For some, Thursday is a night to prepare for the weekend that everybody is apparently working for, while for others it’s 30 Rock night. But for the most part, Friday-Saturday nights are for the amateurs, and you can simply check out the continuing adventures of Liz Lemon, Jack Donaghy, and Tracy Jordan on NBC’s website over the weekend. Thursday night is the real night to shine. More specifically, the one on April 9th will be pretty momentous as we present the biggest night of spoken stories in our seven months gracing the stage of Bar Matchless in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
This month, in addition to helping some of the finest people in Brooklyn, 826NYC, audience members will be asked to contribute their own six-word memoir as SMITH Magazine hosts the Six-Word Memoir Slam. In doing so, not only will you be part of one of the biggest Vol. 1’s yet, you will also be able to say you told a story on the same stage as our five individual storytellers. And believe us, people will think you are cooler for that than saying you got hammered on a Saturday night.
Six-Word Memoirs are an international storytelling phenomenon, inspired by Ernest Hemingway and immortalized in a bestselling book series from SMITH Magazine. A Six-Word Memoir Slam moves the reading from the stage to the audience, as editors Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith ask each of you to tell your life story in a mere half-dozen words. We’ll encourage; we’ll cajole; we’ll throw candy at your heads. You’ll laugh; you’ll cry; you’ll delight in the catharsis of brief and instantaneous self-expression in front of real-time, screen-free, live, breathing humans.
Jonathan Goldstein is the award-winning author of Lenny Bruce Is Dead. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, ReadyMade, and The New York Times. He’s a contributing editor to PRI’s This American Life, where his work is regularly featured, and he lives in Montreal and hosts his own CBC program, Wiretap. His newest book is Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! and we at Vol. 1 really, really like it.
Tao Lin is the author of the forthcoming books Shoplifting From American Apparel (2009) and Richard Yates (2010) and some other books. His website is called “Reader of Depressing Books.”
Aaron Lake Smith is the author of a serialized fanzine called Big Hands that has been described as “an ongoing treatise on disappointment.” He has on occasion been known to write or work for other publications like the Brooklyn Rail, Harper’s Magazine and Arthur Magazine. His website is www.oldwaysways.com.
Justin Taylor’s first book, a story collection entitled Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever, will be published next year by Harper Perennial. He is on the editorial board of PEN America and co-editor of The Agriculture Reader, a handmade arts annual published out of Brooklyn, NY, where he lives. For more information, please visit him online at http://www.justindtaylor.net/
Brian Abrams (aka Dreidel Hustler) works for Heeb Magazine and has his own blog, dreidelhustler.com. He may have lost his virginity to a prostitute.
Also, a very special live set from Soft Black to open the night up.
8PM, Bar Matchless (577 Manhattan Ave. in Greenpoint), five dollar suggested donation. All profits go to 826NYC