Nancy Guppy and I ate blueberry lavender lemon pancakes and looked at the sky through the tree branches and talked about writing and religion. Here is a quote from the interview that Nancy Guppy did not use:
Nancy Guppy: What is your book about?
Rachel Kessler: It’s a series of essays about my vagina.
All kinds of love from Seattle Magazine!
The Stranger recommends Christian Charm Workbook reading and slideshow extravaganza Tuesday, Oct 7, 7:00 PM at the Hugo House. Never-seen-before slideshows with poets Rebecca Hoogs, Sierra Nelson, Jason Whitmarsh, and Kevin Craft! My brand new puberty cartoons!
(Zacchaeous in the Tree Halloween Costume, circa 1981)
I will read from my work-in-progress memoir Christian Charm Workbook, (previously titled Hack) illustrated with my cartoons, old photos, maps, charts, and graphs at the Hugo House. Local literary luminaries Rebecca Hoogs, Sierra Nelson, Jason Whitmarsh, and Kevin Craft will each perform a poetry PowerPoint presentation, Pecha Kucha-style. This multi-media project is supported by the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture and 4Culture. Free and open to the public, it all takes place on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 at 7:00 PM at the Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, Seattle. The bar will be open! We’ll eat some cake! And maybe have a sing-along?
I’ll be judging, along with David Schmader, W. Kamau Bell, and Michelle Buteau, the Literary Death Match of authors Sara Benincasa, Rachel Shukert, Jamaal May, and Peter Mountford this Saturday, August 30, at 1:45 PM at Bumbershoot. Stop by the Words & Ideas stage at the Charlotte Martin Theatre and check out literary funtimes, judgement and death.
What is Literary Death Match? I am excited anytime I smell wrestling in the air. Here’s a description from the website:
Literary Death Match, co-created by Adrian Todd Zuniga, marries the literary and performative aspects of Def Poetry Jam, rapier-witted quips of American Idol’s judging (without any meanness), and the ridiculousness and hilarity of Double Dare.
Each episode of this competitive, humor-centric reading series features a thrilling mix of four famous and emerging authors (all representing a literary publication, press or concern — online, in print or live) who perform their most electric writing in seven minutes or less before a lively audience and a panel of three all-star judges. After each pair of readings, the judges — focused on literary merit, performance and intangibles — take turns spouting hilarious, off-the-wall commentary about each story, then select their favorite to advance to the finals.
The two finalists then compete in the Literary Death Match finale, which trades in the show’s literary sensibility for an absurd and comical climax to determine who takes home the Literary Death Match crown.
It may sound like a circus — and that’s half the point. Literary Death Match is passionate about inspecting new and innovative ways to present text off the page, and the most fascinating part about the LDM is how seriously attentive the audience is during each reading. We’ve called this the great literary ruse: an audacious and inviting title, a harebrained finale, but in-between the judging creates a relationship with the viewer as a judge themselves.
Our ultimate goal is to perform the Literary Death Match all over the world, and to continue to showcase literature as a brilliant, unstoppable medium.
My poems “Mice at the Jazz Concert” and “I Hate the Dancer” appear in the latest issue of Poetry Northwest!
(From “The Mouse & Mt St Helens” by Rachel Kessler, 1981)
Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rachel Kessler, 1/2 of the poetry & science team Vis-a-Vis Society. Rachel will be giving a lecture on THURSDAY at The Henry, in conjunction with the current exhibition, titled The Record.
Rachel gave me sneak peek into the content of her lecture, as well as talk about Seattle school districts, the disconnect of being a food critic relying on food stamps, and the importance of the “cranky socialist” persona.
Read Rachel’s interview below, come see the lecture on Thursday, and make sure to check out other works by the Vis-a-Vis society!
Nelson (left) and Kessler (right) of the Vis-a-Vis Society.
The interview:
You plan to discuss your appreciation of records, what are you going to talk about?
The first thing I thought about discussing was about my childhood experience with records. When I was growing up my…
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Dr. Ink and Dr. Owning turned the entire art museum into a laboratory for the exhibit Moment Magnitude.
I am thrilled to be a part of this performance, along with Sierra Nelson, Ed Skoog, Kary Wayson, and Katie Ogle!
Anne Carson & Robert Currie in Performance TUESDAY, MAY 13, 2014, 7:30 PM Town Hall Seattle
Rachel Kessler 
