Feb 19, 2006 Show Info

February's show is, no two ways about it, freakin' fabulous. We have two superstars from Softskull Press, Douglas Martin and Amanda Stern, the cache of being the only writing series that happens at the Drama Book Shop just before President's Day, and, as always, the most accessibly tasty muffins this side of the Seine.
So come to the Drama Book Shop for the Writer's Reading Series, and let those writers know what you think about them and their clauses. (7:30pm, doors open at 7:00.)

Our writers will be:

Douglas A. Martin, currently a PhD Candidate in English Literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is the author of Outline of My Lover which was adapted by the Ballett Frankfurt (now the Bill Forsythe Company) for their multimedia production "Kammer/Kammer," and performed all over the world. His second book "Branwell: A Novel of the Bronte Brother" (just out from Soft Skull Press) traces the life of Branwell Bronte, the sole brother of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte, fromchildhood to his alcohol-and-opium-induced death at the age of 31. In addition to a bit from Branwell, Douglas will be reading from a long narrative in progress entitled A Young Poet.

Amanda Stern's fiction, non-fiction and poetry has appeared in The New York Times Magazine (2001, 2004), Swink, Venus Magazine, The Believer, St. Ann's Review, Salt Hill, Hayden's Ferry Review, Spinning Jenny, and a bunch of other places. She has held many disparate jobs: editing part of the Talking Heads Box Set, "Once in a Lifetime," touring with the Cirque du Soleil, working in independent film for Ang Lee, Terry Gilliam, Hal Hartley and Gregg Araki, and performing for a couple years as a professional comic. Her first novel, The Long Haul, was published by Soft Skull Press in 2003. She is working on her current novel, The Guthrie Test, which she reads from tonight. She was born at Lenox Hill Hospital and raised in Greenwich Village. She founded, curates and hosts the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series in Chinatown. She lives in Brooklyn.

Mary Phillips-Sandy grew up in central Maine and now lives in Brooklyn. She has done the following things: earned a degree in economics, started a film festival, worked as a legal researcher (murderers interviewed = two), worked as a theater tech (digits lost to construction equipment = tip of left thumb, now grown back), and written freelance stories for many fine publications. She moved to New York two years ago and will receive her MFA from Columbia University in May, at which point she will celebrate extremely hard for several days. Mary will read an excerpt from an essay collection about life in central Maine.

Rob Bates is a full-time journalist and part-time comedy writer. He happy customers include FuseTV, McSweeneys, comedycentral.com, Jest magazine, New York Newsday's "Punchlines" column, the American Comedy Network and All Star Radio radio services. He has sold three jokes to comedian Yakov Smirnoff (true story). He has written somewhat-serious pieces for Time Out New York, Foxnews.com, and Shecky's Nightlife Guide. He is a regular writer for and cast member of Saturday Night Rewritten, a weekly "guerilla version" of Saturday Night Live. He is also performing and writing at the upcoming Assholes on Parade. Rob is proud that his work has been rejected by some of America's best-loved TV shows and magazines. Updates on his activities are at http://robbates.blogspot.com/. He is currently deciding what he will be reading on Sunday the 19th, but he and we are certain it is banging.

Jen Nails is originally from Las Vegas, NV. She's performed original solo comedy all over the world at theaters, festivals, and schools in NYC, Miami, Boston, Honolulu, Edinburgh, Victoria, Canada and others. She teaches writing and solo performance classes at the Peoples Improv Theater (www.thepit-nyc.com). Jen's written for the Oxygen Network and currently works for SELF Magazine. Jen will be reading from her book in progress, Beside Mexico, is a middle grade novel based on her solo play, Lylice. Special thanks to David Silverman and the Drama Bookshop, and to her favorite person in the world, Mike Gold. Thank you all for coming!

David Silverman refuses to admit much of anything for fear of it being used in spam target at his strong impulse-to-buy-anything-he-sees-described-in-courier-or-blinking-text. His writing has been published in the Cream City Review, the Snake Nation Review, and in beautiful sepia tones from that copier he found no one had put a lock on. He has also, obviously (cause he can't stop pointing it out after a couple of drinks), been the owner of a multimillion dollar typsetting business. David will be reading from his book Typo--How I Made and Lost $4 Million. (He brilliantly came up with this subtitle at the Jan 22 show! Banging!)