PAST THE2NDHAND EVENTS

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THE2NDHAND anniversary celebration | 11 years to the day after our first-ever release party
Saturday, Feb. 12, 7 p.m.
@ Portland Brew, 1921 Eastland Ave., Nashville, Tenn.
THE2NDHAND AFTER 10: A NASHVILLE READING Four days before the end of our Kickstarter.com campaign to raise $2,000 to print our 10th-anniversary anthology, All Hands On, THE2NDHAND's editors and contributors gather at this event to present new writing and work to be published in the book, with performances by:
*T2H shapeshifting collaborative writing crew of the Pitchfork Battalion
*T2H Louisville, Ky.-based coeditor C.T. Ballentine (whose "Friedrich Nietzsche Waits for a Date" novella is featured in its entirety in the All Hands On book)
*Birmingham-based Nadria Tucker, a frequent T2H contributor, with a special section in the book
*Nashville's own Matt Cahan, whose "Coyote Business," a short exploring the cultural connections between Mexico and the United States excerpted from his "Straight Commission" novel in progress, via the tale of a group of would-be Mexican migrants and a U.S. chemical salesman, is among new work featured in AHO
*Susannah Felts, Nashville-based author of the novel This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record
*Nashville-based Henry Ronan-Daniell

Nashville-based wood-block printmaker Martin Cadieux will be on-hand showcasing his print work for THE2NDHAND's Kickstarter campaign, among other work.

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Tuesday, Feb. 1, 8 p.m.
@ Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, Chicago
SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL?
FEATURING:
Longtime THE2NDHAND contributor and Chicago experimentalist Marc Baez
Mairead Casew/ a graphic novel slideshow
& Hip-hop by Tomorrow Kings

Also: A special public service announcement from Seth Dodson and Kellen Alexander
*House band: Good Evening (http://goodeveningmusic.com)
*Hosted by Monsieur Harold Ray (the janitorial-services-type, still-West Virginian v. of T2H coeditor Jacob Knabb) and T2H regular Kate Duva
and more...

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SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL?
8 p.m., Tues., Jan. 4
Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, Chicago

Performances by:
**THE2NDHAND No. 35.1 (just released) writer Fred Sasaki
**old-time/long-time T2Her, back in Chi after an L.A. sojourn, Emerson Damerson
**and Chicagoan Simon A. Smith

ALSO:

Hosted by Monsieur Harold Ray (the janitorial-services-type, still-West Virginian v. of T2H coeditor Jacob Knabb) and T2H regular Kate Duva
And with a special public service announcement from Mr. Ray himself you won't want to miss.

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SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL?
8 p.m., Tues., Nov. 2
Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, Chicago

Performances by:
Writers Chris Bower and Tim Racine
(Drowning Tuscon author) Aaron Michael Morales
w/ music by Good Evening
and a PSA by rogue advice columnist Naomi Des Moines

Hosted by Kate Duva and, well, Harold Ray comin' at you:

Chris Bower, a past THE2NDHAND contributor, hosts the Chicago Ray's Reading Series and has published fiction in a variety of mags. Since 2003, he's put on at least one of his plays yearly; find more about them at his site. Bower teams up with fellow T2H contributor Tim Racine, who had this to say for himself: "Tim Racine has written things (this sentence, for example (though there is probably a better example than that (even if there isn't, the fact remains he did write that sentence (oh, and this one too (and this one (and this one (and this one (I'm sure you get the point (but suffice it to say, Tim Racine is a writer (or something)))))))))). He owns timracine.com but isn't sure why."

House Band premieres: Good Evening serves up ukulele and violin and lullabyes, oh my!

Aras & the Volodkas sound like, well, think Zappa meets Ben Folds.

Drowning Tuscon writer Aaron Michael Morales plays "JuanBob," a delightfully self-hating illegal Mexican immigrant. Morales’ recent novel was published by Coffee House Books.

Naomi Des Moines, rogue advice columnist, outside art icon, author of 7 novels, bullshit detector extraordinaire and Founder of the WYD (Wipe Your Dick) Movement. Nuff said.

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BRICK: A READING SERIES
7 p.m., Friday, October 8
Portland Brew, 1921 Eastland, East Nashville

Readings by:

Darlin' Neal, author of the recently released collection Rattlesnakes & The Moon (Press 53). She's a native of Mississippi teaching at Central Florida, and her work has appeared in many mags through the years, including the Southern Review, Smokelong Quarterly, Shenandoah and others.

Goodloe Byron, resident of a mountain battlefield where he whiles away the evenings writing books and songs. In addition to his day job, he spends some time designing book covers for Soft Skull press, Disruptive Publishing and others. He cofounded Brown Paper Publishing back in the day. The last couple years his life has been swallowed up by the Zero Dollar Tour, which basically consists of printing up thousands of books and handing them out during haphazard voyages, the latest of which you are about to bear witness to -- part of it, anyway.

Louisville-based writer and past THE2NDHAND contributor Patrick Wensink is the author of the 2009 collection of stories "Sex Dungeon For Sale!" Find more from him at his website; www.patrickwensink.com.

East Nashville's own Henry Ronan-Daniell hails originally from Jacksonville, Ala. He did his MFA at Columbia University, and his work has appeared in Redivider, Sonora Review, Annalemma and many other lit mags. He thinks a good title for a country song would be: "I'm the Smartest Cow in the Herd, so How'd You Steer Me Wrong?"

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SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL?
8 p.m., Tues., Oct. 5
Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, Chicago

Performances by:
Writer Ben Tanzer
Rapper Bob Rok
Comedian Prashanth Venkataramanujam
and Nerves of Steel cohost and prolific scribbler herself, longtime 2HANDer Kate Duva

Tanzer, author of the novel Lucky Man and recent THE2NDHAND contributor, is also the force behind "This Podcast Will Change Your Life" -- and here turns questions on Nerves of Steel host Harold Ray for a live edition of his show. Visit bentanzer.blogspot.com to listen in.

A rapper from the streets of Pilsen, Bob Rok’s gonna save hip-hop. Visit bobrok.bandcamp.com to learn how.

Venkataramanujam, nationally touring comedian, will perform a little of his blue material about being brown. Visit pvcomedy.com to endure a rant or two.

NERVES OF STEEL is free.

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BRICK: A READING SERIES
7 p.m., Friday, September 10
Portland Brew, 1921 Eastland, East Nashville

Readings by:
**Freshly minted Nashville-based Keyhole Magazine editor and fiction writer Gabe Durham
**THE2NDHAND coeditor (from Chicago) Jacob Knabb (Harold Ray in an alternate world)
**& (also down from the Chi) an editor with Poetry magazine and past THE2NDHAND contributor Fred Sasaki, who will be reading from his "Letters of Interest," parts of which have appeared or are forthcoming in the Iowa Review, Pax Americana, MAKE and others.

Host played by THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills with a digital assist (streamed live!) by Keyhole Press publisher Peter Cole, both of Nashville, BRICK is a coproduction that every other month features Nashville, regional and touring prose writers.

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BRICK: A READING SERIES
7 p.m., Friday, June 18
Portland Brew, 1921 Eastland, East Nashville

Readings by the all-Nashville crew of:
fiction writer and Middle Tennessee State writing prof John Minichillo
This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record novelist Susannah Felts
& fantastical Twitter-storyteller Motke Dapp

John Minichillo teaches prose fiction at Middle Tennessee State University and lives in East Nashville with his wife and son. His work has been featured in an array of lit mags, from Everyday Genius to the Mississippi Review.

Motke Dapp is a Nashvillian whose Twitter feed (twitter.com/motkedapp) features daily bursts of 140-word prose wonder. His short fiction can be found on www.motke.net.

Nashville native and recently repatriated resident Susannah Felts is a freelance journalist (Oxford American, Health, Chicago Reader), teacher (Watkins College) and fiction writer. Her novel, set in Nashville, This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record) debuted in 2008.

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IN CHICAGO:

SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL?
Sunday, June 20, 8 p.m.
@Whistler, 2421 N.Milwaukee, Logan Square, Chicago

readings by
Scott Stealey
Hobart editor Aaron Burch in collabo with Okla Elliott
& Encyclopedia Show hosts Robbie Q. Telfer and Shanny Jean Maney
w/ an opening PSA by Shitcom (aka members of Nerd City and improv-ers The Weathermen

Click on the flyer image for an easily printable pdf, with more info on the proceedings.

Scott Stealey’s "Cold Was the Ground" in THE2NDHAND’s new broadsheet no. 34 tells the story of Gina, protagonist, a rather lonely condo dweller/office manager, who strikes up a fleeting friendship with one Porgo, an Eastern European construction worker who is burying what Gina takes for a time capsule. But the metaphorical fix is in -- Porgo, an ESL student, may be leading Gina in directions she can’t exactly get her head all the way around.... Chicago writer Stealey edits the Please Don’t webzine. Robbie Q. Telfer and Shanny Jean Maney are hosts of The Encylopedia Show, which Gaper’s Block called "a monthly mash-up of performance -- stories, poetry, music, comedy, tragedy and all the rest -- centered on a topic. Each month's topic (bears, explosives, the moon) binds together an otherwise eclectic showcase of the city's sharpest tacks and brightest bulbs." For more, visit encyclopediashow.com. Aaron Burch is the editor of hip-lit mag Hobart (hobartpulp.com), and writer Okla Elliott among other things administrates the cultural/political mag As It Ought to Be, asitoughttobe.wordpress.com -- both Burch and Elliott live and write in downstate Champaign-Urbana, Ill. Nerves of Steel is hosted by THE2NDHAND’s erstwhile (when he’s not on another of his benders) janitor Harold Ray, with an assist from longtime THE2NDHAND contributor Kate Duva. This is the fifth installment in the monthly Nerves of Steel series.

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IN CHICAGO:

SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL?
Sunday, May 16, 8 p.m.
@Whistler, 2421 N.Milwaukee, Logan Square, Chicago

readings by
Patrick Somerville (The Cradle: A Novel) w/ Mark Rader on fiddle
Heather Palmer (author of the "Charlie’s Train" novella, serialized at THE2NDHAND.com)
& THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills (Sons of the Rapture)
w/ host Harold Ray (aka ACM fiction editor & THE2NDHAND coeditor Jacob Knabb)

Click on the flyer image for an easily printable pdf, with more info on the proceedings.

...Patrick Somerville, author of the novel The Cradle: A Novel, was the man behind THE2NDHAND’s recent broadsheet no. 32 and has been a showstopper on the Chicago scene for years. Here he tells -- in part in song and with an assist from Chicago writer Mark Rader on fiddle -- the epic story of his great-grandfather Harry, a traveling dentist in Upper Michigan and Northern Wisconsin in the early 20th century. According to his journals, the story’s about "a time I once mistakenly fell in love with a girl across the bay." Also of Chicago, Heather Palmer authored the "Charlie’s Train" novella, recently serialized at THE2NDHAND.com. Expect likewise epic staring contests from Palmer, known throughout the Midwest for her ocular prowess. THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills (Sons of the Rapture) journeys from Nashville for the event, and requests that you start sending jokes his way now, text-message preferred: 205-907-2481. And, finally, Harold Ray needs no introduction, of course.

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IN CHICAGO:

SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL?
Sunday, May 16, 8 p.m.
@Whistler, 2421 N.Milwaukee, Logan Square, Chicago

Click on the flyer image for an easily printable pdf, with more info on the proceedings.

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IN NASHVILLE:

BRICK | a reading series
7 p.m. Friday, Apr. 23, 2010
Portland Brew, 1921 Eastland Ave., Nashville

Hosted by THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills with an assist by Keyhole Press publisher Peter Cole, BRICK is a coproduction that every other month will feature Nashville, regional and touring prose writers.

Atlanta writer Jamie Iredell is author of Prose. Poems. A Novel., published by Orange Alert and the forthcoming Book of Freaks. His stories and poems have appeared in Keyhole as well as the Chattahoochee Review, PANK, Lamination Colony, The Literary Review, elimae, and many others. He blogs at jamieiredell.blogspot.com. .

Prose writer and editor B.J. Hollars lives in Tuscaloosa, Ala., where he edits the "You Must Be This Tall To Ride" anthology from Writer's Digest Books and the web magazine www.YouMustBeThisTallToRide.net. His work has been published in numerous magazines, including Keyhole.

& Nashville's own Katrina Gray has songwriting in her blood but writes short stories because she can't sing. Her work has appeared in Women Writers: A Zine, JMWW, fourpaperletters and the Belmont Literary Journal and is forthcoming in a Metazen e-book. She is a childbirth mentor and doula, and she blogs, etc. at katrinagray.com.

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IN CHICAGO:

SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL?
WHERE: Whistler, 2421 N.Milwaukee, Logan Square, Chicago
WHEN: Sunday, Apr. 18, 8 PM (followed by the Whistler's monthly "Country Throwdown")

FEATURING
**The Enchanters vs. Sprawlburg Springs author and longtime THE2NDHAND contributor Brian Costello, also the man behind the ongoing Second City/Third Person reading series at Book Cellar and the apocryphal "Brian Costello Show With Brian Costello," whose dynamism rocked the Empty Bottle for years...
**Literago.org editor Mairead Case, likewise the writer of KIND OF LIKE BIRDS, our latest special-edition mini-broadsheet no. 33.2
**THE2NDHAND coeditor C.T. Ballentine, returning to Chicago
& more w/ host Harold Ray (aka ACM fiction editor and THE2NDHAND coeditor Jacob Knabb)

Click on the flyer image for an easily printable pdf:

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IN DENVER/AT AWP:
MAKE it ANOTHER Afterparty

Friday, April 9
8-12 p.m., performances at 9
The Great Room
901 W. 7th Ave.
DENVER 80204

With presentations/readings/ceremony and loot from ACM, Canarium, Green Lantern Press, Featherproof, MAKE, Rose Metal Press, Hobart, Kneejerk, Artifice magazine and THE2NDHAND.

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IN NASHVILLE:

BRICK | a reading series launches!
7 p.m. Friday, Mar 12, 2009
Portland Brew, 1921 Eastland Ave., Nashville

Hosted by THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills with an assist by Keyhole Magazine and Press publisher Peter Cole, BRICK is a coproduction that every other month will feature Nashville, regional and touring prose writers -- you'll undoubtedly recognize many in coming months from these halls, including the three featured in the first edition, tip-top, from north to south:

Louisville, Ky., writer Jason Jordan is author of two collections forthcoming from avant-garde Six Gallery Press, Cloud and Other Stories and Powering the Devil's Circus, the last a novella paired with several shorts which is a strangely delightful mix of sincerity and absurdity -- each half bolstering the power of the other -- with an honesty of gesture uncommon in these times of narrative duplicity. His work has been published widely, including in both Keyhole and THE2NDHAND. Find him on Facebook or at the site for the online magazine he founded and continues to edit, decomP.

East Nashville's own Eric Durchholz is the man behind the recently released novel Heartless, set in and around the bars and shuffling masses at Woodland and 11th and... that other street. A veteran of the nascent Nashville performance scene, Durchholz is also the author of the novels iNVERSION and The Promise of Eden, working as a graphic artist in multimedia. For an excerpt from Heartless, visit heartless.me or the excerpt we published several months back.

Prose writer and teacher Lydia Ship lives in Atlanta, where she's likewise a contributing editor to the Chattahoochee Review; her stories, including flash fiction running with the weirdly sublime feel of a good D. Barthelme joint, have appeared in numerous magazines, including THE2NDHAND as well as Neon, A Capella Zoo, Pedestal, Night Train, New South and others.

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IN CHICAGO:

SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL?
WHERE: Whistler, 2421 N.Milwaukee, Logan Square, Chicago
WHEN: Monday, Feb. 8, 8 PM (readings at 9)

FEATURING
The Slide author Kyle Beachy
Kate Duva, author of our latest broadsheet
& recent THE2NDHAND contributor Irene Westcott
w/ host Harold Ray (aka ACM fiction editor and THE2NDHAND coeditor Jacob Knabb)

Readings will be preceded by musical from a trio of Nora Barton on cello and Eliza Bangert and Allie Deaver on flute. Billie Howard of Paver assists.

This is the second in THE2NDHAND's regular monthly series, wherein one featured writer a month riffs on the question in the reading's title -- so you think you have nerves of steel? -- in whatever manner he or she deems appropriate. Consider it a sort of extended experimental collaboration in the style of our Pitchfork Battalion series, spread out over 12 months. Expect verbal, and perhaps literal, fireworks throughout. The rest, well, we hope you expect good things. We do.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS:
Kyle Beachy lives and writes in Chicago. His first novel, The Slide is at once an offbeat love story, a moving portrait of a family in crisis, and a darkly funny American comedy. Check out THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills' interview with him here.

Kate Duva has been plying the brains of THE2NDHAND readers for several years now, and her characteristic stylistic mix of arch-weird and arch-real in story makes for an explosively brittle manifestation of reality in her "Life of the Frontier," the featured story in THE2NDHAND's broadsheet no. 33, released this year. Duva lives and writes in Chicago.

Chicago writer Irene Westcott's fiction and essays have appeared in numerous magazine in addition to THE2NDHAND, such as the Baltimore Review, LITnIMAGE, Blue Earth Review, Pure Francis, Literary Bohemian and Bullfight Review. She has an M.A. in writing from Northwestern University.

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SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL?
WHERE: QUIMBY'S BOOKS, 1854 W.North Ave., Wicker Park, Chicago
WHEN: Thursday, Jan. 14, 7 PM,

FEATURING:
Host Harold Ray (aka ACM fiction editor and THE2NDHAND coeditor Jacob Knabb)
Chicago playwright and past THE2NDHAND contributor Chris Bower
THE2NDHAND repeat performer and writer Jill Summers
& Literary stalker extraordinaire Amanda Marbais

The first in what will be a regular monthly Monday series, herein one featured writer a month riffs on the question in the reading's title -- so you think you have nerves of steel? -- in whatever manner he or she deems appropriate. Consider it a sort of extended experimental collaboration in the style of our Pitchfork Battalion series, spread out over 12 months. Expect verbal, and perhaps literal, fireworks throughout. The rest, well, we hope you expect good things. We do.

This month, both Chris Bower and Jill Summers present Nerves of Steel lit. Enjoy.

About the readers/performers:

**Jacob Knabb is the fiction editor for ACM (Another Chicago Magazine), an editor here at THE2NDHAND and a growing institution in Chicago literary circles. He's also a performer, and for the series will play the part of wizened, somewhat unruly, but generally charming janitor by the name of Harold Ray.

**Chicago playwright and past THE2NDHAND contributor Chris Bower has recently seen staging of several of his dramas, including the one-act Notes to Molly at SAIC and Little Boy Needs Ride as part of the Happy Family series at Viaduct Theater. He is one of the founders of the occasional Ray's Tap reading series and has performed widely in Chicago and elsewhere. About Notes to Molly, part of a program of three one-acts, the Chicago Theater blog had this to say, "Bower deals the most devastating realism of all these pieces. Based on his short story by the same name, the play etches an indelible portrait of a dead-end alcoholic couple and the psychological forces that barely keep them hanging on, to themselves and to life. It is an intensely realized work... Bower’s work shows most knowingly how story is used by this couple to evoke a past or present which gives each of them more power or discredits the other, yet does nothing to really disrupt or improve their passive-aggressive relationship. Bower shows great maturity in delineating the symbiotic nature of their mutual dysfunctions and leaves us hanging where they hang, in a subjective no-man’s land."

**THE2NDHAND repeat performer and writer Jill Summers' audio fiction has been featured on Chicago Public Radio, via the Third Coast International Audio Festival, and with New Adventures in Sound Art. Her work has appeared in many magazines, and she's authored three collections of audio shorts -- Cohabitation, Les Petites Tristes, and In The Realm of Normal Sized Things. Her first play, In the Curious Hold of the Demeter: Count Orlock at Sea, was produced by The Incurable Theater in fall 2008 at the Chicago Cultural Center. She was Chicago's reigning Opium Magazine Literary Death Match Champ from 5/23/09 - 7/31/09, whereupon THE2NDHAND's entry in the LDM held at the 2009 Chicago Printers Ball, Spencer Dew, took the crown. Alas...

**Amanda Marbais holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives in Chicago and teaches at Columbia College and Loyola University, serving likewise as editor for the new-ish lit mag the Requited Journal.

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IN CHICAGO (CANCELLED):

SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE NERVES OF STEEL?
WHERE: Whistler, 2421 N.Milwaukee, Logan Square, Chicago
WHEN: Monday, Nov. 9, 8 PM (Music), readings begin at 9
HOW MUCH: FREE / any donations benefit south-side after-school music studio

FEATURING:
Host Harold Ray (aka ACM fiction editor Jacob Knabb)
Chicago playwright and past THE2NDHAND contributor Chris Bower
THE2NDHAND repeat performer and writer Jill Summers
& Literary stalker extraordinaire Amanda Marbais

The first in what will be a regular monthly Monday series at Whistler, herein one featured writer a month riffs on the question in the reading's title -- so you think you have nerves of steel? -- in whatever manner he or she deems appropriate. Consider it a sort of extended experimental collaboration in the style of our Pitchfork Battalion series, spread out over 12 months. Expect verbal, and perhaps literal, fireworks throughout. The rest, well, we hope you expect good things. We do.

Musical backing throughout will be provided by Nora Barton on cello, Eliza Bangert on clarinet and Allie Deaver on flute. Billie Howard of Paver assists. There may or may not be an arm-wrestling match pitting one lucky volunteer against a venerable Chicago litmag editor...

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IN NASHVILLE:
THE2NDHAND @ Walden Artisan Market, 1800 Block of Eastland, across from RosePepper
WHEN: Sat., October 3, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sun., October 4, Sun 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

We'll be tabling with current and back issues of the broadsheet, books, and more (soap by the Left Hand!) at this East Nashville arts fair/market. Consider it our little Nashville intro. Those who can, come out and see us. . .

The main event page is here for Facebook users.

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IN BIRMINGHAM:

Extraordinary Rendition | a release party for THE2NDHAND No. 32
When THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills moved to Nashville last month THE2NDHAND in part remained in Alabama, in the form of the writers joining him at this reading, on the occasion of the Artwalk 2009 festival and the release of THE2NDHAND's 32nd broadsheet, featuring Patrick Somerville and Daniel Gallik: www.the2ndhand.com/print32/story1.html.

WHEN: Friday, Sept. 11, 8 PM
WHERE: Greencup Books, 105 Richard Arrington Blvd. S, Birmingham, Ala., www.greencupbooks.org
HOW MUCH: Donations accepted

FEATURING
**Nadria Tucker, a somewhat regular THE2NDHAND contributor and Birmingham resident
**Jim Murphy, whose latest collection of poetry, Heaven Overland, was released this year by Kennesaw State UP and who is a faculty member at the University of Montevallo
**A contingent from the Sinister Compendium zine (www.sinistercompendium.com), including editor Soapy Jones and Meeksworth, author of a minizine included in their latest issue.
**THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills is the author of Sons of the Rapture and blogs here
**The Pitchfork Battalion, THE2NDHAND's shapeshifting narrative collaborative troupe, featuring here Tucker, Murphy and Dills with one Extraordinary Rendition indeed. It's Sept. 11, after all....

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IN CHICAGO:

A Dual Release Party For THE2NDHAND broadsheet no. 32, featuring a short story by Patrick Somerville, & Greg Gerke’s There’s Something Wrong With Sven
7 PM, Thursday, 13 August
Quimby's Books, 1854 W. North Ave.
Chicago

Patrick Somerville is the Chicago-based author of a novel, "The Cradle," out this year, and the "Trouble" collection of shorts. His "A Game I Once Enjoyed," a short about a chance chess match between two neighbors during the biggest snowstorm of the year, is the featured piece in THE2NDHAND’s 32nd broadsheet, released here. Somerville has been widely reviewed and praised. "The Cradle" even showed up earlier this year in the staid New York Times Book Review, yet he remains true to the roots of his work’s genesis as a mainstay of Chicago’s indie-lit scene. To read selections from his work, interrogate some of the reviews out there, and get in touch, visit his website, www.patricksomerville.com.

THE2NDHAND contributor Greg Gerke lives and writes in Buffalo, N.Y., where he penned the flash-fiction collection "There’s Something Wrong With Sven" -- out this year from BlazeVox Books. His work in fiction has appeared variously in several mags, including Rosebud, Fourteen Hills, Pedestal Magazine, Pindeldyboz, and THE2NDHAND. Writing in the Buffalo News, journalist and book critic R.D. Pohl described the new collection as "a picaresque gambol through many of the leading tropes of contemporary American storytelling from the manic to the gothic, absurdist romance to mock epic parody, Rashomon-effect reverie to tavern patron’s tall tale." This versatile writer brings his bombast to Chicago in a stop on a multicity tour in support of the book. Visit www.greggerke.com for more.

Spencer Dew, based in Chicago, authored the 2008 "Songs of Insurgency" collection, out from Vagabond Press, and his shorts have appeared in great frequency in some of America’s best online and print lit mags, included, meagerly, THE2NDHAND. Amy Woods Butler (also, incidentally, more recently a contributor to THE2NDHAND) last said the stories in Dew’s collection "pound through the apathy and delusions of our post-9/11 world with the force of a jackhammer." His delivery, too, honed through regular readings in Chicago and around the country, is unparalleled in its energy. Visit www.spencerdew.com for links to pieces of his prolific online lit presence. (Dew authored THE2NDHAND’S 30th, Winter 2008-09 broadsheet, “Gives Birth to Monsters.”)

C.T. Ballentine, THE2NDHAND’s Chicago editor, will host. Ballentine’s the creator of several one-off and short-run zine projects, including an audio zine ("Radio Plays") and the occasional "Aftercrossword Special" for his own work. Prior to joining THE2NDHAND as an editor, the mag published his serialized novella "Friedrich Nietzsche Waits for a Date." Visit this page for the first installment.

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IN CHICAGO:

Fifth Annual Printers’ Ball

Ludington Building
1104 South Wabash Avenue
5:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Admission to the Printers’ Ball is free and open to all ages.

Founded by Poetry magazine with other independent Chicago literary organizations, the Printers’ Ball is an annual celebration of print culture, featuring thousands of magazines, books, and broadsides available free of charge; live readings and music; letterpress, offset, and paper-making demonstrations; and much more. This year’s Printers’ Ball is co-produced with Columbia College Chicago and the Center for Book & Paper Arts, and is set to take place in the landmark Ludington Building, former home to the American Book Company. Select events during the Printers’ Ball are being recorded for Chicago Public Radio’s Chicago Amplified.

Major collaborators for the fifth annual Printers’ Ball are the Alternative Press Center, the Center for Book & Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago, Chicago Amplified, Chicago Underground Library, CHIRP (Chicago Independent Radio Project), MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine, Newcity, Opium Magazine, Poetry magazine, Poetry Foundation, and the Student Affairs Offices of Columbia College Chicago. The Printers’ Ball extends special gratitude to Louis Glunz Beer, Inc., and Lagunitas, Hofbrau, Chimay, and Founders breweries for their generous support of the evening’s festivities.

More than 1,500 people annually attend what has become one of the largest celebrations of print culture in the country. This year, for the first time ever, the Printers’ Ball features publishers outside of Chicago, showcasing more than 200 local, national, and international literary organizations and the various ways they bring print to life.

Special Attractions:
* Free ink on paper, including magazines, books, broadsides, and more
* Hidden treasures
* Printers’ Ball Library, hosted by the Alternative Press Center and the Chicago Underground Library, which invites you to spend quality time with quality print. Visit the library to browse all publications; learn more about your discoveries, what you might have missed, and where to find it; and connect directly with publishers and organizations through our one-stop mailing list and subscription kiosks.
* Busy Beaver ButtonOmatic
* Papermaking and book-binding demonstrations
* Letterpress, offset, and rubber stamp printing demonstrations
* Silkscreen demonstrations by Anchor Graphics
* Minibook-making lessons from Featherproof Books
* Ratso from Chic-A-Go-Go
* Live interviews by Chicago Subtext’s Amy Guth

Music:
* CHIRP (Chicago Independent Radio Project) presents: Smashing Time DJs Carrie Weston and Mary Nisi
* Baby Alright: All-star Chicago funk-soul-boogie cover project featuring Marvin Tate (vocals), Dan Bitney (drums), LeRoy Bach (guitar), Matt Lux (bass), and Toby Summerfield (guitar)

First Floor Features
* Live showcase of out-of-town publications, featuring Joe Meno reading for McSweeney’s, Nick Twemlow for jubilat, Eula Biss for Iowa Review, John Beer for The Hat, and Caitlin O’Connor Creevy for Open City, accompanied by Philip Jenks, poet and drummer for the Howling Hex
* Opium Magazine’s Literary Death Match, hosted by Tod Zuniga, featuring: Michael Czyzniejewski for ACM (Another Chicago Magazine), Spencer Dew for THE2NDHAND, Gabe Gudding for MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine, Paul Killebrew for Canarium Books, Adam Levin for Ninth Letter, Simone Muench for Poetry magazine, Kathleen Rooney for Switchback Books, Febronio Zatarain for contratiempo; Celebrity judges Barry Hite, Jay Ryan, and Nami Mun

Eighth Floor Features
* Nearly forty readers over six hours, representing 24 Chicago reading series, literary organizations, and publications. All evening, some of Chicago’s finest and most innovative readers will be on the eighth floor of the Luddington Building, including:
* Columbia College Chicago showcase of in-house talent
* Bilingual readings presented by the Guild Complex and Palabra Pura
* Chicago reading series face-off, hosted by Quickies’ Mary Hamilton and Lindsay Hunter
* Printers’ Pageant: Chicago Poetry Cram hosted by CJ Laity
* Featured organizations include: Danny’s, Dreaded Biscuits, Elbowing off the Stage, The Encyclopedia Show, f magazine, Guild Complex’s Palabra Pura, Hair Trigger, Homolatte, Mandorla, Mental Graffiti, Off the Stage, Quickies, Ray’s Reading Series, recroom, Red Rover, Reading Under the Influence, 2nd Story, Second City Third Person, Silver Tongue, South Loop Review, Story Week Reader, Sunday Night Sex Show, and Thumbs and Knuckles
* Featured readers include: Toby Bengelsdorf, Daniel Borzutzky, Michael H. Brownstein, Chris Bower, N. Barry Carver, Casey J. Bye, Brian Costello, Sheila Donovan, Kate Dougherty, Cynthia Gallaher, Daniel Godston, Miki Howald, Lillian Jordan, Lesley Kartali, Donna Kiser, Ish Klein, Michael Landau, James Lower, Shontay Luna, Adam McOmber, Santiago Martinez, Jill Neumann, Coya Paz, Johanny Vazquez Paz, Donna Pecore, Paul Martinez Pompa, Dred Sista Ren, Jacob Saenz, Cathleen Schandelmeier, Ashley Schroeder, Megan Stielstra, Colleen Storiz, Erin Teegarden, Angeline Tomcik, Andi White, Judy Wiker, Christopher Williams, and Sid Yiddish

Participating literary organizations include: ACM (Another Chicago Magazine) • A Day in the Air • After Hours • ALARM • Alimentum—The Literature of Food • Allbook Books • Alternative Press Center • American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons • The American Prospect • Anchor Graphics • Anti Gravity Surprise • A Public Space • AREA Chicago • Artful Dodge • Artifice Magazine • The Publications Department of the Art Institute of Chicago • Aufgabe • Bateau Press • Beard of Bees Press • Bellevue Literary Review • The Bird Machine • Black Lodge Press • Black Ocean • Black Swan Press • Book/Mark • Build Shop, Columbia College Chicago • BULL: Fiction for Thinking Men • Busy Beaver Buttons • CALYX Books • CALYX Journal • Canarium Books • Cannot Exist • Carpe Articulum Literary Review • Casagrande Press • Cave Wall • Charles H. Kerr • Chicago Amplified • Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs Publishing Industry Programs • Chic-A-Go-Go • Chicago INNERVIEW Magazine • Chicago Literary Scene Examiner • Chicago Magazine • ChicagoPoetry.com • Chicago Reader • Chicago Review • Chicago Subtext • Chicago Underground Library • CHIRP • Cider Press Review • Columbia College Library • Columbia Poetry Review • The Common Review • Conclave: A Journal of Character • Confrontation • contratiempo • Court Green • Cram • Creative Nonfiction • Crosshair Press • Dalkey Archive Press • dancing girl press • Danny’s • Demeter Press • Draft Magazine • Dreaded Biscuits • The East Village Inky • Elbowing off the Stage • Eleven Eleven • The Encyclopedia Show • Etruscan Press • Euphony • Exact Change Press / Exact Change Only • Eye Rocket Books • f magazine • featherproof books • Fence • Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College • Free Lunch • Fresh Squeezed Poetry • Front Forty Press • Gapers Block • Geneva13 Press • Georgia Review • Gival Press • Great Books Foundation • The Green Lantern • Guild Complex • The Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing • Hair Trigger • Harold Arts Residency Quarterly • The Hat • Hayden’s Ferry Review • Haymarket Books • HERE • High Desert Journal • Homolatte • Hotel Amerika • Hourglass Books • House Press • The International Socialist Review • In These Times • The Iowa Review • JAB (Journal of Artists’ Books) • Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering • Journal of Ordinary Thought • Jubilat • Lake Claremont Press • Les Figues Press • Lilies and Cannonballs Review • Lilith Magazine • Literago • Literal Latte • Literary Deathmatch • Litmus Press / Ether Sea Projects • Little Bang • Lumpen • The MacGuffin, Schoolcraft College • MAKE: A Chicago Literary Magazine • Mandorla • McSweeney’s • Mental Graffiti • Mermaid Tenement Press • Mildred Pierce Zine • Milk Machine • Milk Magazine • Milkweed Editions • The Missouri Review • The Mom Egg • Moonlit • Mother Jones • Mule Magazine • Muumuu House • The New Anonymous • Newcity • The New York Quarterly • Ninth Letter • Noemi Press • Northwestern University Press • Off Campus Writers Workshop • One Story • Open Books • Open City • Open Letter Books • Opium Magazine • Orange Alert Press • Other Voices Books • The Oxford American • Painted Bride Quarterly • Palabra • Palabra Pura • paper egg books • Platypus Review • Playboy • Please Don’t • Poetry • Polyphony • The Point • PRA Publishing • Proximity • The Puddin’head Press • Puerto del Sol • Quickies • Quimby’s • Ray’s Reading Series • RCP Publications • Reading Under the Influence • reconstruction room • Red Rover • Redivider • Revolution Books • Rhino/The Poetry Forum • Ribald Crow Powder Magazine • Rock for Reading • Roctober Magazine • Rose Metal Press • The Saint Ann’s Review • Salamander • The Same • Sara Ranchouse Publishing • Say What Magazine • 2nd Story • Second City Third Person • Silver Tongue • Smartish Pace • Snow City Arts • Soberscove Press • Socialist Worker newspaper and SocialistWorker.org • South Loop Review • Spinning Jenny • Spire Press • Spoon River Poetry Review • Stampland • STOPSMILING BOOKS • Story Week Reader • Strange Times Press • Sunday Night Sex Show • Switchback Books • Sycamore Review • Tampa Review • Tarpaulin Sky Press • The Taylor Trust: Poetry & Prose • Tebot Bach • THE2NDHAND • Think Journal • Third World Press • Thumbs and Knuckles • Time Out Chicago • TriQuarterly • Try Less Hard • Tuesday; An Art Project • Two Lines • Two With Water • Ugly Duckling Presse • University of Tampa Press • UNSCENE • upstreet • Venus Zine • Versal • virtual artists collective • Washington Square Review • West Branch • Woman Made Gallery • Writer’s Studio (University of Chicago – Graham School of General Studies) • Wurlington Press / Build Your Own Chicago • You Are Beautiful • Young Chicago Authors

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IN CHICAGO

TIKI EXPRESS
Monday, 13 July 2009, 8 PM
@ Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont

This THE2NDHAND-curated installment of Brandon Weatherbee's new Monday-night series at the excellent brain, home to our 2004 "Let Slip the Pies of War" reading, which lives on quite nicely in my memory, will FEATURE:
**ACM fiction editor Jacob Knabb
**Heather Palmer
**Paul Lask
**Mairead Case **& the Pitchfork Battalion, rendering this fine vehicle with THE2NDHAND editor C.T. Ballentine as his dirty-South coeditor Todd Dills, Brandon Weatherbee as Dominique Holmes, and some sort of potted plant (preferably a fern) or cardboard flamingo, as it were, as Ballentine.

Hope to see you there.

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IN ATLANTA:

THE DOLLAR STORE
Thursday, 8 July 2009, 9 PM
Kavarna, 707 E Lake in Decatur

This stop on the Chicago-based Dollar Store readings series' summer tour will feature THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills, Blake Butler, Aaron Burch, Zach Dodson, Mary Hamilton, Jamie Iredell, Amelia Gray AND Jac Jemc

IN MONTGOMERY, ALA.:
THE2NDHAND @ the Alabama Book Festival

Saturday, April 18, 2009, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
WHERE: Old Alabama Town, Montgomery, Ala.
www.alabamabookcenter.org
FREE

We'll be tabling at this festival with our latest issue, THE2NDHAND soap, and various books, and the lovely and wonderful Susannah Felts will be giving a reading from her This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record, released last year by Featherproof.

IN TUSCALOOSA, ALA.:
THE2NDHAND @ the DC/DC Spring Crafts Fair
Sunday, April 19, 2009, in conjunction with the Tuscaloosa Arboretum's spring plant sale
Tuscaloosa Arboretum, under the pavilion.

We'll be tabling at DC/DC with our latest issue, THE2NDHAND soap, and various books.

IN BIRMINGHAM:
THE2NDHAND No. 31 release party and reading:

Friday, March 20, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Greencup Books, 105 Richard Arrington Blvd. S, Birmingham, Ala.
www.greencupbooks.org
FREE

FEATURING:
Peepshow Girl with her story about a graduate research project as a phone-sex operator
Nadria Tucker
Alec Niedenthal
and THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills and Susannah Felts with "Facebook Fictions"

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IN CHICAGO:
Featherproof Books AWP afterparty:

Friday, February 13, 2009, 8 p.m.
Where: The Beat Kitchen, 2100 W Belmont www.beatkitchen.com
Cost: $8
21+

The Dollar Store, 8 p.m.:

Jonathan Messinger
THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills
Christian Tebordo
Patrick Somerville

Dueling Release Party, 9:15 p.m.:

Kyle Beachy's The Slide (Book Release & Reading)
Amelia Gray's AM/PM (Book Release & Reading)
Chris Bower
Zach Plague

Music, 10:30 p.m.:

(un)Bound Stems
Serengeti

AM/PM: If anything's going to save the characters in Amelia Gray's debut from their troubled romances, their social improprieties, or their hands turning into claws, it's a John Mayer concert tee. In AM/PM, Gray's flash-fiction collection, impish humor is on full display. Tour through the lives of 23 characters across 120 stories full of lizard tails, Schrödinger boxes and volcano love. Follow June, who wakes up one morning covered in seeds; Leonard, who falls in love with a chaise lounge; and Andrew, who talks to his house in times of crisis. An intermittent love story as seen through a darkly comic lens, Gray mixes poetry and prose, humor and hubris to create a truly original piece of fiction.

Amelia Gray’s writing has appeared in The Onion, American Short Fiction, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, DIAGRAM, and Caketrain, among others. Her work has been chosen as the finalist for McSweeney’s Amanda David Highwire Contest and DIAGRAM’s Innovative Fiction Contest. AM/PM is her first book. She currently lives in Austin, Texas.

The Slide: At once an offbeat love story, a moving portrait of a family in crisis, and a darkly funny American comedy, Kyle Beachy's arresting debut novel—written in prose that is swift, stunning, and sweet—heralds the arrival of a remarkable new voice in fiction. Kyle Beachy has woven a uniquely affecting story of the long and hard, then quick and hard, struggle to grow up.

Kyle Beachy’s writing has appeared in THE2NDHAND, Otium and as a featherproof mini-book. He teaches at the School of the Art Institute, and lives in Chicago.

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Chris Bower’s fiction and poetry has appeared in GetUnderground, Annalemma, and here at THE2NDHAND. He has been awarded the Folger Adam J. Prize for Poetry and was the ficiton editor of the University of IL Montage Poetry and Fiction literary arts magazine. He founded and hosts the Ray's Tap Reading Series in Logan Square and hosts Chinaski's weekly literary open mic in Bucktown.

Todd Dills edits THE2NDHAND and lives in Birmingham, AL, after eight years of publishing from Chicago. Dills edited in 2004 a best-of collection called All Hands On: A THE2NDHAND Reader, and he's the author of a chapbook of short stories, For Weeks Above the Umbrella, and the novel Sons of the Rapture, out from Featherproof Books in 2006.

Zach Dodson’s hybrid typo/graphic novel, boring boring boring boring boring boring boring, came out last year under the nom de plume Zach Plague. He is co-publisher of Featherproof Books. His design appears at Bleached Whale Design, and The Show N’ Tell Time Talk Show. His writing has appeared in The2ndHand, Opium, Take the Handle, and Proximity Magazine. His design has appeared in MAKE Magazine, Punk Planet, Resonance, Mule, and Bagazine.

Abraham Levitan is the frontman for Chicago outfit Baby Teeth.

Jonathan Messinger is the author of the short story collection, Hiding Out, which was named one of the best books of 2007 by the Omaha World-Herald. He co-publishes Featherproof Books, a small press publishing novels and downloadable mini-books. His fiction has most recently appeared in Other Voices and Awake! an anthology from Soft Skull Press, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Patrick Somerville's first book of stories, Trouble, was published in September of 2006 (Vintage) and named 2006's Best Book by a Chicago Author by Time Out Chicago. His writing has appeared in One Story, Epoch, GQ, Esquire, and Best American Nonrequired Reading, and his first novel, The Cradle, will be published by Little, Brown in March of 2009. This spring he will also be serving as the Simon Blattner Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Northwestern University.

Christian TeBordo is the author of three novels: We Go Liquid, The Conviction & Subsequent Life of Savior Neck and Better Ways of Being Dead. His first story collection, The Awful Possibilities, will be published by featherproof books in the fall.

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IN CHICAGO:
Friday, Jan. 9, 2009
7 PM, Quimby's Books
1854 W. North Ave.

THE2NDHAND Broadsheet No. 30 released
Marking our 9th anniversary, THE2NDHAND's 30th installment, GIVES BIRTH TO MONSTERS by Chicago-based fiction writer and poet Spencer Dew, is a tale of one man's small heartbreak, the backdrop to a contemporary landscape of well-meaning but ultimately shallow political activism, fractured communicative lines, and more ultimately enduring drives toward total inebriation. In classic Dew fashion, he'll have you laughing all the way to brink of the void. Dew is the author of the short-story collection Songs of Insurgency (2008).

Appearing at this reading/celebration with him will be frequent THE2NDHAND contributor Jill Summers, new face on our pages Y.Z. Chin (formerly managing editor of Chicago-based Rhino magazine), and the ever-abundant C.T. Ballentine, our Chicago-based editorial force.

It's FREE, and supported in part by a grant through Poets & Writers Inc. give by an anonymous donor.

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IN BIRMINGHAM

Greencup Book and Zine Fair coming Nov. 14-15

For more info
www.greencupbooks.com | Mike Tesney | mike@greencupbooks.org

Greencup Books, Bare Hands Gallery & The2ndHand are pleased to announce the birth of the Greecup Book, Zine and Music Fair, featuring local and regional writers, literary magazines, small presses, comics artists, record labels and bands, zine makers and handmade book artists, with a live performance component as well. The fair will be held Fri.-Sat. November 14-15.

The fair will be held at Greencup and the Bare Hands Art Gallery, 105 Richard Arrington Jr Blvd South, Birmingham, Alabama. Aside from our participants' info and merch tables, the Greencup fair will feature readings from participating authors along with music each night from various outfits. The Friday night event with feature a welcome party/meet-greet for participating vendors, then a free reading put on by THE2NDHAND, followed by music. Saturday, readings will occur periodically during the fair, followed by performances and an afterparty at the bookstore.

Participating organizations include:

Jonathan Purvis Photography
My Small Diary/Not My Small Diary
Cigar Box Records
Howling Pig
The Left Hand/Sinister Compendium
Cassie Sneider
Daisy Winfrey
THE2NDHAND
Cave9
Sounds From the Pocket
Youthserve
Hen House Distro
Half Empty Glass
No Colony
Dead Flowers Commune
Al Burian and Burn Collector
Red Mountain Review
Hollow Bush
Brooke Lancaster
4:33 Publishing/ Zero Talent Recordings
New Dawn Unlimited
Sky Art
Chris Waugh
Thorsby Press
Montano Knudsen
Sweet Candy
Might Could Press
National Lawyers Guild
Alexandra Hancock
Stephen Guilik
Superspandious
Terrabull Creations
Tina Harris
October Famine
Order of the Gauntlet
American Puberty
Page 31
Mc Hyland
Ezell
+ more

READINGS
FRIDAY NIGHT, 7:30 PM
Burn Collector writer Al Burian (from Chicago)
Atlanta No Colony editor Blake Butler
THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills and contributor Susannah Felts
Red Mountain Review editor T.J. Beitelman

MUSIC

FRIDAY NIGHT, 9 PM
yakuza dance mob
the necklaces
pony bones
kate taylor
eiliyas

SATURDAY THROUGHOUT THE DAY
giant killer
project c
prom j and the earthquakes
J'mel Davies

SATURDAY NIGHT
David Black
William Masters
Dua Dacryops
Joan of Arkansas
Tree Creatures
The Subliminator

Participation is encouraged of organizations with various print projects from Alabama, neighboring states, and beyond. Birmingham-based indie record labels, likewise, are encouraged to participate. Registration ($15) for vendors includes a roughly five-by-three-foot table to be set up Friday or, alternatively, early Saturday -- it's free if you supply your own table, but space is limited; in any case, registration deadline is October 31st.

Click here for a registration form that can be filled out and mailed or dropped off @ Greencup Books.

For further info about registration, contact Mike Tesney @ mike@greencupbooks.org.

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IN CHICAGO

Sunday, Nov. 2, 7:30 PM
@Skylark, 2149 S. Halsted
Chicago

THE2NDHAND Mixtape -- A release party for our 29th broadsheet, Mixtape-themed, and featuring stories about songs read and written by:
Boring boring boring... author Zach Plague
THE2NDHAND's Chicago editor C.T. Ballentine
Poetry mag assistant editor Fred Sasaki
The illustrator, and illustrious, and illest, Jill Summers
The trumper Mr. Kyle Beachy
Chicago scribe Dominique Holmes
and more.

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IN CHICAGO

Book release extravaganza for DEMONS IN THE SPRING
Thursday, Sept. 25, 7 p.m.
Quimby's
1854 W. North Ave.
Chicago, IL

Joe Meno's new collection of twenty short stories features illustrations from twenty groundbreaking artists--Charles Burns, Nick Butcher, Jay Ryan, Anders Nilsen, and many more. Proceeds from the book go to benefit 826 CHI, a tutoring center on Milwaukee Avenue. He will be accompanied by Abraham Levitan of the amazing Chicago group, Baby Teeth.

Also apeparing: Arthur Nersesian, author of The Fuck-Up, with his latest, The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx.

And a slide show from graphic novelist Anders Nilsen as well as a signing by other Chicago artists from the book.

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In BIRMINGHAM

Friday, 5 Sept 2008, 7:30 PM
@ ARTWALK, Outdoor tent on the parking lot next to What's on Second, 2nd Ave N/23rd Street, Birmingham

THE2NDHAND’s 29th issue builds on a concept we introduced to the Chicago reading/performance scene in July 2007 -- the Mixtape reading, wherein several writers cast short-short stories inspired by pop songs. The concept evolved after several incarnations of its live component to include a published series here at the2ndhand.com and, now, a broadsheet. The latest in our long-running print series will includes contest winners Nadria Tucker and Emily Self, both past contributors to THE2NDHAND and both writing from Birmingham (Tucker actually won our 2007 contest), and a contribution from Zach Plague, author of the art-school satire/adventure novel Boring boring boring..., out now from Chicago’s Featherproof Books. All three will appear at the reading Friday, Sept. 5, attendant to the great Art Walk fest in downtown Birmingham. Plague’s book will be available.

Of the other readers, comics maven and fiction writer Cassie Sneider, a recent contributor to the online magazine, makes the trek up from Austin, Texas. Michael Tesney is a longtime dramatist of the experimentalist-absurdist variety, often, who will be offering a dramatic cutup of Joy Division lyrics, performed with a small cast. Tesney also manages the co-op bookshop Green Cup on 21st St. in Birmingham. Stanley Holditch is a Birmingham institution, the man responsible for the great Fleabomb indie-culture blog and info site. Finally, Todd Dills is the editor of THE2NDHAND and author of the novel Sons of the Rapture. For more about Artwalk, visit birminghamartwalk.org.

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Following in ATLANTA on Sunday, Sept. 7, 8 PM @ Wonderroot (wonderroot.org), 982 Memorial Drive SE
Readings by Zach Plague, THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills and Blake Butler
And music by Sleep Therapy (www.myspace.com/sleeptherapyatl) and Lyonnais (http://www.myspace.com/teamlyonnais).

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IN CHICAGO:
THE PRINTER'S BALL, brought to you once again by Poetry Magazine and over 100 Chicago lit organizations, including this magazine. Enjoy.

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IN BIRMINGHAM
Tuesday, July 29, 7 PM
@ Bottle Tree, 3719 3rd Ave S, Birmingham
Gorsky Press and Razorcake cofounder Sean Carswell hits town on tour with his new novel, Train Wreck Girl.

Click here for the flyer.

Joining him will be Birmingham's own Jim Murphy, a poet and professor of English at Montevallo University; Atlanta fiction writer Blake Butler (editor of the Lamination Colony); and Birmingham-based THE2NDHAND editor and novelist (Sons of the Rapture) Todd Dills. This is functionally the release party for our 28th broadsheet. Join us, folks

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IN CHICAGO:
Thursday, June 26, 8 PM, $6
THE2NDHAND No. 28 release party -- it's a wedding!
@ Ronny's, 2103 N. California

Featuring:
Lauren Pretnar
Chris Bower
Jill Summers & Susan Kirkwood
Fred Sasaki & Jacob Knabb
Kyle Beachy
and the music of the Spectacles (myspace.com/thespectacles)
Hosted by C.T. Ballentine (all-star!)

Sole purveyors of La Literatura del Estupidismo, THE2NDHAND celebrates the release of its 28th broadsheet, featuring the exquisite "Small Country," penned by Lauren Pretnar -- a tale of wedding celebrations and all their attendant intoxicated soul searching. In honor, Ronny's will be redone in a ramshackle, shotgun wedding fashion, complete with bratty nephews and weeping spinster aunts. Chicago Editor C.T.Ballentine will preside over the ceremony, alongside Fred Sasaki (associate editor of Poetry magazine) Jacob Knabb (of ACM), Jill Summers, Chris Bower and our maid of honor, Lauren Pretnar. In a bizarre turn, the bridal shower will occur immediately after the ceremony and involve the drenching of various peoples with $2 cans of PBR, perhaps. You are cordially invited...

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May 8, 2008

If you're anywhere near the Whitney museum in NYC tonight (Thursday), stop in a little after 5 p.m. and listen to the "Reverie" radio show, curated by Mairead Case and featuring a contribution from THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills, the folks at the great Terry Plumming, Anne Elizabeth Moore with Hartswell Foundation students, old friend Jerry Boyle, and many more. It'll be streamed concurrently from freeradiosaic.org.

REVERIE: SOUND

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UPCOMING in ALABAMA:

Thursday, April 10, 6-8 PM, Susannah Felts is appearing at the Little Professor Book Center in Homewood, Ala., for a reading/signing.
Little Professor Book Center, 2717 18th St. South,

And Saturday, April 18, THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills (Sons of the Rapture) and contributor Susannah Felts (with the new This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record) read as part of the University of Montevallo Literary Festival in Montevallo, south of Birmingham, Ala. The featured reader?: the great Barry Hannah at 5:30 PM.

Join Dills, Felts and fellow Birmingham-based writer Tina Harris @ 208 Comer on the grounds of the University at 2:30 PM. Full schedule here.

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UPCOMING IN CHICAGO
Susannah Felts' This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record
released March 30, 2008. 7 PM
The Hideout, 1354 W Wabansia, Chicago
$5

With readings by: Susannah Felts
J. Adams Oaks
Patrick Somerville
Eileen Favorite

And music from:
Judson Claiborne
and The Pawners' Society

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UPCOMING IN CHICAGO:
Chicago editor C.T. Ballentine will be tabling with THE2NDHAND at
The Write Off Record and Zine Fair Saturday, 15 March 2008, 1 to 5 PM
@ People Projects
2129 N. Milwaukee
Chicago, IL / 1 to 5 PM
This event brings together record and zine makers and publishers to offload free stuff on the Chicago public. Perfect for us: THE2NDHAND's always free.

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UPCOMING IN CHICAGO:
THE2NDHAND No. 27 released
Saturday, 15 March 2008, 7 PM
Quimby's
1854 North Ave.
Chicago
with readings by Jill Summers, Lauren Pretnar, Ling Maand Chris Bower.
Hosted by the inimitable C.T. Ballentine

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UPCOMING IN BIRMINGHAM:
a release party for

This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record
a novel by Susannah Felts, Featherproof Books 2008
Thursday, 28 Feb, 7 PM
Bottletree
3719 3rd Ave S
Birmingham
readings by Felts, Birmingham resident, Nashville native and Chicago dreamer, Bham poet Chris Lawson, and a trio of THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills, contributor Nadria Tucker (winner of our 2007 Art Walk competition) and poet Emily Self as Pitchfork Battalion. This is also a celebration of THE2NDHAND's 27th broadsheet, featuring "A Little Money Down" by Washington-based Doug Milam.

Music by Jody Nelson of Birmingham's Through the Sparks

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CHICAGO, take heed (click on the flyer image below for a pdf you can print and share), release reading December 29:

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THE2NDHAND: Mixtape Reading
Brooklyn No. 2

Saturday, October 20th
Doors at 7:00 PM, show at 7:30 PM
FREE

Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Readings by: Jeb Allured, Ellie Kemper, Tao Lin, Nina Sharma, Mark Snyder, Heather Kristin

THE2NDHAND Mixtape is a simple concept: very short stories about songs. Obscure Israeli pop songs, warped art rock ditties and, um, Billy Joel -- our writers do it all. So set your brains on shuffle, come and enjoy.

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UPCOMING IN CHICAGO:
Home on the Range

Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Black Rock Bar
Damen and Addison
8 PM
From Dude Ranches to John Wayne to doctors' sons dressing up like wranglers on the Lower East Side, a magical fascination with cowboys pervades the current cultural climate. THE2NDHAND editor C.T. Ballentine invites you to the Reconstruction Room Reading Series for a night of prose, poetry and audio drama centered on both the cowhands of yesteryear and their contemporary manifestations.

Readings by:
Amber Drea, Brandon Wetherbee, Emerson Dameron, Sarah Dodson, Eugenia Williamson, Fred Sasaki, Erin Teegarden, and C.T. Ballentine

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UPCOMING IN BROOKLYN:
The2ndHand Mixtape Reading: Stories about Songs, the 3rd installment in our Mixtape series of readings of shorts inspired by/about songs.
Thursday, October 4
8 PM
Sound Fix Records/Bar/Café
110 Bedford Ave @ North 11th
Brooklyn, NY
ALL AGES
Readings by: Sara Wintz, Taryn Rejholec, Luis Amate Perez, Tony O'Neill, Ellen Kennedy and Tobias Carroll. Hosted by The2ndHand Chicago editor Jeb Gleason-Allured...

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UPCOMING IN Chicago:

THE2NDHAND @ Quimby's, 1854 W. North Ave., Chicago, 14 Sept 2007, 7 PM.

Joe Meno celebrates the paperback release of his first novel, Tender as Hellfire, revamped in the new Akashic edition, and THE2NDHAND art director Rob Funderburk hosts Meno, Gretchen Kalwinski, and THE2NDHAND FAQ editor Mickey Hess.

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UPCOMING IN New York City:

THE2NDHAND Mixtape NYC: Stories About Songs
8 PM, Sunday, 16 Sept 2007
@ The Edge Bar
95 E. 3rd St., Manhattan
Between 1st and 2nd Ave., F at 2nd Ave.

The reading will showcase stories written as part of our Mixtape series of pieces based on or about songs. Part of the Edge Series', the event will be hosted by Iris Blasi and Nina Sharma with THE2NDHAND editor Jeb Gleason-Allured. Readings by Eric Bland, Nathan Efferson, Joe Garden, Ellie Kemper, Ellen Kennedy, Ling Ma, Krista Knight, Heather Kristin, Luis Amate Perez, Sahar Rizvi, Deb Travis and Marti Trgovich. First 50 attendees get a free mix Cd of the songs that inspired the evening's stories. See the flyer for more.

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UPCOMING IN ATLANTA
7 PM, Sunday 9 September 2007
Acapella Books
484-C Moreland Ave.
Atlanta

FEATHERPROOF reunion away from home, ahoy! Jonathan Messinger (Hiding Out) and THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills (Sons of the Rapture make the jaunt to the ATL for this brief appearance.

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UPCOMING IN BIRMINGHAM:

THE2NDHAND @ ART WALK 2007
7 PM, Friday 7 September 2007
Omni Garage
2309 1st Ave N
Birmingham, AL

This reading, THE2NDHAND’s first-ever attendant to Birmingham’s yearly Art Walk festival, brings Chicago’s Jonathan Messinger to town. Messinger is the author of the short-story collection Hiding Out, his first book. The Chicago-based writer is also the books editor at Time Out Chicago and curator/host of the city’s influential Dollar Store series of readings. And we are proud to introduce Nadria Tucker, the Birmingham-based winner of our story contest held earlier in the summer, whose "318" joins Messinger’s "Big Doug Rides Torch" in the 25th edition of our literary broadsheet, which will be available. Joining the two will be T.J. Beitelman and THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills. Beitelman is a Birmingham resident, writer and instructor at the Alabama School of Fine Arts.

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Featherproof Books

Chicago duo Cup ’N String (myspace.com/cupnstring), on tour supporting much of nothing and everything, updates its "sea shanties for the American midwest" to the southern climes of our fine, magic, oh so magic, city. They’ll back and/or interrupt (whatever the case may be) readings by Chicago scribe C.T. Ballentine, whose membership in their ranks we shall not attempt to hide -- Ballentine’s novella FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE WAITS FOR A DATE was serialized this year in THE2NDHAND’s online mag; Birmingham's Michael Tesney, who edits the Lemon Puppy online mag in addition to working extensively in the dark theatrical arts; Todd Dills, Birmingham-based editor of the Chicago-born-and-half-based THE2NDHAND and author of the novel Sons of the Rapture; and Susannah Felts, Birmingham-based fiction writer extraordinaire -- her first novel, This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record (mm-hmm, Violent Femmes reference), is slated to be released by Featherproof Books in Feb 2008. Poster drawing by Birmingham-based viz artist Daisy Winfrey.

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CHICAGO: 3rd ANNUAL PRINTERS' BALL

Joining hands with over 80 other print & literary orgs, THE2NDHAND is proud to participate in this year's PRINTERS' BALL, erupting this Friday in the heart of Bridgeport:

FRIDAY JULY 20, 8PM-2AM
ZHOU B ART CENTER, 1029 W 35th, Chicago

Featuring a cross section of Chicago's publishing & literary community, this festival provides all area print organizations an opportunity to celebrate and showcase their work by distributing it for free -- go figure; books, journals, weeklies, magazines, papers, posters, you name it -- and any takers one to load up, see what's going on in town, meet & greet, or become a part of the literary community. If that's not enough, it's one hell of a party in a fantastic space with plenty of people and world-class art to look at, PLUS:

**Live music from Magic Lantern, Blue Ribbon Glee Club and The 1900s presented by Punk Planet & Venus Zine
**DJs from WLUW and Flameshovel Records
**Demonstrations by Gnoetry and Reading Under the Influence
**Installation by Chicago Underground Library
**Ample freebies & special-offer subscriptions
**Free all-beef hot dogs c/o Red Hot Chicago
**some kinda "Haunting Machine" by Terry Plumming

This event is hosted annually by Poetry Magazine. For more info, including a list of registered participants and rundown of the accompanying reading/performance series underway, go to printersball.org or fire an email over to editors@poetrymagazine.org.

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THE2NDHAND MIXTAPE: Stories About Songs
Wednesday, July 11th, 8:30 PM, $7
Ronny's, 2101 N. California, Chicago

Writers associated with THE2NDHAND and other Chicago lit organizations were asked to do this:
Write a story (fiction or non) based somehow on a single song.

The results will be performed tonight, with music by Big Time, the Beefheart-infused avant-cover band. Listen to em doing Break My Stride).

Stories by: Spencer Dew, Marti Trgovich, C.T. Ballentine, Eugenia Williamson, Fred Sasaki, Taryn Rejholec, Lou Perez, Mark Snyder, Susannah Felts, Pete CoCo, Amber Drea, Emerson Dameron, Ling Ma, Tobias Carroll, Todd Dills, and more!

* Everyone gets THE2NDHAND MIXTAPE curated by our authors.

The event will be hosted by THE2NDHAND's Chicago editor Jeb Gleason-Allured Mixtape

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THE2NDHAND: INSTALLMENT 24 and celebration of the terminus of the 7-part novella FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE WAITS FOR A DATE, published at THE2NDHAND.com over months and authored by the inimitable C.T. Ballentine.

Saturday, July 7th, 7:00 PM
Quimby's Books, 1854 W. North Ave, Chicago

Readings by: Patrick Somerville (featured in Installment 24), C.T. Ballentine, THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills, and LBJ (writer behind the zines "So Midwest" and "Truckface"). This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from an anonymous donor.

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Brad Vice is the author of The Bear Bryant Funeral Train, the now-infamous collection that won the Tuscaloosa native the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction in 2005 before being stripped away under allegations surfacing in the press of plagiarism and the book’s first edition being pulped. The book is back, out now from Montgomery-based River City Publishing in a new edition. C. Michael Curtis, fiction editor for the Atlantic Monthly, called Vice a "storyteller of imagination and resourcefulness, and a craftsman of considerable poise." He lives in Starkville, Mississippi, but will soon call Pilsen, Czech Republic, home. Jim Murphy is an associate professor of English at Montevallo and director of the university’s literary festival. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Southern Humanities Review, Brooklyn Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Cimarron Review, Fine Madness, The Alaska Quarterly Review, and other journals. He lives in Birmingham, as does Todd Dills, who founded the Birmingham and Chicago-based literary broadsheet and online magazine THE2NDHAND in 2000 in Chicago as a venue for new writing. The event celebrates in part its 24th print edition, featuring the work of Chicago writer Patrick Somerville (Trouble). Dills’s first novel, Sons of the Rapture, came out in 2006 from Chicago-based Featherproof Books. Punk Planet called it "wildly entertaining, technically astounding and moving to the last." Vice’s and Dills’s books will available for purchase.

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ONE NIGHT ONLY. A no-holds-barred reading, performance, screening, and demonstration of work about fighting. We will so kick your ass. Knells abound.

Don't miss SuperFight -- Wednesday, May 16 @ black rock, 3614 N Damen Ave, Chicago - (773) 348-4044 @ 8 p.m.

Curated by Fred Sasaki and starring *Meg Barboza *THE2NDHAND editor Jeb Gleason-Allured *Valerie Jean Johnson *Jacob S. Knabb *Jonathan Messinger *Fred Sasaki *Scott Stealey *Erin Teegarden *Nick Twemlow *Lina Ramona Vitkauskas *Eugenia Williamson

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Sunday, May 13, Noon - 4PM

With Quimby's Bookstore at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, 120 E. Chicago Avenue
THE2NDHAND tables in the Robert B. and Beatrice C. Mayer Education Center Lobby
Admission is free

Celebrate independent press in all forms, including zines, comics, graphic novels, artist books, and much more with readings, signings, and serious book shopping featuring emerging and well-known authors, artists, comics, and poets selected by Quimby's Bookstore and the MCA.

THE2NDHAND stalwarts Anne Elizabeth Moore (of Punk Planet, et al) and Al Burian (Burn Collector) will be presenting at 1:30 and 2:15 PM respectively.

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Join us at Quimby's, 1854 W North Ave, Chicago
7:30 PM, Wed 9 May 2006 for a reading by NYC's great Tao Lin, on tour with his new story collection "Bed" and novel "Eeeee Eee Eeee" (both from Melville House).

Read his blog. It is good.

Miranda July sez, "Tao Lin writes from moods that less radical writers would let pass - from laziness, from vacancy, from boredom. And it turns out that his report from these places is moving and necessary, not to mention frequently hilarious."

THE2NDHAND editor Jeb Gleason-Allured hosts.

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MONTGOMERY, AL:
Saturday, April 21, 9AM-4PM
Old Alabama Town, Montgomery
THE2NDHAND tables @ the Alabama Book Festival, a yearly event sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn U, likewise a project of the great Alabama Writers Forum (writersforum.org).

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THE2NDHAND vs NYC
@ Galapagos Art Space
Monday, 4/16
7.30 PM
FREE
70 North 6th St., Brooklyn

Drink and listen to stories! The2ndHand (Chicago + Birmingham) brings new writing for literate apes to New York. This latest installment features Tao Lin, author of the forthcoming volumes "Bed" and "Eeeee Eee Eeee" (both Melville House); Tobias Carroll (yourbestguess.com/scowl, East River Music Project, THE2NDHAND installment 23); and Kathryn Holmquist. Hosted by Chi editor Jeb Gleason-Allured. Burlesque to follow (seriously).

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AND in CHICAGO:
Sunday, April 15, 4PM
Quimby's, 1854 W. North Ave, Chicago

GEEK AND DORK TOUR, 2007
Featuring readings by
Todd Taylor (Los Angeles)
Jennifer Whiteford (Ottawa)
Mike Falloon (Brewster, NY)
Jonathan Messinger (Chicago)
hosted by THE2NDHAND (www.the2ndhand.com) designer/illustrator Rob Funderburk.

For one week in April, three intrepid folks are going to hop in a station wagon from Minneapolis to New York City and read from their collected works. They promise this: they’ll read some entertaining stories. It’s not slam poetry. It’s not dull. It’s good stories told well. They don’t barely bumble through them, they tell them.

Todd Taylor heads the Los Angeles-based Razorcake Magazine (www.razorcake.org) and co-heads Gorsky Press (www.gorskypress.org). Todd is also a regular contributor to Thrasher magazine, and has published work in Suburban Voice, Barracuda, Verbicide, Sleepwalk, and Maximum Rock'n'roll. In 2006, Razorcake became the United States' first bonafide non-profit independent music magazine and it is currently attempting to set up a community center in East Lost Angeles. Todd will be reading from his first work of fiction, Shirley Wins. Shirley Wins is a novel of not giving up and not giving in as seen through the eyes of a physics-obsessed grandmother and her punk music listening granddaughter who, against all odds, will create the pumpkin cannon to end all pumpkin cannons. Shirley Wins is the follow up to 2004's Born to Rock, a collection of in-depth interviews illuminating the often-misrepresented subculture of punk rock.

Jennifer Whiteford lives in the lovely and very cold city of Ottawa, Ontario, where she is a civil servant by day and a rock’n’roll, rollerderbying, novelist by night. Her first book, Grrrl, has been likened to "a killer mixtape from the early 1990s that you want to play over and over again." She has a shy dog and a very loud laugh. She takes no offence to being labeled as a geek and/or a dork. It has become par for the course. She has a blog, too: http://www.jenniferwhiteford.blogspot.com/

Mike Faloon has paid the bills as a DJ, dishwasher, drummer, and school teacher. He is the publisher of two zines (Go Metric, Zisk) and a contributing writer to magazines such as Chunklet, Razorcake, and Roctober. His work has also appeared in The Zine Yearbook (Soft Skull) and The Overrated Book (Last Gasp). His first book, a collection of essays and stories, is due out on Gorsky Press. He resides in Brewster, NY with his wife and daughter. www.gometric.typepad.com

Jonathan Messinger is the publisher behind Featherproof Books (www.featherproof.com) and books editor at Time Out Chicago.

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STORY WEEK FESTIVAL OF WRITERS ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AND ALUMNI READING
with Todd Dills reads from his novel, Sons of the Rapture, at the 7:30 PM reading following the 6 PM celebration. Sunday, 11 March 2007
SmartBar
3730 N. Clark
Chicago, FREE

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THE2NDHAND broadsheet installment 23 / THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills’ Sons of the Rapture release party and reading
Saturday 3 March 2007, 7 PM
Criminal Records, 466 Moreland Ave NE, Atlanta 404-215-9511 (criminal.com), FREE

With readings by THE2NDHAND contributors
Tobias Carroll (from Brooklyn)
C.T. Ballentine (from Chicago)
& THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills (from Birmingham)
also featuring Duck & Herring Co. editor Jamie Allen (from Atlanta)
Print the flyer here

Meanwhile, the same night, in Chicago:
with Jeb Gleason-Allured, Patrick Sommerville and Nic Pizzolatto Saturday, 3 March 2007, 8 PM
Quimby's
1854 W. North
Chicago, FREE

Patrick Somerville's first book of short stories, Trouble, came out in September of 2006 (Vintage). He lives in Chicago. Somerville's work will be featured in the next broadsheet, Installment 24.

Nic Pizzolatto is the author of the story collection Between Here and the Yellow Sea.

And in capital South HQ:
Sunday 4 March 2007, 7:30 PM
Speakeasy, 1920 3rd Ave. N, Birmingham 205-251-1506 (speakeasy1920.com), FREE

With readings by THE2NDHAND contributors
Tobias Carroll (from Brooklyn)
C.T. Ballentine (from Chicago)
& THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills (from Birmingham)
and with a performance by Delaine Derry Green (from Birmingham) of the comics annual Not My Small Diary.
Print the flyer here

Todd Dills founded THE2NDHAND in 2000 in Chicago as a venue for literary art accessible in a way that much of American literary culture, confined to the pages of bound academic productions, wasn’t. Together with cohorts in Chicago, he published THE2NDHAND as an online magazine and free broadsheet that came to be known and loved in Chicago and other locales the nation over. Late last year, he moved to Birmingham, bringing half of THE2NDHAND’s operations with him. This event is coincidental with a weekend of celebrations in locales as distant as Atlanta and Chicago kicking off the latest installment of the broadsheet, #23, which features "Spencer Hangs Over Newark," a short story by Brooklyn-based fiction writer and music journalist (for Copper Press, ARC and others) Tobias Carroll. The story follows a businessman on a cooked-up trip to New Jersey from a Plains state to return a wallet he stole in his youth to a convict just out of jail -- the moral dilemma in the undercurrent of protagonist Spencer’s story plays second fiddle to an examination of the fleeting bond between two minor criminals: view the pdf of the issue at www.the2ndhand.com/print23/the2ndhand_23.pdf.

Dills will read from his first novel, Sons of the Rapture, which Punk Planet called "wildly entertaining, technically astounding and moving to the last." Contact Dills for more information on the performers or to schedule an interview: todd@the2ndhand.com.

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THE2NDHAND @
Tuesday 16 January 6:30PM
Museum of Contemporary Art
220 E. Chicago Ave.
Chicago

THE2NDHAND hosts this month's installment of the "Literary Gangs of Chicago" at the MCA. Join host editor Jeb Gleason-Allured and these contributors for an hour of readings:.

Christopher Johnson
Spencer Dew
& poet Joel Craig, host of the Danny's Reading Series.

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THE2NDHAND @
Sun 17 December, 7PM
MoJoe's Hot House
2849 W. Belmont Ave.
Chicago

Join editor Jeb Gleason-Allured, Louisville writers Mike Smith and Jason Jordan, and Nick Ostdick (Sunbeams and Cigarettes) for this multiple book-release reading (Jordan and Smith both with new offerings: visit DecomP for info).

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THE2NDHAND Installment 22 release party
Fri 10 Nov, 7 PM
Quimby's Books
1854 W. North Avenue
Chicago, IL 60622

View the flyer here.

Featuring:
Mickey Hess, Al Burian, Jessica Elliott, Mike Smith, Jason Jordan

THE2NDHAND installment 22 features "Ghost Walk," by Mickey Hess, a tale of ghosts and fondue (with an appendix FAQ: Hess is the creator of THE2NDHAND FAQ form). Part love letter to the author’s wife, part examination of memory and time and their muddying of the human present, the story encapsulates Hess’s often wonderfully schizophrenic satirical/personal approach to writing. Hess is the author of Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory, a memoir, in addition to numerous short works featured frequently in THE2NDHAND and other magazines. He teaches at Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ, where he recently moved from Louisville, KY, and is the editor of Greenwood Press’s forthcoming two volume Icons of Hip-hop, due Spring 2007. LA-based Gorsky Press will publish his new collection, Someone Has Plagiarized Faulkner, the following fall. This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc, through a grant it has received from an anonymous donor.

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Todd Dills's "Sons of the Rapture" book tour: With Joe Meno (The Boy Detective Fails) and Mickey Hess
**CLEVELAND Mon Aug. 21, 7PM, Mac's Backs, 1820 Coventry Rd, Cleveland Hts, 216-321-BOOK | flyer pdf
**PITTSBURGH Tue Aug. 22, 7PM, Artists Image Resource, 518 Foreland St., 412-321-8664 | flyer pdf
**NEW YORK CITY Wed Aug. 23, 7PM, Bluestockings, 172 Allen St., 212-777-6028 | flyer pdf
**WASHINGTON, D.C. Thu Aug. 24, 7PM, Olsson's (Dupont Circle), 1307 19th St. NW, 202-785-1133 | flyer pdf
**PHILADELPHIA Fri Aug. 25, 7PM, Robin's Bookstore, 108 S. 13th St., 215-567-2615 | flyer pdf

With Al Burian, writer behind the Burn Collector zine and THE2NDHAND's 19th installment, "Zangara"
**MINNEAPOLIS/ST PAUL Sat Sept 2, 7 PM, Arise Bookstore, 2441 Lyndale Ave. S. Minneapolis, 612-871-7110 (w/ Jonathan Messinger) | flyer pdf
**MADISON, WI Sun Sept 3, 7 PM, Indie Coffee, 1225 Regent St., 608-259-9621 (w/ Jonathan Messinger) | flyer pdf

**CHICAGO, IL Thu Sept 14, 7 PM, The Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia * With Joe Meno (The Boy Detective Fails), Al Burian, Kimberly Soo, and music by the Watchers and Pinebender SONS OF THE RAPTURE

With Al Burian and Jason Jordan (Powering the Devil's Circus)
**BLOOMINGTON, IN, Fri Sept 15, 7 PM, Boxcar Books, 310A Washington, 812-339-8710 | flyer pdf
**CINCINNATI, OH, Sat Sept 16, 8:30 PM, Hobo Books Café, 4040 Hamilton Ave, 513-542-2418 | flyer pdf
**LOUISVILLE, KY, Sun Sept 17, 4 PM, Carmichael's Books, 2720 Frankfort Avenue, 502-896-6950 | flyer pdf

With Joe Meno, Todd Taylor (Shirley Wins), and Mickey Hess
**CAMARILLO, CA Mon Oct 2, 7 PM, USC Channel Islands Science Auditorium, One University Drive | flyer pdf
**SAN JOSE Tue Oct 3, 7 PM, Gallery AD, 366 South 1st St, 408-271-5155
**DAVIS, CA Wed Oct 4, 10 PM-midnight, Delta of Venus, 122 B St, 530-753-8639 | flyer pdf
**SEATTLE Thu Oct 5, 6-8 PM, Seattle Public Library, Capitol Hill Branch, 425 Harvard Ave East, 206-684-4715 | flyer pdf
**PORTLAND Fri Oct 6, 7 PM, Reading Frenzy, 921 Southwest Oak St, 503-274-1449
**SAN FRANCISCO Sat., Oct. 7, 7:30 PM, Books, Inc., 160 Folsom St, 415-442-0982 | flyer pdf
**PASADENA Sun Oct. 8, 4 PM, Vroman's Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd, 626-449-5320 | flyer pdf
**LOS ANGELES Sun Oct 8, 8 PM, Mountain Bar, 475 Gin Ling Way, 213-625-7500 | flyer pdf

**CHICAGO Thu Oct 12, 7 PM, Barbara's Bookstore, 1218 S. Halsted, 312-413-2665 |
featuring Jeb Gleason-Allured and Glenn Lester

**CHICAGO Thu Oct 19, 7 PM, Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln, 773-293-2665 |
featuring also Joe Meno

**ANN ARBOR, MI Fri Oct 20, 7 PM, Shaman Drum, 311 N. State, 734-662-7047 |
featuring also Paul A. Toth from Flint and Al Burian

**CHICAGO Mon Oct 23, 7 PM, Quimby's, 1854 W. North Ave., 773-292-0910 |
featuring also Jeb Gleason-Allured and Brian Costello: this reading is Dills's last as a Chicagoan -- appropriately enough at the great Quimby's bookstore -- before taking up residence in Magic City: Birmingham, AL. It's special, folks. Come out and bring yr friends and family. Dills and coeditor Gleason-Allured will detail THE2NDHAND's future along the way. AUDIO FROM THE ROAD:

FROM THE ROAD:

THE2NDHAND Audio: In Bloomington, IN, Clarence Hickman ascends to heaven, 15 Sept 2006:

The title piece, before a crowd at the Hideout 9.14.06, in Chicago:

And the opening of the book for a crowd at the Comix Revolution in Evanston, IL, 29 Jul 2006:

And a scene from the 2nd chapter, at AIR in Pittsburg:

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THE2NDHAND Goes to Evanston, or How to Cut Hair
Saturday 29 July 2006, 5 PM
Comix Revolution, 606 Davis, Evanston IL 60201
847.866.8659

With readings by:
Al Burian, of Burn Collector fame, Punk Planet's associate publisher and frequent contributor to these pages Anne Elizabeth Moore, and Todd Dills, who'll be reading from his new novel, Sons of the Rapture out from Featherproof Books September 1. The three will join forces as Pitchfork Battalion to round out the afternoon. Join us.

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The Printers' Ball, an event sponsored primarily by Poetry Magazine, takes place July 20, 2006, at the Double Door in Chicago. THE2NDHAND teamed up with them to produce a special issue of THE2NDHAND, which serves the dual purpose of announcing the event and being the very apotheosis of our kind of literary bravura. Check it out here. The event's half swap meet, half showcase, with dozens of Chicago magazines and lit organizations donating magazines, i.e. everything's free. Come out and talk to us.

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THE2NDHAND broasheet installment 20 release party and reading
Saturday 20 May 2006, 7:30 PM
Quimby's, 1854 W. North Avenue, Chicago, 773-392-0910, FREE

THE2NDHAND marks its sixth anniversary with a reading by Austin, Texas, writer Lauren Trojniar, whose work comprises the 20th edition of THE2NDHAND's lit broadsheet. Trojniar's "This Is How You Paint a House" is a tale exploring the moral bankruptcy at the heart of America's current cultural moment. When a Dominican-born housepainter is contracted by a suburban Pennsylvania couple to put a coat of American Anthem on their ranch-style home, their contractual agreement becomes something else entirely, the housepainter and man of the house reaching an unanticipated empathy -- something approaching camaraderie, even -- before their disparate backgrounds and temperaments intercede and send each back down his own well-trod path to drunken dissolution.

With readings by:
Lauren Trojniar
Gretchen Kalwinski
Susannah Felts
and Todd Dills

To view and print the flyer for distribution (we always appreciate any help you guys can give -- thanks!), click here.

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C.T. Ballentine's "Radio Plays" audio zine presents a new play by Ballentine, a THE2NDHAND contributor, and one adapted by THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills from his first novel, "Sons of the Rapture," due out in August/September from Featherproof Books, specifically a section during which Clarence Hickman takes the narrative reins to tell you of three Memphis hippies and their facilitation of Hickman's own personal Rapture. This Quimby's event commences on April Fool's Day and is something of a listening party, between readings by Dills, Banana King editor Amber Drea, and THE2NDHAND web submissions editor Jeb Gleason-Allured.

FREE, 7 PM, Sat 1 April 2006
Quimby's Books, 1854 W. North
773.342.0910

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FREE, Sunday, Feb 26, 8 PM, 21+
Skylark, 2149 S. Halsted, Chicago
312.948.5275 or 773.278.7034

THE2NDHAND Installment #19 is "Zangara," by Al Burian, a reimagining of Chicago mayor Anton Cermak's 1933 assassination by height-challenged bricklayer Guiseppe Zangara at an FDR campaign event in Miami. Told from the point of view of Cermak himself, the piece addresses Zangara's profound lack of height and Cermak's infrastructural legacy, legendary last words, rumored mob ties, and more, all in the trademark style Burian's developed over almost a decade writing and producing the Burn Collector zine. We convene at Skylark, at the corner of Halsted and the great road that bears Cermak's name, to celebrate. For this event, we'll focus on fiction imbued with just the twinge (or more) of authenticity by settings around historical events. This event was made possible in part by Poets & Writers magazine through a grant from an anonymous donor.

With readings by:
Al Burian
Brian Costello
Jeb Gleason-Allured
and Susannah Felts, C.T. Ballentine, and Todd Dills as Pitchfork Battalion

To be followed by a DJ set or two by the great Joe Meno, author of Hairstyles of the Damned, a novel, and most recently a collection of shorts called Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir.

To view and print the press release, click here.

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THE2NDHAND pretends to take over Jonathan Messinger's Dollar Store reading series:

Fri 6 Jan 2006, 7 PM
with readings by
our own FAQ editor and writer extraordinaire Mickey Hess
THE2NDHAND contributor Gretchen Kalwinski
and Chris Bower

@ The Hideout
1354 W. Wabansia, Chicago
$1

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Wed 21 Dec 2005, 8 PM
Launch event for poster artist Jay Ryan's new book and Joe Meno's short-story collection Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir, with additional readings by Todd Dills and music by PAL and Bottomless Pit.

@ The Hideout
1354 W. Wabansia, Chicago
$5

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THE LITERARY GANGS OF CHICAGO series at Puck's Cafe in the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago, welcomes THE2NDHAND on Tuesday, November 15, 6:30 PM. The Featured readers are:

Anne Elizabeth Moore
Mickey Hess
& Todd Dills
. and introducing Pitchfork Battalion

THE2NDHAND #18 marks a turn in the road for THE2NDHAND, Chicago’s literary broadside and online magazine for new writing. This issue -- PIE -- is the creation of Anne Elizabeth Moore, Punk Planet associate publisher and editor of a forthcoming comix-focused series in Houghton Mifflin’s "Best American" line. PIE demonstrates that local pie-baking competitions are not so much different in their administration from dirty American presidential elections, that there is a fount of information about pie in greater Americana that you have surely never had the privilege of knowing. Along the way you might take a multiple choice, short answer, or fill-in-the-blank quiz to pass the time like a good schoolgirl.

Anne Elizabeth Moore hails from the west coast, but now calls Chicago her home. She is the associate publisher of Punk Planet, likewise editor of a forthcomign comix-focused series of Houghton Mifflin’s "Best American" line. Her fiction has been featured at THE2NDHAND.com and she authored the most recent 18th installment of THE2NDHAND’s broadside series, PIE.

Mickey Hess, Louisville resident and writer and THE2NDHAND’s FAQ editor, is a prof at Indiana University Southeast and is author of a memoir, Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory, and two story collections. His sampling techniques are on offer at here.

Todd Dills is the editor and publisher of THE2NDHAND. He is author of a story collection, For Weeks Above the Umbrella, and a novel due out in 2006. He edited the 2004 best-of anthology All Hands On: A THE2NDHAND Reader and writes the biweekly WING & FLY @ THE2NDHAND.com.

Pitchfork Battalion is all of us, the gargantuan scope of humanity writ small. Assembled from disparate parts (originally Joe Meno, Sean Carswell, Mickey Hess, and Todd Dills), this shape-shifting entity throws down cadence and rhyme and story with a punch hitherto unseen in the lit world. Check out some of the group’s offerings here.

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LET SLIP THE PIES OF WAR or BUSH PIE or a PIE for BUSH
THE2NDHAND installment #18 release party @ the Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont, Chicago IL, 773.935.2118, 8:30 PM, Thursday 10 November 2005

At this event, an issue release coupled with a new series embarked upon by THE2NDHAND, windy city fiction writers will spin stories of life under the banner of neverending war. Call it the only Chicago antiwar reading series, if you like. Join us in protest of BushCo.’s shenanigans.

Among the featured readers this evening are:
Anne Elizabeth Moore, author of the brand-new 18th installment of THE2NDHAND’s broadsheet series, PIE. She is the associate publisher at Punk Planet, likewise editor of a forthcoming comix-focused series in Houghton Mifflin’s "Best American" line.

Mike Nowacki, writer and former soldier now against the war (he served as an interrogator in Baghdad until the end of his tour this year).

Daniel Buckman, a paratrooper back in the 80s and author of the novels Morning Dark, the Names of Rivers, and Water in Darkness.

Brian Costello, a frequent contributor to THE2NDHAND and author of the novel The Enchanters vs. Sprawlburg Springs, due out in December.

Todd Dills, THE2NDHAND’s editor, will host.

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PUNK PLANET transplendent issue 70 / THE2NDHAND broadsheet number 18 RELEASE PARTY
8:00 Saturday October 15
Indie Coffee: 1225 Regent Street, Madison, WI 33715
608.259.9621

With readings by Todd Dills and Anne Elizabeth Moore and:

Beer, coffee, foods, literature both high and low...so many things will be consumed and presented here as entertainment on this evening, it is sure to freak out your very soul in a way from which you may not ever fully recover.

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THE SCIENTISTS I HATE THE MOST:

Todd Dills, Sean Carswell, and Mickey Hess

Saturday, 24 Sept 2005
7 PM, Boxcar Books
301A S. Washington
Bloomington, IN

Sunday, 25 Sept 2005
8 PM, Molly Malone's
933 Baxter Avenue
Louisville, KY

Sean Carswell, author of "Drinks for the Little Guy" and "Glue and Ink Rebellion" (Gorsky Press) is a former carpenter, house-painter, dishwasher, pizza delivery boy, college professor, waiter, bartender, warehouse clerk, junior high school teacher, and grunt in a various assortment of construction jobs. Currently, he ekes out a living as a co-founder/editor of Razorcake magazine. His fiction and poetry has appeared in several literary journals over the past ten years. He also has been a staff writer for Flipside and Ink 19. Carswell is a regular contributor to Clamor Magazine, and he has a bi-monthly column in Razorcake. He often lives in cartoons. For more info: razorcake.com/gorskypress

Mickey Hess lives in Louisville, Kentucky, city of Colonel Sanders' grave and the KFC world headquarters. Author of "Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory", "Nobody Likes a Smartass", and "El Cumpleanos de Paco", Mickey is proud to be included in the forthcoming McSweeney's Humor Anthology. He teaches writing at Indiana University Southeast. For more info: mickeyhess.net.

Todd Dills is the editor of THE2NDHAND, where he writes a biweekly column on books, Chicago, activism, and the world: WING & FLY.

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Chicago release event for Paul A. Toth's new novel, FISHNET, with THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills, ThisISGrand.org's Jonathan Messinger, and Toth.

THUR 15 September 2005, 8:30 PM
@ the Hungry Brain
2319 W. Belmont, Chicago IL
773-935-2118
Pay What You Can

Paul A. Toth's new novel Fishnet (Bleak House) tells the story of an aging couple on the path toward dissolution. On Toth's only Chicago stop on his book tour, he joins forces with THE2NDHAND, Chicago lit broadsheet to which he's a contributor, for a night of readings at the Hungry Brain. See his web site: netpt.tv.

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THE2NDHAND presents:
Mickey Hess (genius, head)
Jonathan Messinger (roll that shit, light that shit...)
Daniel Buckman (psychopathic thinker)

SAT 10 September 2005, 7:30 PM
> @ Quimby's
1854 W. North, Chicago IL
FREE

To view the press release, click here.

THE2NDHAND IN NC

[starring]

Todd Dills (chic.il)
Susannah Felts (chic.il)
Eric Amling, editor of Raleigh, NC's Optical Oak
& Chapel Hill author Rafael Aviles

7 PM, Wed 13 July 2005
@ The Internationalist Bookstore
405 W. Franklin
Chapel Hill, NC
919-942-1740

Check out the press release here.

THE FALCONER IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE FALCONER

THE2NDHAND presents broadsheet installment #17, the last of its broadsheets-as-you-know-them. Hereafter, they'll highlight the work of a single author, but for this last one, we brought in the big guns: Joe Meno, M. Lynx Qualey, and C.T. Ballentine. Likewise for this reading
7:30 PM, Sat 9 July 2005
at Quimby's Bookstore
1854 W. North Ave., Chicago
featuring Joe Meno
Jonathan Messinger
C.T. Ballentine
Jeb Gleason-Allured
& to be hosted by Todd Dills

FREE. Please join us, and BYOB.

Print a flyer for the show to give to your friends here.

TRANSCONTINENTAL FLUX v. THE2NDHAND

[starring]

Corey Frost (montreal)
v.
Todd Dills (chic.il)
Jeb Gleason-Allured (chic.il)

thur 12 May 05, 8:15 PM
@ the hungry brain
2319 w. belmont, free
773.935.2118 or 773.278.7034

transcontinental flux: from the sheep-dotted hills of New Zealand and the snow-covered hills of Canada come two lively and unique writer-performers, Genevieve McClean and Corey Frost, who combine theatricality, narrative, and poetry in short bursts of pure mesmerism. Genevieve is a poet and well-known actor, from Auckland. Corey is the author of My Own Devices and The Worthwhile Flux, from Montreal. separately they have performed around the globe, and now together they are performing at Hungry Brain in Chicago. poetry, music, film. one night only. v. the2ndhand: you know it. Dills and Gleason-Allured have been in this filthy city for a long, long time, and have become so enamored of the crowd that comes to its readings that they just can't stop, and so here's another other. get out there. get out there. and so they ran for the hills but never got there before...

Check out the show's poster here.

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ALL HANDS ON and THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills head west with Ryan Kamstra and Liisa Ladouceur for a set on the Perpetual Motion Roadshow. Dates follow. All shows are pay-what-you-can.

Los Angeles: Sat Apr 16, 7PM. Flor y Canto (3706 N. Figueroa Ave.), w/ Kiyoshi Nakazawa, creator of the comic zine Drunken Master
San Jose: Sun Apr 17, 8PM. Anno Domini (150 S. Montgomery St., Unit B)
Eugene, OR: Mon Apr 18, 7PM: Feinstein's Museum of Unfine Art (537 Willamette)
Seattle: Tues Apr 19, 7PM. Confounded Books (315 E. Pine St.), w/ SWIVEL lit mag editor Brangien Davis and Ellen Fourney, among others.
Vancouver: Wed Apr 20, 8PM. Cottage Bistro (4468 Main Street), beginning with an hour or the "80s at 8"--radical reinterpretation of 80s pop songs--and w/ spoken word artist T. Paul Ste-Marie
Portland: Thurs Apr 21, 7PM. Reading Frenzy (921 SW Oak St.), w/ Moe Bowstern
San Francisco: Sat Apr 23, 7PM: Modern Times (888 Valencia St.)

Click here for a pdf of the tour's press release. Friends, distribute far and wide.

Go here for the attendant ALL HANDS ON press release.

[Underground Fool's Fest] Join us, Chicago denizens, for two days of readings at MoJoe's Cafe Lounge, 2256 W. Roscoe St., 773-388-1236. The first night (Fri 1 Apr 2005, 7:30 PM) is put on by the folks at Diatribe Media, and features: Aaron Cynic, Kate Sandler, Grant Schreiber, Eric Lab Rat, R. Silas Dameron and others.

Number two, Sat 2 April 2004, 7:30 PM, features THE2NDHAND contributors Emerson Dameron (Wherewithal zine) and Anne Elizabeth Moore (Hey Kidz! Buy This Book) and editors Todd Dills and Jeb Gleason-Allured. Come out and pick up a copy of our latest.

[DRINK, MUSIC, PRINT]: THE PRINTER'S BALL will be held Thursday, 3 Mar 2005, from 6-9PM at the HotHouse, 31 E. Balbo in Chicago. Organizations involved include THE2NDHAND, but of course, TERRY PLUMMING, FOUND, ACM, In These Times, Lumpen, Bridge, Stop Smiling, Punk Planet, Venus, Poetry, the Chicago Reader, and others. Free copies of many will be available, including the shiny Installment #16 of THE2NDHAND's broadsheet series, featuring Paul A. Toth and Jeff Miller of Ghost Pine. Admission is Free.

Installment 4 of Lisa Hinzman's "Rock N Read" series in Madison WI features:
Anne Elizabeth Moore of Punk Planet and author of Hey Kidz! Buy This Book
THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills
Crista Donner of Ladyfriend
Sat, 12 Feb, 8PM door (show starts at 9PM), at the Corral Room, 116 S. Hamilton St., Madison WI.

Music by Aunt Goodness and My Nightclub Act

7 PM, 4 Feb 2004, Friday, @
The Hideout
1354 W. Wabansia
Chicago

This installment of the "Dollar Store" series of readings, inaugurated last year by contributor Jonathan Messinger and which entails readings/performances by writers and artists based on particular items picked up at a local "dollar store," this week features THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills, Larry O'Dean, and Asimina Chremos and costs only $1. Should be fun, this time. For one thing, Dills's item: "Grandpa's Brag Book."

A few notable readings upcoming, including, most importantly, the "Chicago Underground Winter Festival" with THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills, Joe Meno (Hairstyles of the Damned), A.B. Drea (Banana King), and Joe Deir and Laura of Ink Stains.
Sat 29 Jan 2005, 8PM
@ Quimby's Books
1854 W. North Ave. in Chicago

THE2NDHAND will (hopefully, crossing our fingers for the printing time) unveil Broadside 16, which features prose from Paul A. Toth (Fizz)and Jeff Miller (Ghost Pine) illustrated by Rob Funderburk.

and...
FUNNY HA-HA II, the second installment of Claire Zulkey and John Green's series of humor-inspired writing and film, takes place
Wed 26 Jan 2005, 8-10PM
@ The Hideout
1354 W. Wabansia in Chicago

With readings by the RedEye's Mark Bazer, WBEZ's Amy Krouse Rosenthal, THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills, McSweeneys' Leonard Pierce, Bust's Wendy McClure and the San Francisco' Chronicle's Annie Logue--the event also features short film by Coudal's Steve Delahoyde and the Onion AV Club's Nathan Rabin and will be hosted by Claire Zulkey (also known as NewCity Chicago's voted Best Blogger in Chicago) and John Green.

THE2NDHAND presents Frequently Asked Questions:
Sat 8 Jan 2005, 7 PM
@ Atomic Saucer
1000 E. Oak St.
Louisville, KY.

Loovillians, please visit the FAQ portion of our site. At this event, we are encouraging you to bring your experimentations with the form. Basically, the THE2NDHAND FAQ is a combination of FAQs found on the Internet--the questions from one, the answers from another--in the service of a new kind of information, we believe. So, write your own. And bring it to the show. We wanna hear it.

Also at the event, Simon McKim will provide FAQ-themed music, and THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills and contributor Susannah Felts will read. FAQ Editor Mickey "The Punisher" Hess will play host with a host of FAQs of his own. This is a free event. See you there.

Fri 7 Jan 2005, 7 PM
@ Hideout
1354 W. Wabansia, Chicago, IL
Jonathan Messinger (thisisgrand.org) hosts the third/four/orfifth installment of his "Dollar Store" readings series, and featured this time around is THE2NDHAND coeditor Jeb Gleason-Allured, among others. Check it out.

Thursday, 16 December 2004, at 7:30 PM at the great Quimby's Bookstore, 1854 W. North Ave. in Chicago, for a celebration of the release of LE2EMEMAIN, the f-r-e-e-d-o-m (for one dare not speak the word aloud) issue and installment 15 in THE2NDHAND's broadsheet series, featuring Marc Baez, who contributed to LE2EMEMAIN a catalog of LOVE LETTERS FOR SALE. The entire performance will end with a dramatic rendition of Baez's "Talking to Strangers," a series of street monologues in prose form featured in the best-of THE2NDHAND anthology ALL HANDS ON.

Also featured, Emerson Dameron was born and reared in Western North Carolina. Sometimes he yearns, sometimes he publishes the zine Wherewithal. Susannah Felts's "Forecast Poems" series was recently part of the Code Is Implement faculty/grad show at SAIC's 1926 Exhibition space but debuted at THE2NDHAND.com and was featured in ALL HANDS ON. Felts will perform works from the series. Todd Dills is the founding editor and publisher of THE2NDHAND and will serve as ringmaster. BYOB, of course.

A reading with
NIGHT TRAIN
FEATURING most notably THE2NDHAND contributor Paul A. Toth, but also Jeff Landon, Susan Henderson, John Leary, Pia Z. Ehrhardt, Terry Bain, and John Warner
Sat 13 Nov 2004 @ 7:30PM
Union Square Tavern
83 Pulaski Road
Kings Park, Long Island

FREE: LE2EMEMAIN
SUN 24 OCT 2004, 7:30PM
Skylark
2149 S. Halsted in Chicago
THE2NDHAND release party for installment #15, LE2EMEMAIN, for we are f-r-e-e, ladies and gentlemen.
W/ contributors Jonathan Messinger, proprietor at THISisGRAND.org
the ubiquitous Joe Meno
and THE2NDHAND editors Todd Dills and Jeb Gleason-Allured.

Also released: TERRY PLUMMING. Music for your mouth, or somesuch. Presenting music from these bands:
carpet of sexy
OMAC
princess
randomizer

Ronald Reagan will be on tv.
happy united
nations depo
sit a-11002
iii want the
knife

THUR 14 OCT 2004, 7:30PM
Barnes & Noble
1441 W. Webster in Chicago
Joe Meno presents Hairstyles of the Damned, his new one out now from Punk Planet/Akashic
w/ THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills and Anne Moore, author of Hey Kids, Buy This Book!

MADISON Zine Fest
SAT 9 OCT 2004, 10 AM TO 6 PM
Open Book Cafe
College Library
Helen C. White Hall
600 N. Park St.
Madison, WI
(on the campus of the University of WI)

Visit THE2NDHAND table for free copies of a plethora of past broadsides; also available will be the new ALL HANDS ON book anthology. Hope to see you there.

ALL HANDS ON fire

ALL HANDS ON: A THE2NDHAND Reader
Edited by Todd Dills, w/ an introduction by Jim Munroe
$12, Elephant Rock Books in association with TNI Books

Click here to order ALL HANDS ON direct, or come out to one of the following events to pick up the book.

Todd Dills, THE2NDHAND's editor, tours select Canadian and Northeast US cities on the Perpetual Motion Roadshow. The first of the dates sees the release of THE2NDHAND contributor, and genius besides, Joe Meno's new one, Hairstyles of the Damned (Punk Planet/Akashic, 2004) and of course ALL HANDS ON, in which Meno is featured front and center. See below for the schedule. And join us when you can.

HIPSTER HELLSPAWN TOUR
all dates feature Todd Dills, Susan Bustos, Joe Meno, and Jim Munroe.

Click here for a pdf of the press release.

TORONTO: 8PM Wednesday, 1 Sept 2004, Gladstone Ballroom, 1214 Queen W.
OTTAWA: 8:30PM Thursday, 2 Sept 2004, The Study Lounge, Embassy Hotel, 25 Cartier St.
MONTREAL: 8PM Friday, 3 Sept 2004, Pharmacie Esperanza, 5490 St. Laurent at St. Viateur
BROOKLYN: 8PM Sunday, 5 Sept 2004, The Lucky Cat, 245 Grand St., Williamsburg
PITTSBURGH: 7:30PM, Monday, 6 Sept 2004, Garfield Artworks, 4931 Penn Ave.
NEWPORT, KY: 8:30PM, Tuesday, 7 Sept 2004, Southgate House, 24 East 3rd St.
CHICAGO: 8PM, Wednesday, 8 Sept 2004 (your THE2NDHAND editor's b-day), Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, with bands PALs and The Like Young.

THE PERFORMERS: TODD DILLS lives in Chicago and is author of For Weeks Above the Umbrella, a collection published in 2002. His work has appeared in various publications, including Little Engines, Pindeldyboz, New City, the Chicago Reader, and others. He is the founding editor of THE2NDHAND and edited ALL HANDS ON. JOE MENO lives in Chicago. His is the author of much, including two published novels, Tender as Hellfire (St. Martin's 1999) and How the Hula Girl Sings (HarperCollins 2001), an online fictional serial ("The Secret Hand," at Playboy.com), and many short stories published variously in TriQuarterly, Bridge, Other Voices, Washington Square, Gulf Coast, Alaska Quarterly Review, and broadcast on National Public Radio. He is the winner of the 2003 Nelson Algren Literary Award and is a columnist for Punk Planet and an editor for Bail, a skateboard culture magazine. He is also the founding editor of Sleepwalk. Eight of his plays have been performed around Chicago to critical success. His new novel, Hairstyles of the Damned, is out now.

MADISON, WI
8PM, saturday, 28 Aug 2004
@ The Corral Room
116 S. Hamilton, Madison, WI
Featuring readings by
Joe Meno (Chicago)
Todd Dills (Chicago)
Susannah Felts (Chicago)
Brian Costello
and music by Maerae

MILWAUKEE, WI
8PM, Sunday, 29 Aug 2004
@ the Membership
2753 N. Pierce St, Milwaukee
Featuring readings by
Joe Meno (Chicago)
Todd Dills (Chicago)
Susannah Felts (Chicago
Brian Costello
and music by Two Gallants

CLEVELAND
7PM, Saturday, 7 Aug 2004
@ Mac's Backs Paperbacks
1820 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, OH
Featuring readings by
Joe Meno (Chicago)
Todd Dills (Chicago)
Mickey Hess (Louisville)

ANN ARBOR
4PM, Sunday, 8 Aug 2004
@ Shaman Drum Bookshop
311-315 S. State, Ann Arbor, MI
Featuring readings by
Joe Meno (Chicago)
Todd Dills (Chicago)
Mickey Hess (Louisville)
and Michigan's own Paul A. Toth (Flint)

BLOOMINGTON, IN
7PM, Friday, 13 Aug 2004
Boxcar Books
310A S. Washington
Bloomington, IN
Featuring readings by
Jeb Gleason-Allured (Chicago)
Joe Meno (Chicago)
Todd Dills (Chicago)
Mickey Hess (Louisville)

LOUISVILLE
8PM, Saturday, 14 Aug 2004
Atomic Saucer
1000 E. Oak St.
Louisville, KY
Featuring readings by
Joe Meno (Chicago)
Jeb Gleason-Allured (Chicago)
Todd Dills (Chicago)
Mickey Hess (Louisville)
Mike Smith (Louisville)

EVANSVILLE, IN
5PM, Sunday, 15 Aug 2004
Wired Coffee House
221 Main St.
Evansville, IN
Featuring readings by
Todd Dills (Chicago)
Mickey Hess (Louisville)
Jeb Gleason-Allured (Chicago)
Chris Dickens
Chad Pollock

7PM, Thursday, 15 July 2004
@ Barbara's Bookstore
1218 S. Halsted, Chicago
Readings by contributors to All HANDS ON, Susannah Felts, Amina Cain, Germania Solorzano, and Joe Meno, with introductions and interruptions by editor Todd Dills

7:30 PM, Thursday, 1 July 2004
ALL HANDS ON Release Reading @ Quimby's
1854 W. North Ave, Chicago
...with readings by contributors to the book Brian Costello, Jeb Gleason-Allured, Todd Dills, and John H. Matthews.

7:30 PM, Thursday, 24 June
ALL HANDS ON Release Party w/ The Tap & Goose Island brewers @ Delilah's
2771 N. Lincoln, Chicago
...with prizes, giveaways, and readings by the great Brian Costello and THE2NDHAND editors Jeb Gleason-Allured and Todd Dills.

9:30 PM, Thursday, 17 June
ALL HANDS ON Release Party @ Empty Bottle
1035 N. Western, Chicago
$7 cover gets you $2 off the book's cover price, plus music from THE FUCTIONAL BLACKOUTS (chic's own), Headache City (chic), and POPULAR SHAPES (seattle).
...ongoing commentary and verbal abuse by TODD DILLS & JEB GLEASON-ALLURED.

@ 12:30 PM, Saturday 5 June
at Grace Place (1st Floor)
637 S. Dearborn, Chicago
FREE, part of Chicago's Annual Printer's Row Book Fair
...and featuring contributors to the book Joe Meno and Elizabeth Crane, with THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills.

6 PM, Saturday 8 May 2004
THE2NDHAND reads
@ The Stray Show
1418 N. Kingsbury, Chicago
Free with general admission: $10
312.587-3300
stray-show.com

THE2NDHAND announces ALL HANDS ON: A THE2NDHAND READER, a 248-page tome collecting the best of four years of published writing from Chicago's broadsheet and online magazine (http://www.the2ndhand.com), with readings by THE2NDHAND editors Todd Dills and Jeb Gleason-Allured, plus contributors Greg Purcell and Eric Graf (see bios below). Gorilla-style, as always.

Yes, well, why don't we unite....

TODD DILLS lives in Chicago and is author of For Weeks Above the Umbrella, a collection published in 2002. His work has appeared in various publications, including most notably Little Engines, Pindeldyboz, New City, the Chicago Reader, and others. He is the founding editor of THE2NDHAND.

JEB GLEASON-ALLURED dreams in heavy metal and describes his stories as postconscious. Yes. He lives in Chicago and is an editor at THE2NDHAND.

ERIC GRAF's bio was deleted.

GREG PURCELL's fiction and poetry have appeared in various magazines, including Fence, McSweeney's, and the Exquisite Corpse. He is a middle-heavyweight in almost everything. He lives in Astoria, Queens.

---
ALL HANDS ON: A THE2NDHAND Reading
Darlings and darlings, THE2NDHAND is back with broadside 13.5 in celebration of Literate Apes, of which four North American specimens will be on hand for observation. Please. Rejoice. With us: NPR star/VHI personality (?!)/wordsmith, Whitney Pastorek (Queens); spoken word catechumen/upstanding Canadian, Corey Frost (Brooklyn); funnyman/people kicker, Todd Levin (Brooklyn); and The2ndHand co-editor/insomnious dancer, Jeb Gleason-Allured (Chicago).

COREY FROST is a writer and performer who has appeared on stages across the US, Canada, and Europe. His book of short stories My Own Devices was shortlisted last year for two of Canada's top prizes for new writers, the Relit awards and the QWF awards. My Own Devices consists of anti-travel-writing: stories set in Japan, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, and elsewhere, in which the narrator discovers the more mundane, ludicrous, seamy, and sometimes scatological side of tourism. Corey Frost has been named Best Spoken Word Artist in Montreal by the Montreal Mirror, and a performance CD called Bits World is in the works. He is also a scholar of spoken word, if such a thing is possible, and is currently writing a Ph.D. dissertation on spoken word at the CUNY Grad Center. After living in Montreal for a decade, he now lives in Brooklyn. He has just returned from a reading tour of the west coast.

WHITNEY PASTOREK is a writer, musician, and international star of stage and screen. She is the editor of Pindeldyboz, and has written for the NY Post, Surface Magazine, Time Out, Village Voice, SF Chronicle, Westchester Journal News, and McSweeney's. She once interviewed the White Stripes for NPR's Morning Edition, has appeared on a VH-1 game show about Vanilla Ice, and is alleged to have vomited on Fred Durst. A complete list of everything is constantly in flux over at www.whittlz.com.

TODD LEVIN is a writer and comedian, living in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in Glamour, Salon, Modern Humorist, Jest Magazine, McSweeney's, Hermenaut, and, too frequently, his own web site. (www.tremble.com) He currently co-hosts and co-produces "How to Kick People" (www.howtokickpeople.com), a reading series for comic writers and performers, on the last Wednesday of each month.

JEB GLEASON-ALLURED needs you more than you know. He lives in Chicago.

Installment 13 (& 13.5, announcing ALL HANDS ON: A THE2NDHAND READER) release readings continue...the apes hit the road again...

18 March 2004
7:30PM, @ Quimby's Books
1854 W. North Avenue, Chicago
w/ Readings by
Susannah Felts
Gretchen Kalwinski
Todd Dills
Jeb Gleason-Allured

20 March 2004
6PM @ Mac's Backs Paperbacks
1820 Coventry Road
Cleveland Heights, OH
w/ Readings by
Wred Fright
Peter Relic
Susannah Felts
Todd Dills
Jeb Gleason-Allured

21 March 2004
4PM @ Shaman Drum
311-315 S. State
Ann Arbor, MI
w/ Readings by
Paul A. Toth
Dave Barringer
Carey Wallace
Susannah Felts
Todd Dills
Jeb Gleason-Allured

---

ATTN LOOVILLE

On Friday, 13 Feb 2004 THE2NDHAND Lucky Installment 13 visits New Albany, IN, mere minutes from sprawling Louisville, KY, for this unlucky night of not-necessarily horror-movie-inspired readings, part of the Bean Street Reading Series curated by Mickey Hess.

Readings by:
Andrew Walker
Laura Ellis (first time without accordion, we hear)
Todd Dills
Mickey Hess (Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory, Our Thousand Pound Locket)
Ryan Stearman
Mike Smith

7PM Friday, 13 Feb 2004, Bean Street Cafe
Corner of Slate Run & Charlestown Road
New Albany, IN

---

PUSH DOUBT

8PM, February 8, 2004
Skylark
2149 S. Halsted
Chicago

Black, lucky Installment #13 of THE2NDHAND released along with the inauguration of Terry Plumming, an audio magazine.

8PM: Readings commence (followed by music), by: Mickey Hess
Erika Mikkalo
Joe Meno
John L. Sheppard

Todd Dills hosts, and we do hope you will show. Terry Plumming is the brainchild of our contributor Mr. Eric Graf, and for the evening the plummed boys and girls provide late musical entertainment from:
--> dan layne (lounge wood block)
--> winter carousel (dad yer buggin)
--> lumberjackass (broken funk wire)
featuring: rotten milk, nick alvarez, kitty kaplui, brian klein
and --> video_cd screenings by lool cuab

First 100 in the door get a free copy of the new 64-page inaugural issue. THE2NDHAND installment number 13 is, of course, a free publication and features new writing from Sheppard, Hess, and Mikkalo, in addition to illustrations by Rob Funderburk and more Billy Clockout from Andrew Davis. We are glad to see it. (...and, ladies and gents, keep a lookout in the coming months for more news about our upcoming Best-of compilation, ALL HANDS ON: A THE2NDHAND READER, to be perfectbound and cackled forth, just for you.

---

Jeb Gleason-Allured goes out on an installment of the Perpetual Motion Roadshow w/ Monica S. Kuebler and Sherwin Tija (along with other assorted performers). Click here for the full details, or see below for a quick-reference schedule.

Toronto: Wednesday 12 November, 8PM, Clinton's Tavern, 693 Bloor Street West, with Wooly Leaves
Ottawa: Thursday 13 November, 8PM, Chateau Lafayette, 42 York Street, Byward Market, with On Welfare
Montreal: Friday 14 November, 7:30PM, Zeke's Gallery, 3955 St. Laurent, with Paula Belina
New York City: Saturday, 15 November, 8PM, Bluestockings Books, 172 Allen Street, with Corey Frost
Cleveland: Monday 17 November, 7PM, Mac's Backs, 1820 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, with Crazy Carl Robinson
Cincinnati: Tuesday 18 November, 8PM, Buzz Coffeeshop, 2900 Jefferson Avenue
Chicago: Wednesday 19 November, 8PM, Quimby's Books, 1854 W. North Avenue, with Dave Barringer

---
Join Todd Dills and Mickey Hess for a night of dueling readings apropos of issue #12, at Quimby's, 1854 W. North Avenue, Chicago. 8PM, Friday 7 November 2003.

In the words of Mickey's own synopsis...

Mickey, contributor to a McSweeney's and THE2NDHAND, and author of books like El Cumpleanos de Paco and Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory, is in Chicago for the Midwest MLA Convention. He will skip Friday night academic hobnobbing to rub elbows with the Quimby's crowd. Todd is editor of THE2NDHAND, and author of the story collection For Weeks Above the Umbrella.

"There is a man named Dills out there in Chicago. I think he may be a genius" -- Kevin Sampsell, Powell's Books.

---
The release of Broadside installment #12 sees the apes hitting the road for a couple of celebratory events, plus a big shindig at the Hideout in Chicago:

8PM Monday 22 Sept 2003, The Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, Chicago
w/ Musical Guest CANTINA

Readings/Performances by:
Elizabeth Crane
Susannah Felts
Jeb Gleason-Allured
Eric Graf
Brian Costello, and
Todd Dills

And the following weekend Graf, Dills, and Gleason-Allured join Paul A. Toth for shows in Cleveland and Ann Arbor at:

Mac's Backs Paperbacks, 1820 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, OH, 7PM Sat 27 Sept 2003, w/ Matthew Wascovich

Shaman Drum, 311-315 South State, Ann Arbor, MI, 4PM Sun 28 Sept 2003, w/ Carey Wallace

Saturday, 16 Aug 2003, 8PM
Quimby's, 1854 W. North Avenue, Chicago

Join us for the Chicago release of recent contributor Mickey Hess's Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory, which starts in an ice cream truck and ends in an absinthe bar. From crud rock parties to the Billy Graham Crusade, from Digital Underground to the MLA convention, the book follows Mickey's career as a college writing instructor through his side jobs as an ice cream man, stand-up comedian, haunted house character, and horribly inept housesitter. The jobs begin out of financial necessity, but become more of a diversion, and almost an obsession, as Mickey discovers what he wants to do with his life, and then what he wants to do next.

Readings also from THE2NDHAND editors Todd Dills and Jeb Gleason-Allured. BYOB, please, and yes.

---

THE2NDHAND @
Wednesday 23 July 2003
Danny's Tavern
1951 W. Dickens
Chicago

THE2NDHAND makes its Danny's debut as part of the Danny's Reading Series, a monthly event coordinated by Greg Purcell of No Slander and Joel Craig. Featured readers at this second release reading for Broadside installment #11 will include:

Paul A. Toth: Michigan resident and dreamer of certain crumbling communities, Toth's work has been featured extensively here at the2ndhand.com and holds the lead spot in Broadside Installment #11.

and old favorite Brian Costello and Editors Jeb Gleason-Allured and Todd Dills.

For more info visit NoSlander.com.

PERPETUAL MOTION ROADSHOW #3, an Independent Press Tour Circuit, featuring performances by:

Todd Dills (your THE2NDHAND editor and author of collection For Weeks Above the Umbrella)
Joe Meno (author of Tender as Hellfire and How the Hula Girl Sings)
Cynthia Gould (creator of ihaveasecret.com)

and others.

See below for full detail or visit: nomediakings.net/june.

TORONTO: Saturday 14 June 2003, 8PM, $5 @ Clinton's Tavern (693 Bloor Street W.) with Jack Breakfast and videos
MONTREAL: Monday 16 June 2003, 7:30PM, $PWYC @ Zeke's Gallery (3955 St. Laurent) with Joey Dubuc
BOSTON: Tuesday 17 June 2003, 8PM, $5 @ Oni Gallery (684 Washington St.) with Michael Brodeur
BROOKLYN: Wednesday 18 June 2003, 7PM, free @ Shortwave (71 Bond Street) with Richard Loranger
CLEVELAND: Thursday 19 June 2003, 7PM, free @ Mac's Backs (1820 Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights)
CINCINATTI: Friday 20 June 2003, 8PM, free @ Sitwell's Coffee House (324 Ludlow Ave.)
CHICAGO: Saturday 21 June 2003, 8PM, free @ Quimby's (1854 W. North Ave.) with Amina Cain

Come see us.

May's Perpetual Motion Roadshow hits Chicago's Quimby's bookstore Tuesday 20 May 2003 at 8PM and features Wide Collar Criminal cartoonist Matt "m@b" Blackett from Toronto, Dream Whip zinester and moviemaker Bill Brown from Chicago, and Kiss Machine operator Emily Pohl-Weary from Toronto. For more complete info on the other six shows on this months circuit (Brooklyn, Boston, Toronto, Montreal, Cleveland, and Cincinnati) visit http://nomediakings.net.

Our friends at Pindeldyboz are planning a night of riotous good times far from their New York home. Please come:

Thursday, May 29th, Pindeldyboz takes over the Hideout in Chicago, Illinois, for one night only, featuring music, readings, and short films, all from your friends and neighbors:

Readings by:
David Barringer
Todd Dills
Elizabeth Ellen
Dave Reidy
Paul Toth
Claire Zulkey

Short films by Steve Delahoyde and Waki Gamez.

The Perpetual Motion Roadshow #1
an Indie Press tour circuit making stops monthly in Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and hitting Chicago on:
Thursday 17 April, 8PM
Quimby's Bookstore
1854 W. North Avenue
Chicago

STARRING:
Charlie-Girl Anders, the sloppy cross dresser from Boston.

Marc Ngui, comic artist from Toronto with his book Enter Avariz. Check out www.bumblenut.com/bidet.html.

Cory Frost, New York/Montreal writer with his book of anti-travel stories, My Own Devices

Cooper Battersby and Emily Vey Duke, who recently moved from Canada to Chicago, have been working collaboratively since the day they met in June 1994. Thei