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.

 

SPREADING THE WORD for 13 YEARS!
Tongue & Groove
Sunday August 14
6-7:30 pm
The Hotel Cafe
1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd.
Hollywood, Ca 90028
$7.00
https://www.facebook.com/events/900510996742803/

A monthly literary variety show with music produced by Conrad Romo. This
month we proudly feature: Eric Spitznagel “Old Records Never Die”, James
Fearnley (Pogues) “Here Comes Everybody”, Lisa Jane Persky, David Kendrick,
Bruce Duff  ” The Smell of Death ” +  music by Kaylee Cole

Eric Spitznagel is an Executive Writer at Men’s Health Magazine, where he’s
written about topics like Burt Reynolds, satanism, raw meat eating, sex
robots, and why sperm should never be used as a cocktail ingredient. He’s
also been a frequent contributor to magazines like Playboy, Esquire, Vanity
Fair, Rolling Stone, Maxim, Billboard, Details, The Believer, and the New
York Times Magazine, among many others. He’s the author of seven books,
including Ron Jeremy’s bestselling autobiography The Hardest (Working) Man
In Showbiz, a project that exhausted his literary reserve of penis puns.
He’s also edited several humor anthologies, most recently Care To Make Love
In That Gross Little Space Between Cars?, which features questionable life
advice from people like Louis C.K., Zach Galifianakis, and Amy Sedaris. His
most recent book is called “Old Records Never Die.” You can read all about
it at www.recordsneverdie.com

James Fearnley, a founding member  of The Pogues, has written a great
memoir, “Here Comes Everybody”, drawn from his personal experiences and the
series of journals and correspondence he kept throughout the band’s career.
Fearnley describes the coalescence of a disparate collection of vagabonds
living in the squats of London’s Kings Cross, with, at its center, the
charismatic MacGowan and his idea of turning Irish traditional music on its
head. With beauty, lyricism, and great candor, Fearnley tells the story of
how the band watched helplessly as their singer descended into a dark and
isolated world of drugs and alcohol, and sets forth the increasingly
desperate measures they were forced to take.

An early participant in the CBGB’s scene, Lisa Jane Persky was a founding
member of the staff of the New York Rocker and more recently a founding
editor of Los Angeles Review of Books. Her work as journalist, photographer
and artist has appeared in Mojo, The Pitchfork Review, The Los Angeles Times
and elsewhere, and her fiction has appeared in Bomb and has been
anthologized in Eclectica: Best Fiction Volume 1. She has appeared on, off
and off-off Broadway and in numerous films and television shows. Lisa also
anthologizes Chickens in Literature at chickensinliterature.com.

David Kendrick came to Los Angeles by way of a phone call from the legendary
Kim Fowley. He has played with 90 bands more or less. Some of note have been
Gleaming Spires, Sparks, DEVO and Andy Prieboy. He is an avid collector of
odd art and some of his finds have appeared in Clown Paintings by Diane
Keaton. David’s ongoing music project – “The Empire Of Fun” to date has
released a box set plus six other collections, including the fiction story
CD set “I’m sorry Mr. Kendrick, there’s a skull inside your head.” Recently
he has had essays on cycads and fear published by the Laboratory Arts
collective Hymn magazine.

Bruce Duff is a thirty-year veteran of the music business, having worked as
musician, producer, journalist, publicist, A&R director, product manager,
and artist manager. As player and producer, he’s worked with Jesters of
Destiny, Cheetah Chrome, Adz, Circle, Jeff Dahl, Prima Donna, 45 Grave, the
Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs, Thor and Simon Stokes, among many others. As a
journalist, he’s written for LA Weekly, Billboard, Bass Player,
Psychotronic, Rip, Creem, and dozens of other out-of-print magazines. He
retired from journalism in 2005. Duff lives in the Hollywood Hills with his
roller derby-star wife and their two cats.

Kaylee Cole has called the Skagit Valley, Spokane, Seattle, Nashville and
now, Los Angeles home, opened for bands such as The Lumineers, The Head & The
Heart, Damien Jurado, and Emily Wells, performed with the Seattle Rock
Orchestra and Portland Cello Project, and nearly finished a debut album
(recorded and produced by Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio).  While her
deftly-engineered love songs may feel heavy and heartbroken at first listen,
it is clear during a live performance that the stories whittled out of the
music more closely resemble aging photographs one would leaf through in a
second-hand shop than scars that still weigh heavily on Cole.  Whether she’s
behind a grand piano at an ornate theater, or sitting with a keyboard on her
lap at a cozy house show, Kaylee Cole is a true entertainer who leaves no
audience member without an impression.

SPREADING THE WORD for 12 YEARS!
Tongue & Groove
Sunday July 31
6-7:30 pm

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

https://www.facebook.com/events/272313163127450/

 

A monthly literary variety show with music produced by Conrad Romo. This  month we proudly features:  Pam Ward, David Darmstaedter, Elizabeth Marquez, Rios de la Luz, Kristina Wong+  music Linda Ravenswood

Pam Ward is an author/artist and L.A. native. An art advocate as well as an instructor and mentor at ART CENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN, Pam has designed for politicians, community organizations and corporate America.  A former board member of Beyond Baroque Literary Foundation, Pam was also an artist-in-resident for the city of Los Angeles, Venice and Manhattan Beach.  After publishing two novels, “Want Some Get Some” and “Bad Girls Burn Slow,” and working on merging writing and graphic design, Pam produced the recent installation, My Life, LA: The Los Angeles Legacy Project, a poster project blending graphics with story/facts documenting the impact of Angelenos on the actual land. Her play, “I Didn’t Survive Slavery for This” has played throughout L.A. Currently she is working on the true story of her aunt a real Black Dahlia suspect.

David Darmstaedter lives in Topanga and travels the hills dressed in tinfoil underwear to summon ideas from the wild. He has written plays, screenplays, short stories and novels. His memoir ‘My Monster; is in eternal development with Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke. He will be reading from his most current book in the works – Solly’s Shangri -La.

BETH Marquez stumbled into a spoken word tent at Lollapalooza when she was 13 and it changed her life. She co-hosted Java Gardens reading in Huntington Beach and attended the National Poetry Slam as an alternate for the Laguna Beach team. She’d been  published in the Moontide Press, Valley of Contemporary Poets, and Ugly Mug anthologies and elsewhere. She will be debuting a show based on her poetry at The Victory Theater in Burbank in September.

Rios de la Luz is a queer xicana/chapina living in Portland, Oregon. She is brown and proud. She is the author of, The Pulse Between Dimensions and The Desert (Ladybox Books, 2015). Her work has been featured in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Entropy, The Fem Lit Magazine, World Literature Today and St. Sucia.

Kristina Wong  is a performance artist, comedian and writer who has created five solo shows and one ensemble play that have toured throughout the United States and UK. She was recently featured in the New York Times’s Off Color series highlighting artists of color who use humor to make smart social statements about the sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious ways that race plays out in America today. She’s been a frequent commentator/guest with, xoJane, Playgirl Magazine, Huffington Post  and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore to mention but a few places. She has been the recipient of numerous prestigious grants and residencies and not to brag, but Kristina has twice given the commencement speech at UCLA, her alma mater.  Her most recent solo show “The Wong Street Journal” navigates privilege and economic disparity and premieres in June 2015.  Kristina’s mail order bride website is www.bigbadchinesemama.com. This Fall, she is a guest professor at Cal Arts in the MFA Creative Writing Program.

Linda Ravenswood is from Los Angeles. Her work is performative, cinematic and visual and can be seen on film, in print and online. She has an album, Held by the Border, and new books, MUDSLINGER and Hymnal, a Pushcart Prize nominee (2012, Mouthfeel Press). Linda holds a BFA from CalArts, and a Master’s Degree in The Humanities from Mount Saint Mary’s College. She is about to earn a PhD  at the Pacifica Graduate Institute.

 

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.

SPREADING THE WORD for 12 YEARS!

Tongue & Groove
Sunday June 26
6-7:30 pm
The Hotel Cafe
1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd.
Hollywood, Ca 90028
$7.00

https://www.facebook.com/events/658719467610133/

A monthly literary variety show with music produced by Conrad Romo. This  month we proudly feature: Myriam Gurba, Sarah Tomlinson, Terri Mintz,  Carribean Fragoza, Vickie Vertiz +  music by tbd

Myriam Gurba is a high school teacher who lives in Long Beach, California, home of Snoop Dogg and the Queen Mary (as she gamely notes). She graduated from UC Berkeley, and her writing has appeared in anthologies such as The Best American Erotica (St. Martin’s Press), Bottom’s Up (Soft Skull Press), Secrets and Confidences (Seal Press), and Tough Girls (Black Books). Gurba’s first book is Dahlia Season (Manic D Press), a collection of short stories and a novella.

Sarah Tomlinson is the author of the father-daughter memoir, GOOD GIRL, which was released by Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster) in 2015. She has ghostwritten or co-written thirteen books, including the New York Times Bestseller, FAST GIRL, with Suzy Favor Hamilton, and two un-credited New York Times bestsellers. Her music criticism, articles, and personal essays have appeared in publications including Marie Claire, MORE, Publishers Weekly, Salon.com, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and The Huffington Post. Her fiction has appeared in Vol. 1 Brooklyn. Her favorite snack when she’s writing, or pretty much anytime, is Earl Gray tea and dark chocolate.

Terri Mintz, the producer of the hit show Word The Storytelling Show in NYC which has been running for 3 years to sold out audiences.  She  hails from Brooklyn, NY but has been dividing her time between both coasts for over 20 years. She has performed in over 50 plays in NY and CA but lately has been focusing on writing and performing her personal experiences (before she forgets them!) She also wrote the comedy “Ma” which had a successful run on Theater Row in NYC.

Carribean Fragoza is a writer and artist from Los Angeles. She has published fiction and poetry in publications such as Palabra Literary Magazine and Emohippus and has a forthcoming short story in Bomb Magazine. Her arts/culture reviews and essays have been published in online national and international magazines such as Letras Libres, Culture Strike, and Tropics of Meta. She is a graduate of UCLA and CalArts’ MFA Writing Program. She is founder and co-director of the South El Monte Art Posse, a multi-disciplinary arts collective.

Vickie Vértiz was born and raised in southeast Los Angeles. Her writing is featured in Huizache, Omniverse, the Los Angeles Review of Books, KCET Departures, and the anthologies: Open the Door (from McSweeney’s and the Poetry Foundation), and The Coiled Serpent (from Tia Chucha Press), among others. Her work was chosen by Natalie Diaz for the 2016 University of Arizona Poetry Center Summer Residency Program. Vickie has taught creative writing to adults and young people at places like 826 Valencia, Boyle Heights libraries, Bell Gardens High School, the Claremont Colleges, and at UC Riverside, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2015.

 

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.

 

SPREADING THE WORD for 12 YEARS!

Tongue & Groove

Sunday May 22

6-7:30 pm

The Hotel Cafe

1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd.

Hollywood, Ca 90028

$7.00

https://www.facebook.com/events/931308746986429/

 

 

A monthly literary variety show with music produced by Conrad Romo. This  month we proudly feature: Iris De Anda, Meredith Alling, Vanessa Diaz, Robert Kerbeck, Jessica Lee Garrison +  music by Christopher Leopold Hackman (of The Fuzzy Crystals).The Sunset T    TBTBt

 

Vanessa Diaz is from Huntington Park, California. She graduated from the University of California, Davis. She has been published in Huizache magazine and The Acentos Review.

 

Meredith Alling is a writer living in Los Angeles. Her debut full-length collection, SING THE SONG, will be out on Future Tense Books November 2016. She is on Twitter @meremyth.

 

Iris De Anda is a writer, activist, and practitioner of the healing arts. A womyn of color of Mexican and Salvadorean descent. A native of Los Angeles she believes in the power of spoken word, poetry, storytelling, and dreams. She has been published in Poetry of Resistance Anthology, Mujeres de Maiz Zine, Loudmouth Zine: Cal State LA, OCCUPY SF poems from the movement, The Border Crossed Us Anthology, Seeds of Resistance, In the Words of Women, Twenty: In Memoriam, Revolutionary Poets Brigade Los Angeles Anthology, Frontera Esquina, Brooklyn & Boyle, and online at La Bloga & La Tolteca. She is a moderator for Poets Responding to SB 1070.  She currently hosts The Writers Underground Open Mic every Third Thursday of the month at the Eastside Cafe. Author of CODESWITCH: Fires From Mi Corazon.www.irisdeanda.com

 

Based on his short stories, thirteen of which have been published in the last year, Robert Kerbeck was selected for mentorship by the managing editor of Tin House, Cheston Knapp. Robert’s work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Cream City Review, Cortland Review, Gargoyle, and Word Riot. He is the recipient of the upstreet short fiction scholarship to work with Steve Almond at this summer’s VCFA writer’s conference. His first play, “Putin And The Snowman,” opens Off-Broadway in July.www.robertkerbeck.com

 

Jessica Garrison is the author of a short story collection called “One Dollar Stories.” The collection emerged from a popular zine series which she sold at LA house parties and bars with the tagline, “Do you want to buy a story for a dollar?” Her work has appeared in The Rattling Wall, Flaunt Magazine, Dark Sky Magazine, Penny-Ante Three,  Love is the Law, and various places online.

 

 

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 till8pm. Avoid Cahuenga street parking.

 

SPREADING THE WORD for 12 YEARS!
Tongue & Groove presents:
2016 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellows

A monthly offering of short fiction, personal essays, poetry, spoken word + music produced by Conrad Romo. This  month featuring: Marnie Goodfriend, Jen Huang, Wendy Labinger, Natalie Lima, Chelsea Sutton

Saturday April 30 
6-7:30 pm
The Hotel Cafe
1623 1/2 No. Cahuenga Blvd.
Hollywood, Ca 90028
$6.00

https://www.facebook.com/events/242067809478958/

Marnie Goodfriend grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she’s a graphic designer, a sexual assault activist, and a media consultant. In 2014, her poetry was published inhere/there:poetry magazine. Marnie is working on her first memoir titled Birth Marks.

Jian Huang’s parents brought her to the United States from Shanghai, China, when she was six years old. She grew up in South Los Angeles and earned her bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of Southern California. She has worked for a number of social service organizations, including the LA Conservation Corps, which provides college scholarships and job training to underserved youth. Jian is working on her first collection of essays, in which she attempts to navigate the ideas of place and belonging.

Wendy Labinger was raised in Southern California. She received a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Iowa and her master’s in deaf education from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. She has taught English as a second language for 20 years. Wendy’s poems have been published in Potpourri and Sheila-Na-Gig. She lives in Los Angeles and is working on a collection of poems titled scatters me into the night.

Natalie Lima was born in Miami and raised in Nevada and Florida. She attended Northwestern University and received a bachelor’s degree in radio/television/film and international studies. In addition to writing, she currently works in college admissions, and volunteers for Minds Matter LA, a nonprofit college prep program serving accomplished high school students from low-income families. Natalie is working on a short story collection titled Smash.

Chelsea Sutton was raised in the suburbs of Riverside County, California. She earned her bachelor’s degree in literature from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Chelsea’s fiction has been published in Spectrum, Catalyst, Bourbon Penn, and other online publications. She was the winner of NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction Contest in 2011, and her plays have been produced and developed by Rogue Artists Ensemble, Skylight Theatre Company, and many others. Chelsea is working on a collection of short stories titled Curious Monsters.

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

 

 

 

SPREADING THE WORD for 12 YEARS!

Tongue & Groove presents: Queens’s Ferry Press

A monthly offering of short fiction, personal essays, poetry, spoken word + music produced by Conrad Romo. This  month featuring: Sarah Van Arsdale, Ben Segal, Amy L Clark, Jerry Gabriel, Dina Guidubaldi, Greg Gerke, Tyrone Jaeger and Ben Nickol

Saturday April 2
6-7:00 pm
The Hotel Cafe
1623 1/2 No. Cahuenga Blvd.
Hollywood, Ca 90028
FREE

https://www.facebook.com/events/1237851356243390/

 

Sarah Van Arsdale is a fiction writer and illustrator living in New York City and the Catskills. She is on the fiction faculty of the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts  low-residency MFA program, and she teaches creative writing at New York University. She is a winner of the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel, and a finalist in the inaugural year of the Galtelli International Award in Fiction. She serves on the board of the Ferro-Grumley Award in LGBT fiction. Her poetry and fiction have been widely published in literary magazines. Her website is sarahvanarsdale.com.

 

Ben Segal is the author of 78 Stories (No Record Press), co-author of The Wes Letters (Outpost 19), and co-editor of The Official Catalog of the Library of Potential Literature (Lit Pub). His short fiction has been published by Tin House (Online), The Collagist, Gigantic, Puerto del Sol, and many other magazines and journals. He holds an MFA from UCSD, an MA from the European Graduate School and a BA from Hampshire College, and has been a visiting scholar or writer at the University of Pennsylvania, the Haisyakkei residency in Toride, Japan, and Mustarinda House in eastern Finland. He currently lives in Los Angeles.

 

Amy L. Clark has had fiction and nonfiction published in Fifth Wednesday Journal, Hobart, Juked, McSwseeny s Internet Tendency, Litro, and other journals.  She is the author of Wanting, part of the collection A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness (Rose Metal Press). She is a Writing Specialist for Northeastern University s Foundation Year program in Boston.

 

Jerry Gabriel s first book, Drowned Boy (Sarabande, 2010), won the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. It was a Barnes and Noble  Discover Great New Writers  selection and awarded the 2011 Towson Prize for Literature. His stories have appeared in Five Chapters, EPOCH, One Story, Alaska Quarterly Review, Big Fiction, and The Missouri Review, among many other journals. He lives in Maryland, where he teaches at St. Mary s College of Maryland and directs the Chesapeake Writers  Conference.

 

Dina Guidubaldi s writing has been published in various places, including Prairie Schooner, Ninth Letter, the Santa Monica Review, Cup of Fiction, SPIN, the Austin American-Statesman, and Other Voices. A graduate of Texas State University s MFA program, she lives in Austin.

 

 

Greg Gerke’s fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Tin House, The Kenyon Review Online, Denver Quarterly, Quarterly West, Mississippi Review, LIT, Film Quarterly, and others. He lives in Brooklyn.

 

Tyrone Jaeger was born and raised in the Catskill Mountains. He received his PhD from the University of Nebraska Lincoln and is an Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. He is the author of the cross-genre novella The Runaway Note. So Many True Believers is his first short story collection. Visit him online atwww.tyronejaeger.com.

 

Ben Nickol’s stories and essays have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Redivider, Boulevard, Fugue, CutBank, Hunger Mountain Online, The Los Angeles Review, Canoe & Kayak and elsewhere, and his second book is Adherence, a short novel forthcoming from Outpost19 in 2016. His fiction has earned an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council, two Baucum-Fulkerson Awards from the University of Arkansas and the 2015 Beacon Street Prize from Redivider, and his nonfiction has been cited as notable work in Best American Sports Writing. He lives in Montana and teaches at Helena College

 

 

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

 

SPREADING THE WORD for 12 YEARS!
Tongue & Groove presents: Desert Stories 

After repeated sold out performances in Joshua Tree, where this spoken word event was born, Desert Stories comes to Los Angeles. Cheryl Montelle, producer and host of the show gathers storytellers and musicians to tell their desert tale. It’s an evening of quirky and odd stories, odes, songs and poems from the land of endless vistas, weird bugs, unusual plants, wild animals and dry beauty. Join us for an early Easter evening,  grab a drink and be prepared to be entertained. Previous readers have included Eric Burdon from the Animals, writer Deanne Stillman, Bob Forrest, Ted Quinn, artist Diane Best, author Josh Kun, and Victoria Williams.

Sunday March 27
6-7:30 pm
The Hotel Cafe
1623 1/2 No. Cahuenga Blvd.
Hollywood, Ca 90028
$7.00

Featured storytellers: Matt Perry, Vicki Juditz, Ken Layne, Marie Chambers, Steve Stajich, Cheryl Montelle and our musical guest is Annachristie

 

A writer, filmmaker, journalist and ramshackle storyteller, Matt Perry always seems to find himself embroiled in trouble of one kind or another. Once told by a close friend “You have the lowest bullshit threshold of anyone I know,” he has tried to monetize this particular attribute without success.  Following the death of his mother four years ago, he moved from Sacramento to Los Angeles, India, Joshua Tree, Monterey and now Santa Cruz.  Currently a writer on Aging issues for the California Health Report, he likes to ride his motorcycle and do qigong exercises.

 

Vicki Juditz has performed stories at festivals and theaters across the country, including the National Storytelling Festival in Tennessee.  Los Angeles audiences have cheered her on at the Moth StorySLAMS and GrandSLAMS.  She has performed comic roles on shows such as COACH, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, and MY NAME IS EARL and sold everything from birth control pills to cat beverage in TV commercials.

 

Ken Layne is the editor and publisher of the Desert Oracle, the acclaimed quarterly magazine about the American Southwest. In past lives, he was editor of Wonkette and the L.A. Examiner, national correspondent for Gawker, and an Eastern Europe bureau chief for United Press International. Layne’s work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Awl, and dozens of newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and L.A. CityBeat. He is the author of two books, including 2011’s desert novel Dignity. He has called three U.S. deserts home and is a longtime resident and wanderer of the Mojave. desertoracle.com

 

Marie Chambers is a Southerner by birth and an Angelino by choice. She received an MFA from the Professional Writing Seminars at Bennington College.  Her work has appeared in The LA Review of Books, The Atlanta Review, Talking Writing, The Quotable, Printer’s Devil Review, Ironhorse Literary Review (finalist photofinish contest) and the California Poetry Society (honorable mention annual poetry contest.) She’s the 2014 winner of the Tallahassee Writers Association annual creative nonfiction prize and is also a winner of the 2015 ARTlines2 Ekphrastic Poetry Contest for work inspired by a piece of art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

 

Steve Stajich (Stych) was a stand-up comic and singer-songwriter before becoming a writer for television.  His series television writing credits include “Reba” (WB), “Daddio” (NBC), “Tall Hopes” (CBS),  “This Just In”  (ABC), Politically Incorrect (Comedy Central), “Dennis Miller” (Tribune) and various pilots.  He was a staff writer for public radio’s “A Prairie Home Companion” and his comedy/ political writing has appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times.  His plays have been produced in Los Angeles, Pasadena, Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee and Minneapolis. His play, “Auto Parts” was recently performed in the desert– indoors– at the Hi Desert Cultural Center in Joshua Tree.

Annachristie is currently living in the beautiful small village of Joshua Tree, CA. The death place of Graham Parsons and birth place of many artistic visions. She has shared the stage with artists such as Amos Lee, First Aid-Kit, Langhorn Slim, and Hoots and Hellmouth.  As luck or hard work would have it. Annachristie and Sisters3 sang all the backup vocals for Sharon Little on her tour with Alison Krauss and Robert Plant.  She has made appearances on Mountain Stage, NBC Ten Show, Good Morning New York, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Bliss Fest, and Electric picnic. She is as hard working as a donkey and as magical as a unicorn.annachristiemusic.com

Cheryl Montelle is a Los Angeles based writer whose stories have been published in various anthologies and magazines, and performed in Los Angeles, Joshua Tree and New York City. She is the producer and host of  “Desert Stories”, an annual fundraiser for the High Desert Playhouse in Joshua Tree, CA. which she has also produced in New York City and Los Angeles. Cheryl has collaborated with The Laboratory, an international artist collective on two multi-faceted  art magazines, and heads the veteran/community non-profit Mil-Tree. cherylmontelle.com

 

 

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

SPREADING THE WORD for 12 YEARS!

Tongue & Groove

A monthly offering of short fiction, personal essays, poetry, spoken word + music produced by Conrad Romo. This month features: Bruce Bauman, Dr. Soma Stanford, Brian Evenson, Victoria Looseleaf, Maryam Henein and our musical guest is

Sunday February 21
6-7:30 pm
The Hotel Cafe
1623 1/2 No. Cahuenga Blvd.
Hollywood, Ca 90028
$7.00

https://www.facebook.com/events/1119501064728976/

 

Bruce Bauman is an instructor in the CalArts MFA Writing Program and the Senior Editor of Black Clock literary magazine. Library Journal called Bauman’s new novel, Broken Sleep “[A] plangent tour de force of epic proportions…” and David Kipen said on KPCC Broken Sleep “is a funny novel, but it’s also an incredibly serious emotional novel in a way we don’t get nowadays so much.” Booklist called Bauman’s first novel And The Word Was “a magnificent debut, smart and intense, but accessible and riveting.” His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Salon, BOMB, Bookforum, and numerous anthologies and other publications. Born and raised in New York City, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the painter Suzan Woodruff. http://www.brucebauman.net

 

Dr. Soma Stanford is a medical doctor currently taking a leave from her practice in Canada promoting of her best-selling lesbian erotica novel, Jade Wallace

 

Brian Evenson is the author of a dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection Windeye (Coffee House Press 2012) and the novel Immobility (Tor 2012), both of which were finalists for the Shirley Jackson Award. His novel Last Days won the American Library Association’s award for Best Horror Novel of 2009, and his novel The Open Curtain (Coffee House Press) was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an International Horror Guild Award. Other books include The Wavering Knife (which won the IHG Award for best story collection), Dark Property, and Altmann’s Tongue. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes as well as an NEA fellowship. He joins CalArts from his position as Royce Professor of Teaching Excellence in the Department of Literary Arts at Brown University.

 

Victoria Looseleaf lives and loves in Los Angeles. As an award-winning dance and arts writer, she has been filing datelines from around the world. The redhead provocateur has been a professional harpist, a late night TV host and doyenne of the underground. “Isn’t It Rich?”, is Victoria Looseleaf’s first book of poetry.

 

Maryam Henein is an investigative journalist, entrepreneur, and producer hit a milestone with the release of her award-winning documentary Vanishing of the Bees, narrated by Ellen Page. It also marked her directorial debut. Maryam’s other credits include programs for the BBC, Discovery, Robert Greenwald, and Morgan Spurlock—plus, she co-wrote and hosted a program for TLC about the Ark of the Covenant. Her articles have appeared in several publications including the Los Angeles Times, Maxim, Science & Spirit Magazine, and Penthouse. The native Montrealer gained notoriety by breaking a story about Dodi Fayed’s imposter, a man who duped hundreds across North America, including Duran Duran and Jodie Foster. The trial set a precedent in Canadian legal history. She is now the founder of a health and wellness site called honeycolony.com

 

 

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