Your Neighborhood’s Feminist Witchcraft: An Interview with Jericho Brown & Yours Truly!

Here’s an interview about this upcoming Hugo House Literary Series reading with Jericho Brown and Porochista Khakpopur, where I talk about The Male Gaze, God watching you, and how maybe we could lock those two in a staring contest and go about our revolution. Jericho questions “whether there is such a thing as ‘universal’ and whether experiences that are not universal can be rendered as the so-called sublime.”

https://hugohouse.org/rachel-kessler-jericho-brown-lit-series/

Come hear us read!

Hugo Literary Series: Jericho Brown, Porochista Khakpour, Rachel Kessler

November 10 at 7:30 PM – 9:30 PM

Fred Wildlife Refuge (128 Belmont Ave East) | 21+ | Doors open at 6:30 pm
General: $25 | Hugo House member: $20 | Student (with ID): $12

The 2017-2018 Hugo Literary Series coincides with our move to a new and permanent home on the same site where we first opened our doors over 20 years ago. In this same spirit of development and growth, we’ve commissioned new work on themes of real estate—from the pragmatic issues of property value to the more nebulous idea of place.

Award-winning poet Jericho Brown; critically acclaimed writer Porochista Khakpour; Seattle-based poet, performer, and one-half of the Vis-à-Vis Society, Rachel Kessler; and musician Katie Jacobson will present new and original work on the theme of “Area Protected by Neighborhood Watch.”

Books will be for sale through Elliott Bay Book Company and Open Books: A Poem Emporium.

Perhaps I will show some slides of some experimental maps I made:

DSC_0023(photo credit Maude Deslauriers)

Lit Crawl-ing to you

I’m baaaaaack from the woods of Vermont Studio Center (actually more of a village lifestyle), where they gave me a big white room, which I filled with my exploded brain via sumi ink and brush. Thursday, October 19 at 6:00 PM I’ll be sharing some of this month-long installation of maps and personal geography, alongside two rad writers, Summer Karaskova and Tara Atkinson, at Lit Crawl. This summer at Till, we all wrote by walking, listening with the ears we attached to our feet, in a workshop I led at Smokefarm. Come trip balls and dismantle the narrative plot patri-arch with us:

Till Writers Reading

The Highline 210 Broadway E. Seattle WA 98102 (21+)

Gather for readings by Tara Atkinson, Summer Karaskova, and Rachel Kessler, three rad women affiliated with Till. This is farm to table poetry, interdisciplinary work, and freshly published fiction that will leave you happily hungry for more.

(photo credit: Maude DesLauriers @8fleurebelle8)

DSC_0005

 

Livestream Reading at Hollow Earth Radio

8210882830_fe0c8f7ca4_o
I’ve been obsessively researching Yesler Way, writing an essay up and down itimages
examining the palimpsest of this street

I’ll be reading an excerpt from this essay on Saturday, November 14, 7:30 PM at

Hollow Earth Radio

2018 E Union St, # A, Seattle, Washington 98122

APRIL Festival is partnering with the Letters Festival in Atlanta to present this special IRL and internet-hosted event.

We’ll watch livestreamed readings from Tanwi Nandini Islam, Michael Kimball. Live in studio, we’ll project Jane Wong and Rachel Kessler to the other side of the country!

More about the Letters Festival: lettersfestival.org
More about APRIL: aprilfestival.com

http://thelettersfestival.org/

Christian Charm Workbook reading at Lit Crawl

IMG_9408

Seattle Public Libraries‘ librarians are wizards. These public servants outpace algorithms and understand the contours of research. My librarians have unlocked family secretes in the Genealogy Library and Seattle Room at the Central Branch downtown, sending me on a fascinating adventure down the research rabbit hole of roots and religion. I will present some of these findings, along with maps, old photos, new cartoons, and songs, at Lit Crawl this Thursday, October 22, 7:00 PM at Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave, Seattle.

IMG_9406

Here’s a map of the whole big Lit Crawl. I wish I could be in several places at once for this event – but I’ll be starting out at the Frye at 6:00 for Native Writers from Seattle and Beyond, then stick with myself at 7:00, and sprint over to Sole Repair at 8:00 to catch Poetry Northwest’s reading. #whatsyourcrawl

Shiny new illustrated essay reading

I’m working on a new series of cartoons and words to present at this very fun event. The last time I performed at the SIX PACK SERIES I made sock puppets in Miranda July and my likenesses to help move the story along, and then a young woman stood up and proposed to her girlfriend! Not because of the puppetry, but this gives you an idea of what sort of shenanigans to expect. I also expect this to be EXTREMELY ADVANCED FEMINISM, as in don’t bring the kids. Like this:

vagina

From the Facebook invite:

Washington Ensemble Theater presents SIX PACK SERIES: Too Feminist To…

Trigger Warning: hilarity, political correctness, issues (serious ones)

The cool kids at Washington Ensemble Theatre bring you another stupid smart Six Pack Series! Hold onto your (insert non-binary exclusive interior sex organs here) because we are bringing you “Too Feminist To Come Up With a Name That Respects All Intersectional Minorities While Still Remaining Irreverent and Funny.”

We have invited some of our fav female identifying writers to write and read and talk and think about feminism (insert joke re: Riot Grrrl, Lena Dunham, Beyonce, Sisterhood, and the Nuva Ring here).

There will be no damn misogyny, bigotry, slut shaming, tone policing, or hurtful coded language allowed at this event. . . But there will be jokes.

Our All Female Identifying Line Up Includes:
Cienna Madrid
Kim Selling
Avalon Willows
Rachel Kessler
Ava Lou
Bryn Santillan

With your hosts: Samie Spring Detzer and Kaillee Coleman

Post a picture of the most feminine object you can imagine to this invite for a FREE ticket! Or, pay the standard snooze-worthy $6 at the door.

Literary Death Match at Bumbershoot

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.

Link

Anne Carson in Seattle

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

This evening will feature a world premiere performance of a new work by Anne Carson and Robert Currie inspired by the Cycladic Sculptures. With original music by Eyvind Kang and Jessika Kenney.The Cycladic Sculptures were created between 5000 and 2400 BC on the Cycladic Islands of Greece set in the Aegean Sea. These sculptures possess certain features; they are proportional and simplistic, their arms are folded, and the only facial feature carved was the nose. The sculptures have all been excavated at Cycladic cemetaries.

 

Old Growth Northwest Reading at the Rendezvous Jewelbox

crabbiest
I’ll be busting out a new PowerPoint storytime about this crabby teen on Tuesday, April 29 at the Rendezvous’ Jewelbox Theater, at 8:30PM, with local authors Mary Ellen Talley and Charlotte Austin. Come and enjoy a drink and snack in the cozy and old-timey fancy Jewelbox!
Tuesday, April 29, 8:30 PM, $5 suggested donation
Jewelbox Theater at the Rendezvous in Belltown, 2nd & Bell
2322 2nd Ave, Seattle
Old Growth Northwest is proud to present a new volume of our Reading & Open Mic Series. This month our headlining readers will be three notable local authors: Rachel Kessler, Mary Ellen Talley, and Charlotte Austin. Authors will be reading original material in addition to their short responses to a common prompt. The prompt for this volume is: “She awoke to a note stuck to her forearm.” Authors will also have their texts projected onto a screen behind them as they read. The second half of the event will be an open mic, and all interested authors are invited to bring material and read. The event will be held at the Jewelbox Theater at the Rendezvous Lounge in Belltown, 8:30pm-10:00pm, $5 suggested donation.