Come join editors and contributors of NANO Fiction at Boheme for a night of readings and drinks! Readings will be held at 5:30, 6:30, 7:30, 8:30, and 9:30, so if you’re planning to pop on over to the local Poison Pen reading that night, you can still get in three readings and many drinks. After all, is there any such thing as too much literature and alcohol (don’t ask John Berryman)? We’ll also be holding a couple raffles for free subscriptions.

Sponsored by Spacetaker and Boheme, Cultured Cocktails is a weekly event to help build the community of arts organizations in Houston. A portion of Boheme’s proceeds from 5-10pm will be generously donated to NANO Fiction.

The NANO Reading Series is held at kaboom Books at the intersection of Houston Ave. and Bayland on the second Tuesday of every month at 7:30pm. As always, there will be commemorative chapbooks to celebrate the reading and refreshments will be served.

Fall 2010 DATES & READERS

September 14th, 2010
Casey Fleming and Sophie Rosenblum

Casey Fleming is a native Texan, but has lived in 13 cities and 6 countries. She holds a BA from Smith College, an MA from American University, and and MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston. Her essays and short stories appear or are forthcoming in various literary journals and anthologies. This year she was a finalist for the Tobias Wolff Award in Short Fiction. She teaches English at Kinkaid High School, and is the co-founder and organizer of the Poison Pen Reading Series.

Sophie Rosenblum was the 2008 – 2009 Rice University Parks Fellow. She received her MFA from the University of Houston in 2008. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Saint Ann’s Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Dossier Journal, Avery Anthology and Gulf Coast.

October 12th, 2010
Brandon Lamson and Hannah Gamble

Brandon Lamson received his Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He has taught writing at various schools and universities, including an alternative school for inmates located on Riker’s Island. His chapbook, Houston Gothic, co-authored with Chris Munde, was published in 2007, and his poems have appeared in Brilliant Corners, Pebble Lake Review, and Hunger Magazine.

Hannah Gamble graduated in May from the University of Houston. She is spending this year teaching Creative Writing at Rice University where she is the 2010/ 2011 Parks Fellow. She is the winner of the Charles Simic Poetry Prize, and the recipient of a summer writing fellowship from the Edward F. Albee Foundation. You can find her poems in Ecotone, Indiana Review, Mid-American Review, Washington Square, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and other places.

November 9th, 2010
Carrie Oeding and Cecily Sailer

Carrie Oeding’s first book of poems, Our List of Solutions, was selected by David Dodd Lee as the winner of the 2010 Lester M. Wolfson Poetry Award and will be published in 2011 by Indiana University Press’s new poetry series 42 Miles Press. Her work has appeared in the Best New Poets, 2005 anthology, DIAGRAM, Colorado Review, 32 Poems, Mid-American Review, Third Coast, Greensboro Review, storySouth, Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction, and elsewhere. Brenda Hillman selected her poems for second place in The Poetry Center of Chicago’s 2009 Juried Reading Award. She earned her MFA from Eastern Washington University. She then held a post-doctoral Fellowship from Ohio University where she received her Ph.D. and was awarded the Claude Kantner Fellowship. Carrie currently teaches as a Houston Writing Fellow.

December 14th, 2010
Ryan Dilbert and Timothy Willis Sanders

Timothy Willis Sanders (b.1980) is a writer living in Austin, TX. His work has appeared in NANO Fiction, Japanese Baseball, and elsewhere. He is the author of Orange Juice, a collection of short stories forthcoming on Awesome Machine Press. He is currently an editorial assistant at American Short Fiction.

Ryan Dilbert is a novice tattoo artist, an amateur vegan chef and a terrible salsa dancer. His novel Time Crumbling like a Wet Cracker (No Record Press) is forthcoming in Spring 2011. His work can be seen in FRiGG, decomP, Pear Noir, Titular, and Best of the Web 2009. He likes your new haircut.

A reading by
Kevin Sampsell & B. Frayn Masters
with Ryan Call & Kirby Johnson

July 8, 2010
7:00pm
Kaboom Books
3115 Houston Avenue

They Came from the Northwest! Author of A Common Pornography, Kevin Sampsell and writer B. Frayn Masters embark on the ultimate southern road trip, stopping in Houston for a reading at the Houston Avenue location of Kaboom Books on July 8th at 7:00.

Co-sponsored by local literary journal, NANO Fiction and Kaboom Books, the reading will also feature local writers Ryan Call and Kirby Johnson.

# # #

Kevin Sampsell is the author of the memoir, A Common Pornography, and the publisher of the micropress, Future Tense Books. His fiction and essays have appeared in Nerve, Smith Magazine, Quick Fiction, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works at the legendary Powell’s City of Books.

B. Frayn Masters has been published in Pindeldyboz, Spork, Monkeybicycle, and elsewhere. She has also written articles under a different name for “adult magazines.” She is the co-host of Back Fence PDX, a popular storytelling series in Portland, Oregon.

Ryan Call’s stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Hobart, Caketrain, NANO Fiction, LIT, New York Tyrant, The Lifted Brow, and elsewhere. He contributes to HTMLGIANT and is the associate editor of NOÖ Journal.

Kirby Johnson is the founding editor of NANO Fiction. She is the co-organizer of the Houston Indie Book Festival and a monthly reading series at Kaboom Books.

When: Jun 23, 2010
Time: 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Location: Spacetaker – 2101 Winter Street B11, Houston, TX, 77007
Cost: Free

Join NANO Fiction, Spacetaker, and Sketchy Neighbors for a night of Poetry and Art On Demand! Poets and artists will take the stage to write and draw according to your own suggestions!

Never before seen in Houston, this new style of performance pits artists’ and writers’ wits against your suggestions – not to mention a strict time limit. Featuring poets Andrew Kozma, Glenn Shaheen, Hannah Gamble and Becca Wadlinger.

We’re accepting your suggestions NOW! Email us your 5-word suggestion for a sketch/poem!

This event is supported by Poets & Writers, Inc.

“We just saw your parents fucking,” Josh said.

Tommy looked up.

I nodded to confirm things.

“BFD,” he said, looking straight at me. “I see yours all the time.”

To make some extra cash, my parents set up a porn site where for fifty bucks a month you could make them do anything. One guy wanted to see them with boots on. Another asked for an airplane scenario, complete with barf bags.

I got out of the house when I could. I loved to build shit and found myself crafting life-size fuck-dolls out of silicone and polyester resin. They were durable and I sold them online for big cash.

“You fuck,” Tommy said, examining my latest model. “That’s my fucking mom!”

Josh gawked at the doll for a while then laughed.

I stood back, for the first time seeing the resemblance. “Fuck,” I said. “Sorry. She must still be in my head from last week.”

Tommy swung at me, but I moved, and his fist went right into his mother’s breast. Then things got awkward, so I said, “Hey, don’t take it out on her,” which was pretty cheeky considering the state of things.

Tommy pulled his hand from his mother. “Well,” he said, “as long as you don’t sell it.”

“Of course I’m gonna sell it,” I said. I could feel Tommy’s eyes on me, hot like wet candles. “It’s business, buddy,” I said, putting a fatherly hand on his shoulder the way my old man had when he explained business to me.

Through a collaboration with The Menil Collection, NANO Fiction and Gulf Coast are proud to host this year’s Houston Indie Book Festival, April 3 at Menil Park (view map).

Now in its third official year, the Houston Indie Book Festival remains the only event of its kind in the Houston and Austin areas, featuring a variety of nationally-distributed literary journals and small-press books alongside local booksellers, book and magazine publishers, small presses, literary organizations, and writers. Gift certificates and other items will be raffled off throughout the day, and some of Houston’s best and best-known writers will read from their work on the hour every hour.

For more information on the festival, please visit http://indiebookfest.org.

The Editors of NANO Fiction are delighted to bring back a second season of the NANO Reading series at Kaboom Books. We have had a wonderful time organizing this season’s readers and can’t wait to see everyone again this spring.

The NANO Reading Series is held at Kaboom Books at the intersection of Houston Ave. and Bayland on the second Tuesday of every month at 7:30pm. As always, there will be commemorative chapbooks to celebrate the reading and refreshments will be served.

SPRING 2010 DATES & READERS

February 9th, 2010 7:30 pm
Readers: Laurie Clements Lambeth & Greg Oaks

Laurie Clements Lambeth’s debut poetry collection, Veil and Burn, was selected by Maxine Kumin for the 2006 National Poetry Series. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Mid-American Review, Indiana Review, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere, with poetry and nonfiction forthcoming in Seneca Review. Her work has been selected for two Houston Arts Alliance grants as well as UH’s Michener and Inprint fellowships. An MFA and PhD graduate of the University of Houston, she recently completed a residency at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and is at work on a book of creative nonfiction and her second book of poems.

Greg Oaks has an MFA in Fiction from Texas State University and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. He has been published in the Gettysburg Review, the Cimarron Review, and other journals. He is a law school dropout and currently teaches Creative Writing at Lonestar College–Tomball.

March 9th, 2010 7:30pm
Readers: Nicholas T. Brown, Catlin Johnson, & Lisa Lee

Nicholas T. Brown lives (for the moment) in Houston, TX, where he dominates the local basketball courts with his dead-eye shooting and expert savvy. He also scribbles short stories from time to time. He has a dog named Seven and a cat named Mrs. Mia Wallace.

Caitlin Johnson is a graduate of the University of Houston with a degree in English Literature. She has poems scattered here and there, but if you google them, she will deny it all. She has applied to several graduate programs around the country, so keep your fingers crossed that she will go away some time soon.

Lisa Lee recently finished her MFA at the University of Houston. She received a B.A. in Music and English from U.C. Berkeley and a J.D. from Santa Clara University. She was the recipient of the Barthelme Fellowship in Fiction 2008, runner-up for the Diana P. Hobby Prize in Fiction 2009, and runner-up for the Barthelme Fellowship in Nonfiction 2009. Lisa’s work has appeared in Gulf Coast, The Tusculum Review, Pebble Lake Review, and Reed Magazine. She is the former Nonfiction Editor of Gulf Coast.

April 13th, 2010 7:30pm
Readers: Traci Matlock & Chris Stevens

Traci Matlock sporadically attends the University of Houston and was a recipient of the Howard Moss Poetry Prize. She studies both literature and art history but spends most of her time taking photographs.

Chris Stevens works between the functions of bartender and bibliophile, and appears sometimes as a doomsday optimist with pant hems that rise above his ankles. U of H possesses his B.A. in financial ransom and he is the recipient of the Bryan Lawrence Poetry Award.

May 11th, 2010 7:30pm
Readers: Peter Hyland & R.T. Castleberry

Peter B. Hyland is the author of the chapbook, Elegy to the Idea of a Child (Trilobite Press, 2009). His poems have appeared in New England Review, New South, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He has been the recipient of a Krakow Poetry Seminar Travel Fellowship and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is the development director, and an occassional workshop instructor at Inprint, a local nonprofit literary arts organization.

R.T. Castleberry is a widely published poet and social critic. An active participant in Houston poetry since the mid-70‘s, he was a co-founder of the Flying Dutchman Writers Troupe and co-editor/publisher of the monthly magazine Curbside Review. His work has appeared most recently in Comstock Review, The Alembic, Paterson Literary Review, Caveat Lector, Perigee, Silk Road and Argestes. He was a finalist for the 2008 Arts & Letters/Rumi Prize for Poetry. His chapbook, Arriving At The Riverside, is being published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2010.