadora’s Books and Café.

July 8, 2005

Hemingway…Mailer…Harry Crews…Bukowski…those men who wrote of rowdy brawling, fast living, and wanton women. Where have their kind gone?
Look no further than your own backyard, you simpering little newspaper writer! Two of Portland’s most manly are joined by Seattle’s up-and-coming hairy-chested star for an hour of big adventures full of large hard-working men...

Macho Male Writers of the Northwest, Friday, July 8th, 7pm
XV (15 SW 2nd Avenue), downtown Portland
(503) 790-9090, 21 and over
free admission.

Come hear these muscle-bound readings from sweaty new books by:

Kevin Sampsell (Beautiful Blemish)
Roderick Maclean (Tropic/of/Cubicle)
Matt Briggs—from Seattle (The Moss Gatherers)

The Men:

Kevin Sampsell is the publisher of Future Tense Books and the editor of The Insomniac Reader. His newest collection of stories, Beautiful Blemish (Word Riot Press), was nominated for a Henry Miller award by nerve.com and will be featured soon on bookslut.com and suicidegirls.com. He rarely eats vegetables but is attracted to food made mostly of meat and pork and dairy combinations. He hopes that his favorite football team, the Arizona Cardinals, will finally make him proud this season.

Roderick Maclean is the author of Tropic/of/Cubicle, a novel set in the Dot-Bomb era of rolling blackouts and layoffs in Silicon Valley. The story follows a man who loses his job even while his salary and cubicle existence persist; the book was bound with reclaimed file folders stained with employee perspiration and donut frosting. Maclean's work has appeared most recently in Bullfight Review, Spork, and eye~rhyme. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he maintains the most office-infatuated blog on the Net: "a href="http://www.tropicofcubicle.com/">www.tropicofcubicle.com. P.S. - for a cubicle honcho, he has extremely powerful and muscular calves.

Reared in the Cascade Mountains among the children of Weyerhaeuser loggers, Matt Briggs was strengthened by repeated beatings behind the Snoqualmie play barn. He has documented his experience in several books including The Remains of River of River Names, Misplaced Alice, and the just published collection of short stories, The Moss Gatherers. Clear Cut Press will release his first novel, Shoot the Buffalo this fall.

July 2, 2005

On July 2nd at 7:30 PM I'll be reading at RASP's (The Redmond Association of the Spoken Word) reading series which takes place in the made-completely-of-wood building in the center of Redmond, Victor's Coffee Company. I'll read from The Moss Gatherers. There is also an open mic. Sign up at 7 p.m.

June 6, 2005

I'll be reading at the UW Bookstore - Tacoma (1754 Pacific Avenue; 253.272.8080) on Monday June 6 at 5:30 p.m. from my new book The Moss Gatherers. Tacoma has recently been restored and is rather nice.

May 19, 2005

I'll be reading from my new book at The UW Bookstore in Bothell on May 19th at 5:00 p.m. The event is hosted by the excellent fiction writer Jared Leising.

May 11, 2005

I will be reading from my brand new book, The Moss Gatherers, at The Elliott Bay Book Company on Wednesday May 11th at 8 p.m. You can read the first story here, if you are interested.

April 29, 2005

You can access a live reading by John Olson, Stacey Levine, and Doug Nufer recorded on April 21, 2005. Here.

John Olson, author of Eggs and Mirrors, Free Stream Velocity, and Echo Regime, presents his latest book of poems, Oxbow Kazoo (First Intensity).

Stacey Levine, author of the novel Dra- and the collection My Horse and Other Stories, reads from her novel Frances Johnson (Clear Cut).

Doug Nufer, author of the novels Negativeland, Never Again, and On the Roast, introduces the release of his CD monologue The Office (Softpalate).

November 16, 2004

Thursday Nov. 18th, at 7:30 there will be a "wrangle," (aka civic forum) on the topic of the recent election. It will happen in the Richard Hugo House cabaret. Admission will be a ticket worth 2 drinks.

The panel is made up of Anna Maria Hong, Nick Licata, Ann Powers, Jonathan Raban, and Josh Feit. I will represen Dick Cheney's New American Century, and so may need to wear a concealed, slightly bulgy, bullet proof undershirt. Grant Cogswell will moderate.

Topics will be:

The Red and the Blue

The Patriot Act

Electoral College

Cultural Values (gay marriage, school prayer, abortion etc.)

Environment

Terror-slash-Terra

The new New Deal

. . . and, of course, the Rapture

November 10, 2004

I will be presenting a collaboration with Gregory Hischak tomorrow night at Richard Hugo House on the topic of "The End."

Here is an illustration of the first stage of the End of the World Sequence:

WARNING:

My mailbox was flattened that October, not like mailbox baseball, but flattened like a steam roller had passed over the metal post, leaving it crushed into the clover and gravel growing in the no man land region between the curb and the fence edging my yard.

My first thought was that I had enemies that I didn’t know about. The enemies lurked in front of their plasma TV screens with the curtains drawn. Only the faint blue light leaked out at the edges of their drapes. I lived near a highway that is often described in the local media as “an abandoned strip of highway.” As if even the traffic that pours across the highway isn’t really aware of where it is passing, as if even though this strip of highway passes through decades old planned unit developments, edged with unfinished furniture stores and motels, it is still wilderness.

This was another thought: my crushed mailbox was a warning.

I began to look for whoever had committed this crime against me. The mailbox itself had been targeted. There weren’t tire tracks. A drunk driver would have left tracks. A drunk driver would have been unable to hit the target with such precision. The fence would have been damaged. Less malicious activity would have left evidence.

In a short period of time, though, an epidemic of other apparently unrelated acts swept the neighborhood. I ignored the signs because I do not believe in prophecies.

A swarm of possums gushed down the middle of the street at ten thirty Wednesday morning. The entire street filled with slick and furry white bodies with pink noses. Where the possums came from and where they went I don’t know. Many were hit on the abandoned strip of highway. Their carcasses attracted swarms of crows. For several days the din was unbearable.

In the middle of the night, half my neighbors disappeared. Since I wasn’t aware of their activity, their disappearance didn’t alarm me until their dogs went unfed. Three days after the event -- marked only by the darkness in the evening as plasmas TVs were not turned on -- dogs began to escape their chains and backyard kennels and look for food. Those of us who hadn’t disappeared marked the change in circumstance by calling animal control. In the morning, I rushed out to our cars before the dogs noticed us.

A blue van playing “Pop Goes the Weasel” drove through the abandoned suburb and children didn’t rush out to great it because many of the children were no longer present or if they were, they hid from the packs of dogs.

We were all more afraid than we normally were.