I was Seattle Review of Books’ eyes on the ground at the AWP conference and bookfair in Los Angeles this year, attending readings and panels all day and into the night, then gathering all my notes and writing a blog post at 3:00 in the morning, every day. Whoo-wee!
Start here:
An essay I wrote and some cartoons I drew are up on LitHub today! Thanks to Seattle Arts & Lectures for bringing out Emily St. John Mandel, the author of Station Eleven, which inspired this essay, and to Rebecca Hoogs for commissioning me to write it, and to Literary Hub for publishing it, including my apocalypse-obsessed cartoons.
An oldie, but a goodie. Back in August 2013, Vis-a-Vis Society installed this question/answer machine at Smoke Farm’s Lo-Fi Festival. Photos by Britta Johnson. Some of the resulting poems app…
You can watch an excerpt of “The End” here. The Vis-a-Vis Society teamed up with Britta Johnson and drove out to the desert last summer to shoot some Spaghetti Western, Sergio-Leone-esq…
Source: Vis-a-Vis Society’s NEW video poem an homage to Spaghetti Westerns and Sergio Leone
Just a few ways to end.
This video is a collaboration with Sierra Nelson. Together we are Vis-a-Vis Society, a group of poet-scientists dedicated to the analysis of the everyday. This excerpt is from Vis-a-Vis Society’s much longer video poem/instructional video of 1,000 ways to end. Premiered as part of Vis-a-Vis Society’s interactive installation piece “Registration” at NEPO 5K Don’t Run 2015. Written and performed by Rachel Kessler and Sierra Nelson. Director of cinematography: Britta Johnson. Editor: Britta Johnson. Sound: Britta Johnson. Studio Recording: Kent Kessler.
I’ll be reading an excerpt from this essay on Saturday, November 14, 7:30 PM at
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
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.
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
The Seattle Review of Books recommends you come to my Lit Crawl reading at The Frye Art Museum Thursday, October 22 at 7:00 PM.
On Thursday, October 22nd, Lit Crawl Seattle is bringing you readings from more than 65 authors at 20 different venues. The full schedule of events is a little bit daunting. How are you supposed to choose three readings out of this embarassment of riches? Let the Seattle Review of Books help! Here’s our third suggested itinerary:
If you’re sick and tired of “traditional” readings, where someone stands up and talks about their book for fifteen minutes, Lit Crawl’s got you covered.
1. At Capitol Cider, Seattle Public Library librarians David Wright and Andrea Gough will present a cider flight, along with readings to go with each of the ciders. Gough and Wright are wonderful readers, and they’re likely to uncover some real gems for this event. Plus, drinking with librarians is always a lot of fun.
2. At the Frye Art Museum, Rachel Kessler will present a slideshow performance of Christian Charm Workbook, “her multimedia memoir about growing up with the Jesus movement in 1970s Seattle.” Kessler is a great local writer, and she always finds some interesting ways to incorporate other media and performance into her work.
3. It’s back to Capitol Cider for you, where Book-It Repertory Theater will perform a segment of their adaptation of David James Duncan’s brilliant novel Brothers K, which is a retelling of The Brothers Karamazov set in Washington state.
While teaching a Path With Art class about video poems, I made a new video poem. Watch “After the Dog Erratically Drives a Tractor Somewhere in Scotland,” shot October 2014 at University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs on San Juan Island, Washington with Iris, Ruby, and Michael Seiwerath and Sierra Nelson, dancing in the distance.
Rachel Kessler 