So, I'm reading with Brian Evenson soon

The casual tone of my subject line is feigned. I'm really excited about this reading, which was snowed out in January but is really happening this weekend.

Brian Evenson is one of my favorite fiction writers (Altmann's Tongue particularly thrills and terrifies me) and I'm really grateful to the Duke-sponsored Minor American series for setting me up with him.

And for letting me book a musical performance to follow the reading by Ryan Martin, a.k.a. Secret Boyfriend, who should round out the evening perfectly with his noisy pop terrors, or his poppy noise ones.

So you get a little fiction, a little poetry, a little music. We like to mix it up. In any case, a Brian Evenson appearance in the Triangle is not really something you want to miss. Unless you are scared. I wouldn't blame you. They're scary stories. But so good.  

Everything you need to know should be in the official announcement copied below!

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Minor American Presents:
Brian Evenson
Brian Howe
Secret Boyfriend (Ryan Martin)

Saturday, March 13^th, 8pm, at 715 Washington Street, Durham, NC

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
(This event is co-sponsored by the English Department and the Institute for Canadian Studies at Duke University.)


Brian Evenson is the author of nine books of fiction, most recently the novel Last Days and the story collection Fugue State. His novel The Open Curtain (Coffee House Press) was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an IHG Award and was one of Time Out New York's top books of 2006. He lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island, where he directs Brown Universityís Literary Arts Program. Other books include The Wavering Knife (which won the IHG Award for best story collection), Dark Property, and The Brotherhood of Mutilation. He has translated work by Christian Gailly, Jean Frémon, Claro, Jacques Jouet and others. He has received an O. Henry Prize as well as an NEA fellowship. A limited edition novella, Baby Leg was published by New York Tyrant Press in late 2009.

Brian Howe is a freelance journalist, poet, and multimedia artist living in Durham, NC. His work appears in Fascicle, Effing Magazine, Word for/Word, Apocryphal Text, Octopus, MiPO, Cannibal, Soft Targets, Drunken Boat, and elsewhere. He has issued three chapbooks: Guitar Smash (3rdness Press); This is the Motherfucking Remix (with Marcus Slease; Scantily Clad Press); and Foreign Letter (Beard of Bees). His videos (with Ashley Howe) have screened at minor american, the Asheville Fringe Festival, the Southeastern Electronic Music Festival, and elsewhere. His multimedia project Glossolalia is available at http://glossolalia-blacksail.blogspot.com/.

Secret Boyfriend (Ryan Martin) represents a range of outsider genres: electronic pop, warmpop, harsh noise, storytelling, nylon string midnight folk, dance, power electronics; sometimes under the interpretive influence of 70s-80s horror, crime, and freak films, the VHSs themselves sometimes deformed by the passage of time. The lyrics suggest narratives with emotional, violent, ecstatic, and occult themes. Secret Boyfriend shows vary also, spanning from abusive electronic noise to single-mic singer-songwriter performances from behind a leather mask.