If you are coming to New York City for the Associated Writing Programs conference at the end of this month, yours truly will be reading his own work for the Reading Between A & B's 10th Anniversary Reading on Thursday, January 31 at 7:30pm.

I'll be reading on behalf of fellow online litmag Failbetter.com; other readers that evening include Ross Gay, representing Indiana Review; Christopher Stackhouse, John Keene and Shin-Yu Pai, representing 1913: A Journal of Forms; and Kathleen Graber and Catherine Pierce representing Saturnalia Books.

It's a thrill to read for Failbetter, since I have been following that journal for awhile and only recently have published some work there. It's another thrill to help celebrate a decade of what is one of the best reading series in New York City, and one that I've read at three or four times in the past.

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I'm also on a couple of panels, if you are attending and are into that sort of thing. Here are the details.

Thursday, from 1:30-2:45
Murray Hill Suite
Hilton, 2nd Floor

R158. Memoir & The Tightrope of True-ish-isms. (Marc Nieson, Daniel Nester, Hope Edelman, Paul Lisicky, Leslie Schwartz, Madelon Sprengnether) The post-Frey debate has been heated, yet all too often reduced to an impasse of Truth vs. Fact vs. Accountability. This panel pushes the discussion further into the nature of memoir writing itself. Is form key in determining and affirming content? How much do selected forms nudge a writer to invent? How do notions of fluid identity, or new neural network theories on how memories are formed and retrieved, challenge the entire endeavor?

Saturday, 4:30pm-6:15pm
Regent Parlor
Hilton, 2nd Floor

S197. Twenty Years of New York City Slam: A Guided Tour Through Gotham's Competitive Poetry Scenes. (Daniel Nester, Cristin Aptowicz, Shappy Seasholz, Regie Cabico, Susan B. Anthony Somers-Willett) It's been two decades since slam was imported from Chicago to New York's Lower East Side. Since that night at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, slam has spread worldwide and has blossomed in the Big Apple. There are tussles, hustles, and a Russell (Simmons). Where is slamming now? This panel will discuss the birth, growing pains, and continuing evolution of this alternative arts movement from a uniquely New York perspective.

Labels: AWP2008, New York City, Shameless self-promotion