Do you know this woman hiding half her face behind her fingers? That’s Bernette Rudolph, my neighbor and a wonderful artist who lives on Third Street in Park Slope. She is also one of the organizers of the Park Slope/Windsor Terrace Artists Open Studio Tour this Columbus Day Weekend (October 12-14, 2013).

At their website,there’s a map, studio addresses and information about the exhibiting artists. It’s a wonderful group of artists including Tom Keough, who does wonderful and mysterious night paintings of Brooklyn Streets. The other artists are Phillip de Loach, Joy Walker, Bernette Rudolph, Janie Samuels, Lloyd Campbell, Bob Hagan, Robin Epstein, Darcy Lynn, Grace Markman  and David Listokin

At her studio, Bernette will show what she’s calling “Master Paintings in Three Dimension.” By that she means 3-D treatments of Chagall’s wedding couple flying off the surface, Picasso’s Guernica, and other master paintings.

I think it sounds fun.

Below is a painting by exhibiting artist Joy Walker:

In no particular order, these panels at the Brooklyn Book Festival appealed to me. There’s so much to choose from and many look very good.  Frankly I’ve never gotten into one of these panels. It’s always so crowded.

ONE.  10:00 A.M. The So-Called ‘Post-Feminist, Post-Racial’ Life in Publishing: Best-selling author Deborah Copaken Kogan sparked a firestorm with her explosive essay in The Nation, and her experience as a 21st-century female author was marked by slut-shaming, name-calling and an enduring lack of respect. Poet, activist and author of sixteen books,Sonia Sanchez (Homegirls and Handgrenades) has consistently addressed the lack of respect for the struggles and lives of Black America. Author and founder of Feministing, Jessica Valenti, has devoted considerable time to transforming the media landscape for women. Moderated by Rob Spillman, Tin House. Borough Hall Courtroom.

TWO. 2:00 P.M. André Aciman and Claire Messud in Conversation: The experience of otherness and dislocation are preoccupying themes forAndré Aciman (Harvard Square) and Claire Messud (The Woman Upstairs). The conversation will explore how these themes inform their sense of character, as well as their understanding of the very nature of the fictional enterprise. Moderated by Albert Mobilio (Bookforum). Borough Hall Courtroom.

THREE.  3:00 P.M. Publish and Perish? E-books are killing publishing! The corporations are killing publishing! Self-publishing is killing publishing! While headlines continually bemoan the end of the literary world as we know it, others argue that the reports of publishing’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.  Janet Groth (The Receptionist) and Boris Kachka(Hothouse) take a look inside two of our most storied institutions—The New Yorker and Farrar, Straus and Giroux—and consider the past while taking the pulse of the literary world today.  Brooklyn Historical Society.

FOUR. 5:00 P.M. What Fills the Void After War? Three acclaimed writers from countries that have known conflict and political unrest discuss war’s aftermath and how it informs their work. With Irish writer Colum McCann(TransAtlantic), Sri Lankan writer Ru Freeman (On Sal Mal Lane) and Iraqi writer Sinan Antoon (The Corpse Washer). Moderated by Rob Spillman (Tin House). Borough Hall Courtroom.

FIVE. 5:00 P.M. Let’s Talk About (Writing) Sex: Everyone’s writing about it.Sam Lipsyte (The Fun Parts) pens sardonic short stories about sex in a misanthropic world. Amy Grace Loyd (The Affairs of Others) depicts an apartment building filled with violence, mystery, and, of course, sex. AndSusan Choi (My Education) puts a (sexy) new twist on the student-teacher relationship. Short readings and discussion. Moderated by Angela Ledgerwood (Cosmopolitan Magazine). Main Stage.

SIX. 11:00 A.M. Mommy Dearest: Some women would sacrifice anything to have a child. Others consider having a child a sacrifice in itself. The complications of adoption, of lost chances, and of the relationship between past and present are all held together by a mother’s instinct, or lack thereof. Jennifer Gilmore (The Mothers), Claire Messud (The Woman Upstairs), and Jamaica Kincaid (See Now Then) debate the different roles that motherhood plays in their latest novels.  Moderated by Harold Augenbraum, National Book Foundation. St. Francis Auditorium.

SEVEN. 4:00 P.M. Art Spiegelman and Jules Feiffer in Conversation: Pulitzer-Prize winning graphic novelist Art Spiegelman‘s newest release, Co-Mix, is a career retrospective that covers his work from Raw to Maus to the New Yorker (and Garbage Pail Kids in between). Joined by Jules Feiffer (Out of Line: The Art of Jules Feiffer), also a Pulitzer winner, they debate the purpose and impact of comics art, its history and development, and their visions of its future. Featuring screen projection. St. Francis Auditorium.

EIGHT. 5:00 P.M. On Nonfiction: American literature is in the midst of a renaissance of sorts, from the glossies to the blogosphere, with an unforeseen proliferation of investigative journalism, memoir, and personal essay. Join Svetlana Alpers (Roof Life), George Packer (The Unwinding) and Clifford Thompson (Love for Sale and Other Essays) in conversation with Phillip Lopate (Portrait Inside My Head) about the renewal and relevance of nonfiction writing today. St. Francis Auditorium

NINE. 10:00 A.M. Family Inheritances: It’s all in the family. Sometimes it’s the one we’re born into and sometimes it’s the one we make for ourselves.Joanna Hershon (A Dual Inheritance), Caroline Leavitt (Is This Tomorrow), Callie Wright (Love All), and Donna Hill (What Mother Never Told Me) discuss the secrets, mysteries and hidden truths that permeate these generational relationships and lifelong bonds.  Moderated by Brigid Hughes, A Public Space. St. Ann’s

TEN. 12:00 P.M. Arts and Politics in Fiction: Art has always been a tool for political and social change. In these novels, it comes in the form of protest-pop songs, motorcycle photography and high-end fashion. Alex Gilvarry(From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant), Rachel Kushner (The Flamethrowers) and Nicholson Baker (Traveling Sprinkler) shed new light on the timeless relationship between art and politics. Moderated by Joel Whitney. St. Ann’s.

THIS IS THE WEEK of the Brooklyn Book Festival, which gathers 40,000 people to Brooklyn Borough Hall for New York City’s largest Book Festival and America’s third largest.

From emerging writers to icons, this year includes readings and panels with Pete hamill, Jamaica Kincaid, James McBride,Claire Messud, Colum McCann, Sharon Olds, George Packer, Karen Russell, Sapphire, Art Spiegelman, Meg Wolitzer and Tom Wolfe and many, many more.

The Bookend events, parties, readings and panels during this week leading up to the Book Festival, are really fun, too. Tonight there’s a big bash at The Bell House. On Tuesday, Brooklyn by the Book presents Paul Harding, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning Tinkers in conversation with Michele Filgate. That’s at the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza.

On Wednesday, September 18 at 8PM there’s a celebration of the short story with Elissa Schappell, Dawn Raffel, Gregory Spatz, Clifford Thompson and Ron Parsons.  At the Old Stone House, or course. Hope to see you there.

On Thursday September 19, you can cat ch Catherine Gigante-Brown reading from ner novel “The El” at the Brooklyn Navy Yard at 6:30 PM.

Also on Thursday, a tribute to Alexander Cockburn and a celebration and a new collection of his work: A Colossal Wreck: A Road Trip Through Political Scandal, Corrption and American Culture at powerHouse Arena in DUMBO at 7PM.

Friday is the Fourth Annual Brooklyn Indie Part at Greenlight Bookstore in Ft. Green starting at 7PM.

For all the info you need; go to brooklynbookfestival.org

“My short stories are like soft shadows I have set out in the world, faint footprints I have left.”

― Haruki Murakami

On September 18, 2013 at 8PM, Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House will present a Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Event: SOFT SHADOWS: A CELEBRATION OF THE SHORT STORY with Elissa Schappell, Dawn Raffel, Gregory Spatz,, Clifford Thompson and Ron Parsons, who will read and discuss their work and their favorite short stories. Louise Crawford will host.

Audience members will be invited open-mic style to share their favorite published stories and read the first paragraph.

A $5 suggested donation will include wine and snacks. Books will be sold and signed.

The Old Stone House: 336 Third Street between 5^th and 4^th Avenues. R train to Union Street, F train to Fourth Avenue. 718-768-3195. For interviews and inquiries: 718-288-4290

ABOUT THE FEATURED AUTHORS

DAWN RAFFEL’s illustrated memoir, The Secret Life of Objects, was published in June and was on Oprah’s Summer Reading List and Best Memoir List for 2012. She is also the author of two story collections— Further Adventures in the Restless Universe and In the Year of Long Division (soon to be reissued)—and a novel, Carrying the Body. Her stories have appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, BOMB, Conjunctions, Black Book, Fence, Open City, The Mississippi Review Prize Anthology, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, Arts & Letters, The Quarterly, NOON, and numerous other periodicals and anthologies. She was a fiction editor for many years, followed by a seven-year stint as Executive Articles Editor at O, The Oprah Magazine and three years as Editor-at-Large at More magazine; she has also taught in the MFA program at Columbia University and at the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia; Montreal; and Vilnius, Lithuania. She is now Editor at Large, Books at Readers Digest, and the editor of The Literarian, the magazine for the Center for Fiction in New York. She lives outside New York City with her husband and sons.

ELISSA SCHAPPELL is the author of Blueprints for Building Better Girls and Use Me, a finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award. She is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, where she the author of the “Hot-Type” column. She has been a Senior Editor at the Paris Review and is a founding editor of the literary magazine, Tin House. Elissa has also been the co-editor of the anthologies, The Friend Who Got Away and Money Changes Everything. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her family.

GREGORY SPATZ is the author of novels Inukshuk, Fiddler’s Dream and No One But Us, as well as short story collections, Half as Happy and Wonderful Tricks. His short stories have appeared in literary journals and magazines such as Glimmer Train Stories, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Epoch, Santa Monica Review, The New Yorker, etc., and he has published numerous book and music reviews for The Oxford American. He’s won numerous grants from the Washington State Artist Trust, as well as a Washington State Book Award, and in 2011 he was named Individual Artist of the Year by the Spokane Arts Commission. He is also the recipient of a 2012 National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship.

CLIFFORD THOMPSON is the author of Love for Sale and Other Essays from Autumn House Press. His essays about books, film, jazz, and American identity have appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Iowa Review, Commonweal, Film Quarterly, Cineaste, Oxford American, Black Issues Book Review, and elsewhere. He is the author of a novel, Signifying Nothing. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and children.

RON PARSONS is the author of the new story collection The Sense of Touch from Aqueous Books. He is writer living in Sioux Falls. Born in Michigan and raised in South Dakota, he was inspired to begin writing fiction in Minneapolis while attending the University of Minnesota. His short stories have appeared in such places as The Gettysburg Review, Indiana Review, The Briar Cliff Review, Flyway, and The Onion. This is his debut collection.

ABOUT THE HOST

Louise Crawford runs Brooklyn Readings Works, which has been called “the best place to chase fiction with a little history” by Conde Nast Traveler. She is the founder of the popular blog Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Blogfest, an annual networking event for bloggers. Her company Brooklyn Social Media gets the word out about artists and entrepreneurs.

Janine Nichols, a Brooklyn performer and leader of the band SEMI-FREE, has plenty to be excited about.

First, she got a glorious CD review wondering why she is not famous by David Malachowski! Click below to read it:

http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2013/08/23/entertainment/doc5216d71ea3c14007168306.txt

Second, SEMI-FREE now has a band photo (see above). Pictured are Nicols and bandmates Brandon Ross and Charlie Burnham.

And third: Semi-Free now has a video on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObT_hq7-2oA

The photo and video were shot by the visual artist Peter Seward at John Brown’s Farm in Lake Placid, NY. It was from there that John Brown organized his assault on the Kansas Territory and, later, Harper’s Ferry. Hallowed ground.

The song in the video, shot wild on borrowed guitars, is a new one, MOON OR NO MOON, the story of a slave escape. Nichols based it on a character in the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Known World by Edward P. Jones.

Hey, are you looking for something to do THIS Friday morning/early afternoon?

On the second day of Rosh Hashanah at Congregation Beth Elohim, Pulitzer Prize finalist James Goodman will be interviewed by Rabbi Andy Bachman about the binding of Isaac, the subject of his new book But Where is the Lamb? Imagining the Story of Abraham and Isaac (Schocken). 

Goodman and Rabbi Bachman will grapple with a story that Jews have been trying to make sense of and arguing about for more than 2000 years. It is a story many Jews believe is the most enduring symbol — the very definition — of what it means to be a Jew (Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice the son he so longed for to God) and many others wish weren’t even in the Bible.

They will discuss a story that lovers of peace and love and joy (and haters of war and sacrifice and blind obedience and faith) love to hate. He will ask how and why we would want to worship a God who (for no good reason) would ask a man to sacrifice his son, and how and why we would celebrate and revere, as the patriarch of patriarchs, a man who without protest, question, or hesitation, set out to obey. He will explore the answers that other people have given over the years. Although there is a lot not to like about the story, we can take comfort even hope in the endless debate about it and the thought that there has never been a time when people read the story we read and wanted to leave it as it is, on the page.

After the class, everyone is invited to Community Bookstore for wine and snacks catered by D’Vine Taste. James Goodman will sign books.

JAMES GOODMAN is a professor at Rutgers University, Newark, where he teaches history and creative writing. He is the author of two previous books, including Stories of Scottsboro, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His new book But Where is the Lamb? Imagining the Story of Abraham and Isaac comes out September 15 from Schocken Books. He lives in New York.

Full disclosure: James Goodman is a client of Brooklyn Social Media.

So nice to get a book in the mail. So nice when that book is from Ugly Duckling Presse. So nice when that Ugly Duckling Presse book is by a friend. Even nicer when that friend is Brooklyn’s Michael Ruby, author of five full-length collections of poetry,  including the brand new American Songbook. 

American Songbook is Ruby’s poetic response to an ambitious sweep of 20th century vocal music, including blues, jazz and country standards, Hip Hop, rock and disco. Lewis Warsh writes “You can sing  along to Michael Ruby’s delirious new poems in American Songbook, your voice echoing down (to mis-qute Fred Neil) “the canyon of your mind,” until you can’t sing any more and the  poem goes off on its own.”

It’s an inviting book, which begins with the words, “Girls, beef up the rackets, and plasticize the seven dwarfs” in a poem called “Pinchbacks—Take ‘Em Away” for the great Bessie Smith.

“Come As You Are” is a poem for Kurt Cobain that begins: “Come circumnavigate this eyeball in a see of eyeballs/As you are glowing polyurethane or coconut soda.”

“I just called the chocolate relief/to say four hearts poise/I love you in the varnished spring/I just called the highboy song…” is from a poem called “I Just Called to Say I Love You” for Stevie Wonder.

Reading Ruby’s book is like browsing through someone’s iTunes playlist. Someone with a really good playlist, that is. All the poems are named for songs and performers, some familiar, some obscure. Quickly the poems take the reader into strange terrain, mangling the lyrics in ways that are complex and compelling. This is language-y stuff that tracks meaning in discombobulating ways. Clearly, he knows (and loves his music) but he also lets loose in the realm of the hallucenogenic poetic imagination.

Ruby’s other books include Memories, Dreams and Inner Voices, Compulsive Words and At an Intersection. You can learn more about them here.