David Starkey interviewed me for the local public access TV show Creative Community. We talk about writing, my childhood, and punk rock. I also read a couple of passages from Dead Extra. Check it out.
You can also watch the video on Vimeo by clicking this link.
On Thursday (June 27, 2019), I’m doing my last event for a while. It’ll be in the Topping Room of the E. P. Foster Library in downtown Ventura at 7:30 PM. I’m looking forward to this one, and not just because I can walk to it.
Ventura has a very vibrant poetry scene, led by Ventura County Poet Laureate Phil Taggart and his wife, Marsha de la O. Both are amazing poets. Both set up cool events all around the county. Their mainstay event is on Thursday nights at the downtown library. Typically, it’s a poetry-only event. I’ve never seen a prose writer at any of their events. Still, they’ve invited me to read passages from Dead Extra. I’m excited to be a part of it.
I’m planning to read a section of the novel that I haven’t read in public before. I’ve been saving this chapter just for this event. So, if you’ve already seen me read from this book, come out anyway. I’ll read you something new. If you haven’t seen me read yet, here’s your last chance. All the information is below.
Your author at the Mountain Bar, Los Angeles, circa 2004.
I love to do readings. Before I talk about that too much, I should get this plug out of the way: I have a reading coming up at the Barnes & Noble in Ventura on Sunday, June 23 at 1:00 PM. Click this link for more info.
Now, I know most authors hate to do them. A lot of times, authors grudgingly plow through their passages at readings, apparently encountering their words for the first time, barely paying attention to their audience, and generally bumming out everyone. They usually go on way longer than they should even if they’re entertaining. I saw a lot of these readings when I was a young writer (and I still see some, occasionally). I never wanted to be like that.
But also, the nature of how I came up as a writer never allowed me to do that. I started my readings in all punk rock contexts: between bands at shows, in anarchist bookstores, in squats, in bars, and generally in places where the crowd didn’t feel the need to be polite. If you didn’t amuse them, there were consequences.
My first books were on a punk press. I sold them by touring with other zine writers. We’d set up shows anywhere we could. From 1999-2008, I did something like 250 readings in 50-60 cities with dozens of other authors. We learned pretty quickly how to choose the right things to read, how to grab an audience, how to get a laugh, how to embody a story, and basically how to do all those things you need to do to avoid getting heckled. It was a great education. All those audience members willing to give me a chance, to react positively at the good stuff and negatively at the bad stuff, shaped me as a writer.
With this new book, I’ve been doing all the things that authors do these days. I’ve done a few in-conversations, some panel discussions, that kind of thing. But I haven’t had to chance to give an old-school reading. So, for my upcoming event at Barnes & Noble, I begged them to let me do just that. I’m looking forward to it.
However, since I made the big stink about having them let me read, I’m going to need an audience. If you’re in Ventura, please come out. It’s a Sunday afternoon. You’re not busy. You’re not doing anything else. You’ll have a good time. And, if I don’t bring my A game, you’re welcome to heckle, boo, throw beer at me, start a barroom brawl, and all those other things that have happened at other readings I’ve done.
My next event–and the last Los Angeles event for a while–will be at the Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles on June 11. I’ll be part of a group reading that’s co-sponsored by Prospect Park Books (my publisher) and Rare Bird Books (another very cool LA press). Rare Bird is bringing crime writers Doug Cooper, Eric Tarloff, and Frank Strausser. Prospect Park is bringing Phoef Sutton and me. Gary Phillips is hosting.
It should be a great event. If you don’t know who Phoef Sutton is, check out his Crush series. It’s a blast. If you don’t know who Gary Phillips is, check out his Ivan Monk series. It’s rad. And, if you’ve never been to the Last Bookstore, take this chance to go. It’s one of the coolest places in LA.
The event is Tuesday, June 11 at 7:30 PM at the Last Bookstore, 453 South Spring Street, Los Angeles. The event is free, but the bookstore appreciates it when people buy books in advance. Here’s a link to the tickets (which are actually just pre-ordered books).
My next event for Dead Extra tomorrow, May 17, at 7:30 PM at Mysterious Galaxy Books in San Diego. I’ll be in conversation with Lisa Brackmann. If you don’t know who Lisa Brackmann is, you should read this review I wrote for her book Go-Between and this review I wrote for her book Black Swan Rising.
Mysterious Galaxy is located at 5943 Balboa Ave., Suite 100, San Diego.
If you’re in the Los Angeles area didn’t get a chance to catch me at the book release earlier this week, don’t fret. I’ll also be reading at Noir at the Bar this coming Saturday, May 18, at the Stand in Pasadena. That event also starts at 7:30. The Stand is located at 36 South El Molino Ave, Pasadena. The event is part of LitFest Pasadena, so you can make a day out of it, if you want to.
Come out. Come out. It’ll be fun.
The day before my book release (which is Tuesday, May 14 at Skylight Books in LA), the Los Angeles Review of Books reviewed my new novel, Dead Extra. It’s a very thoughtful, professional review. To answer all the questions that my wife asked me about the review: No, I didn’t write it myself. No, I don’t know the author. We have never met. Again, no, I promise that “Glenn Harper” is a real reviewer for LARB and not my pen name.
Also, I was interviewed for Speaking of Mysteries a few weeks back, and the interview went live today. You can listen to it here. Or you can get it through iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you get podcasts.
And I want to add two serendipitous things about the review and interview.
My new novel, Dead Extra, officially releases next Tuesday. I’ll be at Skylight Books in Los Feliz to celebrate. I’ll do a short reading, then an “in conversation” with Steph Cha, author of the Juniper Song novels.
Everything kicks off around 7:30 PM. It’s next Tuesday, May 14, 2019 at Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Ave., LA, CA. It’s going to be a blast. And if I hear you call out to me, “C U Next Tuesday,” it better mean you’re coming to my event!
This Friday, August 18, there’s another Vermin on the Mount. I’ll be doing a sort-of reading at it. Come out. Come out.
This will be my seventh or eighth performance at a Vermin. I guess I do one every couple of years. I read the title story for my short story collection Barney’s Crew at the second ever Vermin, back when it was still at the Mountain Bar in Chinatown. I read there to promote my last two novels, Train Wreck Girl and Madhouse Fog. I did not do a Vermin for my last short story collection, The Metaphysical Ukulele. I don’t know why. But I have the new book out, Occupy Pynchon, and I’m going to do something with that. It’s an academic book that doesn’t lend itself too well to a Friday night reading, so I won’t read straight from it. Instead, I’ll do something a little more fun and dynamic. You’ll be entertained. I promise.
The festivities kick off at 7:30 at Book Show in Highland Park (5503 North Figueroa St., LA). You can learn more about it here.
Tomorrow will be the last stop on my book tour. I’m going to the famed City Lights Books in San Francisco. It’s kind of a big deal for me. When I was in high school, one of my teachers turned me on to the Beats, starting with Gregory Corso, but moving on to Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I’m pretty excited about reading at the place where that literary movement began.
The reading is at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, June 29, 2016.
A bookseller at City Lights asked me five questions for their blog. As far as I can tell, he didn’t use my interview. Since it’s written and I still have it, I’ve pasted the interview below. I hope to see you in San Francisco.
Five Questions for Sean Carswell
If you’ve been to City Lights before, what’s your memory of the visit? If you haven’t been here before, what are you expecting?
I’ve been to City Lights several times. I go there almost every time I go to San Francisco. My most memorable visit had to be about ten years ago.
I’d designed a book cover for Bucky Sinister’s poetry collection Whiskey & Robots. I thought of the cover as an homage to the City Lights Pocket Poets series. Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Nancy Peters saw the cover as borderline copyright infringement. They sent to nicest cease-and-desist letter to the publisher for whom I designed the cover. I talked to Nancy and we smoothed things out. A few months later, I was in City Lights and saw a half dozen copies of Whiskey & Robots in the poetry shelves, cover out.
That was such a classy move by City Lights.
If your book had a soundtrack, what would it be?
I actually put one together for Largehearted Boy.
What’s the first book you actually finished reading?
The first novel I really loved was Sounder by William H. Armstrong. I read it several times when I was in second grade. I remember that we couldn’t renew books at the school library, so I’d check the book out, read it, return it, and wait the allotted time until I could check it out and read it again. I read it so many times that my brother, who’d seen the Disney adaptation of the book, took to yelling, “Sounder, come here, boy” a la Paul Winfield every time he saw me. That convinced me to find a new book.
If you didn’t have your current job, what might you do?
Become a bookseller at City Lights.
Name a few things you’d require if stranded on a desert island for an undefined period of time (and, yes, no wifi).
I’ll just talk about books. I’d bring Herman Melville’s Typee. That way, if there were cannibals on the island, I’d have a guidebook for how to live with them. I’d bring Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, because I’ve been meaning to read it. I’d probably have time to do so on a desert island. If I liked it enough, I’d be inspired to build a raft and float home, just so I could read the other books in the series.
In case I didn’t like it, I’d bring Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day. I’d sit on the shores of that island and keep reading that gigantic novel until it made perfect sense to me. That would keep me occupied for a decade or two.
I’m seventy-percent through my book tour. All the flights and rental cars and hotel rooms are now in the past. The final three readings–San Diego (6/21), Los Angeles (6/23), and San Francisco (6/29)–are an easy drive from my centrally-located Southern California home. I figured this would be a good time to pause and reflect on my adventures.
The readings started in Brooklyn, at Greenlight Books.
It was right around the corner from Spike Lee’s studios. I stopped by to see if he wanted to adapt my short story collection into a film. He didn’t answer the door when I knocked, so I just stood outside yelling, “Boomerang is a great movie! People need to recognize!”
My next reading was in a suburb of Philadelphia. I went into the city before the reading and visited the Rodin museum. It gave me a lot to think about.
I felt like my next couple of readings really blew the roof off of things.
Minneapolis inspired people to get naked and dance in the streets.
Some of the hotels I’ve stayed in have been pretty cool. The one in Seattle featured all the latest in high-fidelity stereo sound. I had a little trouble getting the record to play, though.
Portland was cool, but I got into an argument with this fat guy on the street. I was like, “What do you mean it’s absurd to write a short story collection about writers and their metaphysical ukuleles?”
Now, I’m down to the last three: Warwick’s Books in La Jolla at 7:30 on Tuesday, Book Soup in West Hollywood at 7:00 on Thursday, and City Lights Books in San Francisco at 7:00 a week from Wednesday. Come out and see me.
Sean Carswell 