How I Learned Reading Series April 22, 2009

HOW I LEARNED TO BE SUPER SUCCESSFUL!

Featuring:
PATRICE EVANS (AKA TAN)
(Writer, "The Assimilated Negro," Gawker, New York Times, NPR, several enviable accomplishments)

DAVE HILL
(Comedian/Writer, The Dave Hill Explosion, King of Miami, This American Life, basically a renaissance man)

RACHEL SHUKERT
(Writer/Playwright, Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories, Ars Nova, also gorgeous and crazy-popular)

S.L. WISENBERG
(Writer, The Adventures of Cancer Bitch, plus a list of successes that would seriously blow your mind)

Hosted by BLAISE ALLYSEN KEARSLEY

FREE!

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PATRICE EVANS is a writer whose blog "The Assimilated Negro (T.A.N.)" (www.theassimilatednegro.com) was cited by MSNBC and The Houston Chronicle as "first in a string of blogs that act as a virtual shrink's sofa for those tackling the tricky topics of race and class." Patrice and his work have sullied the reputations of venerable media institutions such as the New York Times, NPR, The Guardian, and, um, Gawker. His first book NEGROPEDIA, an encyclopedic send-up of the modern black experience in post-racial America, will be published by Crown/Three Rivers. When not tugging at the strings of his fraying sanity on TAN, he blogs for NBC New York, among others.

DAVE HILL (www.davehillonline.com) is a writer, performer, musician, comedy-type person, artist, thinking man, and thief. Soon he is to steal your heart. He has written for the New York Times, Salon, Blender, Huffington Post, Guitar World, and a bunch of other people too. Aside from appearances on HBO, MTV, VH1, Spike TV, Court TV, you may also know him as the star of the wildly popular King of Miami program on the MOJO network or as the host of the live chat/variety/donkey show called the Dave Hill Explosion. In addition to having been on public radio's This American Life, Dave has also rocked America (and even parts of Canada) as a member of such critically-acclaimed-but-not-so-popular-as-to-be-considered-a-sellout bands as Uptown Sinclair, Cobra Verde, and Sons of Elvis. Lately, he has been rocking people into submission as the singer and guitar player for Valley Lodge and also the guitar player for Children of the Unicorn. There is talk of stickers.

RACHEL SHUKERT (www.rachelshukert.com) is a playwright, author and sometime performer. Her first book, Have You No Shame? And Other Regrettable Stories, was published in 2008 by Random House/Villard. Rachel's plays, which include Bloody Mary (NYIT Award nominee), Johnny Applefucker, The Worshipped, Sequins for Satan, and Perfection (with Neal Medlyn), have been produced and developed by Ars Nova, Soho Think Tank/Ice Factory, the Williamstown Theater Festival, the EVOLVE Series at Galapagos, the Prelude Festival at CUNY, as well as extensively throughout the Netherlands. She is also the co-founder of the theater group The Bushwick Hotel. Rachel's writing has appeared in Nerve, Heeb, and McSweeney's and in the anthologies 2033: The Future of Misbehavior and Best Sex Writing 2008, among others. She is currently working on her second book, The Grand Tour, which will be published by Harper Collins in the spring of 2010.

S.L. WISENBERG is in town from Chicago with The Adventures of Cancer Bitch, the only nonfiction book she knows of without a subtitle. Kirkus Reviews called her book "deeply personal, often darkly funny....Tart and scary." Her other books are Holocaust Girls: History, Memory & Other Obsessions (essays) and The Sweetheart Is In (stories). She co-directs the MA/MFA in Creative Writing program at Northwestern University. She's received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Illinois Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has learned to be successful at: emptying drains from a fresh mastectomy site, getting friends to decorate her bald head with peace signs and anti-war messages, and living one-breasted (sort of like an Amazon but not quite). Her blog is www.cancerbitch.blogspot.com.

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THE SERIES
How I Learned is a brand new monthly reading series featuring a mix of writers, comedians, bloggers and performers as chosen by hostess Blaise Allysen Kearsley based primarily on personal hygiene and make out prowess. Offering fact, fiction, and everything in between, How I Learned strives to share invaluable life lessons against a dimly lit, self-indulgent, sexually tense and booze fueled backdrop. It's education that works.

THE HOSTESS
Blaise Allysen Kearsley (also known as Blaise K because she's lazy) is a writer, photographer and veteran blogger who has appeared at PS122, Lolita, Bowery Poetry Club and Collective Unconscious. Her writing has been published in Nerve, Vice and The Black Table, and in the books Mortified and Cringe. She has been written up by Gawker, Gothamist, several major New York publications, a glossy British magazine for teen girls, and a newsletter for young orthodox Jews who live in Toronto. She doesn't blame you for being jealous.

Visit us at howilearnedathappyending.blogspot.com for more.