41khX3-lrrL._SX312_BO1,204,203,200_TUESDAY
All aboard “The Poetry Ville Express!” Four poets are inviting you to embark on an adventure at KGB Bar; according to the lounge’s website they want you to follow “their muses through the untamed realms of Poetry Ville – from avant romantic to nouveau commentary.” It’s “urbane grit served up with a side of Southern charm and a big old heaping of ‘holy shit.’” The poets: Lee Ann Brown, author of this year’s Other Archer as well as a string of other acclaimed works, including Polyverse, winner of the 1996 New American Poetry Competition; Wanda Phipps, author of Wake-Up Calls: 66 Morning Poems and coordinator for three years at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church (bringing us epic New Years marathon readings each year); Mark Statman, whose most recent books include That Train Again and A Map of the Winds; and eco-activist Jeffrey Cyphers Wright (Party Everywhere), who published Cover Magazine until 2000 and currently publishes Live Mag!
Tuesday, Sept. 22 from 7 to 9 p.m. KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (East Village).
landscapesWEDNESDAY
Lele Saveri, founder of the 8-Ball Fair, cofounder of Muddguts Gallery and the guy who brought us pop-up zine shop The Newsstand from 2013 to 2014, is releasing a new book of photographs of nudes of flora called Landscapes. He and his collaborator Brian Lamotte experimented for months with a Risograph press to get just the right color and tone; “the process in the right hands degrades the images with a textured beauty but tends to be unstable and becomes expensive,” explains the Dashwood Books event site. Dashwood decided to scan the images and release 500 copies of the collection in the form of literary paperbacks, which Saveri will be signing.
Wednesday, Sept. 23, from 6 to 8 p.m., Dashwood Books, 33 Bond Street (Bowery).
85THURSDAY
Jesse Eisenberg will take a break from filming the new Woody Allen movie (shooting last week in the Chinatown) to promote his new collection of short stories Bream Gives Me Hiccups. You may have seen his imagined dialogues featured in The New Yorker; they’re surreal conversations between odd pairings in strange situations, from Carmelo Anthony conversing with a totally stoked self-deluded fan to an LSD tripper trying to pick up a woman. According to NPR Books, Eisenberg brings to mind fellow comic actor/writers like his current director as well as Steve Martin and B.J. Novak. You’ll get the idea by checking out this one about doofy, self-conscious men throughout the ages avoiding situations in which they must dance.
Thursday, Sept. 24 at 7 p.m. Barnes & Noble Union Square, 33 East 17th Street (Union Square).
tumblr_no1byv1GpK1rwnnw6o1_400-2SATURDAY
When we last saw Jonathan Franzen, at a discussion with book critic Laura Miller in May, he was saying he had “no idea” where his newest novel came from, but it was challenging to write because with The Corrections and Freedom he’d already used up his psyche’s low hanging fruit. “Suddenly all you’re left with is the very deep stuff, and there’s a good reason you haven’t written about it before.” Purity is about a young woman squatting with anarchists in Oakland and is described as “a dark-hued comedy of youthful idealism, extreme fidelity, and murder.” Even if you’re on the fence about plunging into another Franzen read, don’t miss your chance to see the notorious, well – some would say misanthrope – because quite frankly you never know what controversial opinion might come out of his mouth next.
Saturday, Sept. 26 at 6:30 p.m. Greenlight Bookstore, 686 Fulton Street (Fort Greene).
ShakenintheWaterSUNDAY
If you’ve always wanted to try your hand at writing fiction, but you could use some advice, encouragement or a critical eye, there’s no better time to meet with other aspiring writers than when the Gotham Writers’ Workshop makes a stop in Brooklyn on Sunday. The instructor for the afternoon will be Jessica Penner, author of the “novel in stories” Shaken In The Water. Set in 1903, the book is about a Mennonite woman who gives birth to a daughter named Agnes. “The child bears a birthmark known in Low German as Tieja Kjoaw, the Tiger’s Scar,” says the publisher’s description. “The mark portends greatness or tragedy.” Penner’s short fiction has appeared in the anthology Tongue Screws and Testimonies.
Sunday, Sept. 27, from 2 to 3 p.m. WORD Bookstore, 126 Franklin Street (Greenpoint).