Safe Words:

So, everyone always asks if I am reading at Mixer, and I think, who would read at their own series? But this is the month, people. I just finished edits on my book, and so it seems like an appropriate time to air it a little. On March 18th, we are featuring Jedediah Berry, Matthew Zapruder, and Leni Zumas - I know, kick ass lineup - and me!  Also, Rebecca and Megan Gilbert (who has both read and played Mixer in the past) have formed an amazing duo christened La Marcha, and they are going to play.

I am super excited. You should come. Details and bios below.

MIXER Reading and Music Series, TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY EVENT!!!
With: Jedediah Berry, Matthew Zapruder, Leni Zumas, and music from La Marcha
with special performances from your hosts Melissa Febos and Rebecca Keith
Wednesday, March 18, 7:00 p.m., Free
Cakeshop
152 Ludlow St .
F, V to 2nd Ave., F, J, M to Delancey
http://www.myspace.com/mixernyc

Matthew Zapruder is the author of two collections of poetry: American Linden and The Pajamaist, Copper Canyon, 2006). The Pajamaist was selected by Tony Hoagland as the winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. He is also co-translator from Romanian, along with historian Radu Ioanid, of Secret Weapon: Selected Late Poems of Eugen Jebeleanu (Coffee House Press, 2007). His collaborative book with painter Chris Uphues, For You in Full Bloom, will be published by Pilot Press in 2009 and his third full-length collection of poems, Come On All You Ghosts, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon in 2010. He lives in San Francisco, works as an editor for Wave Books, and teaches in the low residency MFA program at UC Riverside-Palm Desert.

Jedediah Berry was raised in the Hudson Valley region of New York State. His first novel, The Manual of Detection, was published by The Penguin Press this year. His short stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Best New American Voices and Best American Fantasy. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, and works as assistant editor of Small Beer Press.

Leni Zumas grew up in Washington, DC. She is the author of the story collection Farewell Navigator (Open City, 2008). Her work has appeared most recently in New York Tyrant, Quarterly West, Harp & Altar, Open City, and New Orleans Review. She is a 2008 Fellow in Fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and has been awarded fellowships by Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the University of Massachusetts. A graduate of Brown University and the UMass–Amherst MFA program, she is currently an Artist-in-Residence in the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace program. She is Associate Director of the Juniper Summer Writing Institute. She has taught at Hunter College, The New School, and the University of Massachusetts, and currently teaches at Columbia University.

Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir WHIP SMART, forthcoming from Thomas Dunne Books in 2010.  Her fiction and essays have been published in The Southeast Review, Redivider, The Rambler, Storyscape Journal, Bitch Magazine, and Smut Magazine, among many others.  She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and teaches at SUNY Purchase College and The Gotham Writers’ Workshop. More information about her work and projects can be found at melissafebos.com.

La Marcha is a supergroup of two: Megan Gilbert (Drop Nineteens and BB Gun) and Rebecca Roulette (The Roulettes, New York Times). From four bands you’ve never heard of comes one duo fresh from the checkered shower. It only took three bottles of Merlot to figure out who’s Hall and who’s Oates. Hopefully they’ll stick to their assigned parts for their first show.