SPREADING THE WORD for 13 YEARS!
Tongue & Groove
Sunday September 25
6-7:30 pm

The Hotel Cafe
1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd.
Hollywood, Ca 90028
$7.00

https://www.facebook.com/events/249183728809327/

A monthly literary variety show with music produced by Conrad Romo. This  month we proudly feature: Rich Ferguson New Jersey Me,  Martin Pousson Black Sheep Boy, Dana Johnson In the Not Quite Dark, J. Keith van Straaten, Gwen Banta, The Fly Strip,  +  music by tbd

Martin Pousson was born and raised in Acadiana, in the bayou land of Louisiana. His short stories won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He also was a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award, the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. His stories have appeared in The Antioch Review, Epoch, Five Points, StoryQuarterly, and elsewhere. He now lives in Los Angeles

Dana Johnson is the author of the short story collection In the Not Quite Dark. She is also the author of Break Any Woman Down, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and the novel Elsewhere, California. Both books were nominees for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Callaloo, The Iowa Review and Huizache, among others, and anthologized in Watchlist: 32 Stories by Persons of Interest, Shaking the Tree: A Collection of New Fiction and Memoir by Black Women, and California Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century. Born and raised in and around Los Angeles, she is a professor of English at the University of Southern California.

Rich Ferguson has performed across the country and has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Exene Cervenka, T. C. Boyle, Loudon Wainwright, Bob Holman, and many other esteemed poets and musicians. He has performed on The Tonight Show, at the Redcat Theater in Disney Hall, the New York City International Fringe Festival, the Bowery Poetry Club, the South by Southwest Music Festival, the Santa Cruz Poetry Festival, the DocMiami International Film Festival, the Topanga Film Festival, and Stephen Elliott’s “Rumpus.” He is also a featured performer in the film, What About Me? (the sequel to the double Grammy-nominated film One Giant Leap), featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, k.d. lang, Krishna Das, and others. Ferguson has been published in the Los Angeles Times, has been anthologized by Uphook Press (gape-seed), Smith Magazine (The Moment), TNB Books (The Beautiful Anthology), spotlighted on PBS (Egg: The Art Show), and was a winner in Opium Magazine’s Literary Death Match, LA. He is a Pushcart-nominated poet, and also a regular contributor and poetry editor to the online literary journal, The Nervous Breakdown. He lives in Los Angeles

Keith van Straaten regularly writes about travel and credit cards for ThePointsGuy.com and about pop culture for IFC.com. In the game show world, he wrote many of the puzzles on GSN’s “Chain Reaction,” is a senior writer for  NPR’s “Ask Me Another,” and is the creator and producer of “Predict-ament,” coming this November. He’s written animation screenplays for Dreamworks, lyrics for ABC News, sketches for Clear Channel Radio, singles columns for The Jewish Journal, editorials for Backstage, and jokes for NBC-Universal.  On the storytelling scene, J. Keith has performed his work in Sit N Spin, Bawdy Storytelling, The Liar Show, Rant & Rave, Pinata, Tongue & Groove, and more.

Gwen Banta, author of The Fly Strip, received her B.A. and M.S. degrees in English from Butler University. She has won numerous accolades for her fiction, including the Opus Magnum Discovery Award and a host of honors at book festivals throughout the U.S. and Europe. A former award-winning actor of stage, screen and television, Gwen is a member of SAG/AFTRA and AEA and has earned recognition for her screenplays as well. She resides in Los Angeles with her dog, Buddy, who is a major fan of her books…as long as there are endless treats involved.

Come early!  Seating is limited and we start on time!   www.conradromo.com

The club is a two story black brick building 1/3 rd of a block below Hollywood Bl. There are parking lots on Selma as well as Cahuenga. Meters need to be fed till 8pm. Avoid Cahuenga street parking.