An Actual Kansas Chapbook Release Reading, Feat. Chuck Stebelton and Anne Boyer

This is a special edition of An Actual Kansas Reading Series. Both readers have chapbooks (the first two) on the newly minted Mitzvah Chaps.

Chuck Stebelton is Literary Program Manager at Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee, WI, and a friend of mine. Before that, he spent some time in Chicago curating the Myopic Poetry Series. His first full-length book of poetry, Circulation Flowers, was released by Tougher Disguises in 2005. Other chapbooks include Flags and Banners (Bronze Skull Press) and Precious (Answer Tag Home Press). Chuck enjoys good beer, please bring some to the reading to share with him.

Here is something from Tim Yu discussing Chuck's work and the 'controversial' Prairie School of Poetry.

Here is a video of Chuck reading poems:




And another one of him eating penne with a fake moustache for 'unknown' reasons:


Untitled from Chuck Stebelton on Vimeo.



Anne Boyer lives in a suburban Kansas hellscape with a charming cat, an artist prodigy daughter, and a lot of books. She is also a friend of mine, in my top 10 favorite 'writers', and my co-curator of An Actual Kansas Readings Series. Her first full length poetry book, The Romance of Happy Workers, was released this year by Coffee House Press. Other chapbooks include Anne Boyer's Good Apocalypse (Effing Press) and Selected Dreams (Abraham Lincoln).

Here is a review of The Romance of Happy Workers.

Here is a video Anne made that is funny:







Sunday, June 29, 2008, 7pm

6 Gallery, Lawrence, KS (716 1/2 Massachusetts Street)

Free but you can spend money on books.

'Substantial' 'snacks' will be 'provided'.




For to order the new chapbooks ahead of time, or anytime thereafter, visit mitzvahchaps.blogspot.com. If you live in Lawrence, I will 'hand deliver' them. If you live other places and plan to come to the reading, you 'might as well' wait, because they won't arrive in time. You can buy both chapbooks at the reading for 'only' $10, which is a 'deal'.

An Actual Kansas Special Edition: Rachel Sherman

Rachel Sherman was born in 1975. She holds an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. Her short stories have appeared in McSweeney's, Open City, Post Road, Conjunctions, n+1, and Story Quarterly, among other publications, and in the book Full Frontal Fiction: The Best of Nerve Anthology . Her book of short stories, The First Hurt (Open City Books) was short listed for The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and was named one of the 25 Books to Remember from 2006 by the New York Public Library.

Rachel will read:

Friday, May 2, 2008 @ 7pm

6 Gallery (716.5 Massachusetts St., Lawrence, KS)

Free (but please put something in the "passed hat" if you can -- it will help cover the cost of Rachel's movement from where she lives in NYC to the airport, which is some insane amount that people in Kansas can't comprehend.)

An Actual Kansas Reading Series is teaming up with the University of Kansas English Department to welcome Rachel. Deb Olin Unferth asked us if we would consider making Rachel's visit part of the series so that she didn't have to read in some unfriendly university room in Wescoe Hall and instead read at the very friendly and cozy 6 Gallery that houses AAKRS and lots of art that you should buy. We jumped at the opportunity to take part in the event, so did Sally (of 6 Gallery). It should be fun.

DON'T MISS THIS, kansans: AN ACTUAL KANSAS #5

The legendary Jennifer "el" Knox, Danielle Pafunda, and Shanna Compton

7 pm, Saturday, April 5, 2008
6 Gallery (716 1/2 Massachusetts St., downtown Lawrence)

there will be wine and chicken buckets

Jennifer L. Knox was born in Lancaster, California—where absolutely anything can be made into a bong. Her poems have appeared in the anthologies The Best American Poetry (1997, 2003 and 2006), Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to Present, Free Radicals: American Poets Before Their First Books, and The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present. She has taught poetry writing at New York University and Hunter College, and is available for children’s parties, séances, and tradeshow booth demonstrations. For even more specious information, see www.jenniferlknox.com.

Danielle Pafunda is the author of Pretty Young Thing (Soft Skull, 2005), and the chapbook A Primer for Cyborgs: The Corpse (Whole Coconut Chapbook Series, forthcoming). Her poems have been chosen three times for Best American Poetry (2004, 2006, and 2007). Other poems and reviews have appeared in such publications as American Letters & Commentary, Conjunctions, the Georgia Review, and TriQuarterly. She is coeditor of the online journal La Petite Zine, a doctoral candidate in the University of Georgia's creative writing program, and Spring 2008 Poet-in-Residence at Columbia College Chicago. See daniellepafunda.blogspot.com for more information.

Shanna Compton is the author of For Girls (& Others), Down Spooky, and several chapbooks, as well as the editor of GAMERS: Artists, Writers & Programmers on the Pleasures of Pixels. Her poems and essays have appeared widely in magazines such as No Tell Motel, MiPoesias, Verse, the tiny, McSweeney's, Absent, Coconut, Spork, and Court Green, and in anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2005, The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel, Bowery Women, Digerati, and Exchange Values Vol. 2. She lives in New Jersey. For more information, see shannacompton.com.

Donations lovingly pried from your hands!

"the best reading series ever"

deb olin unferth reads "sickos" from her McSweeney's threeway


tao lin explores the emotional lives of the child stars

this photo does not do service to the appreciators piled up to the door


More photos are in a flickr set.

More on AAKRS #4

Tao Lin's second poetry collection, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, will be published by Melville House in May, 2008. He lives in Brooklyn.


Tao's main blog about literature is called Reader of Depressing Books.

He also posts his visual art on Underwater Hamster.

Here are two little e-books by Tao Lin on Bear Parade:

this emotion was a little e-book

Today The Sky is Blue and White with
Bright Blue Spots and a Small Pale
Moon and I Will Destroy Our
Relationship Today

Tao Lin interviewed Deb Olin Unferth for Bookslut.





















Deb Olin Unferth is the author of the story collection Minor Robberies (McSweeney's). Her first novel is forthcoming, also from McSweeney's.


Frank Tankard at lawrence.com interviewed Deb.

AGNI has something Deb.

YouTube has something Deb, too:

An Actual Kansas #4

An Actual Kansas No. 2

An Actual Kansas No. 2 warmed the chilly end of November and over fifty people spilled over the chairs and onto the floors of Lawrence's 6 Gallery to listen to the work of Cyrus Console and Scott Pierce.

We had boxed wine and cold food and canned beer but people came for poetry. There is a palpable attentiveness around here, and as was commented later people are well-dressed and mild-mannered, they do not drink all the wine and they leave some crackers and cheese on the plate. The dress shop upstairs, named something about eccentrics, played canned and terrifying Christmas music all night and it leaked through the floors.

Ken Irby gave a lovely introduction for Cyrus, and though I had written a very honest introduction for Scott, about how he was the first poet in Texas to write of the moon, and how he was born in the year of the Chupacabra, and how he was the love child of H.D. and H.D., and also how he finally escaped his youth-life of petty crime to find a life of more major crime of art, standing at the podium my notes were suddenly abstract marks (unreadable!) and I spoke instead of dove's defeathered breasts (said to resemble hearts) and Austin and love.


Cyrus and Scott were gentle and intense, the work of each fortuitously corresponded with the other's: there is Cyrus who is gentle and intense of the head, and there is Scott who is gentle and intense of the body. Both have written poems about Emus. Scott read his quick poems, and what is one of my favorites -- the poem from Moss Ranch. Scott said the word "Jackshit" (as in, "I don't know Jackshit about emus") and later told me the first word he ever wrote was "Hogrot." Cyrus read from his new book from Burning Deck, Brief Under Water, which I hope you will buy, and he read some new work for those who love epics.


Dennis Etzel wrote something about our Thursday night in Kansas: here. I've taken some pictures & made a flickr set: here.

Please join us for our holiday reading -- legends Kenneth Irby and K. Silem Mohammad will read on Friday, December 14 at 7 p.m., also at 6 Gallery.