Party Hopping

Earlier this month, the Fishbowl Improv poetry group released the video embedded above: “How to Read Poetry.”

We are sharing the video to make you laugh and to remind you how not to conduct yourself at your next author reading.

If you want to avoid putting your audience to sleep, we recommend following the advice of Literary Brooklyn author Evan Hughes: “Keep it relatively brief and engaging. Keep in mind that reading aloud is a tough way to engage an audience. It can work, but I think it is best to be concise and have a range of people on stage for a few minutes each.”

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

Writers from around the West Coast gathered in Santa Monica last night for our first Mediabistro Book club in California. Writers, aspiring authors and readers mingled beside the pool at the Viceroy Santa Monica Hotel.

Follow this link to see photos from the event–all photos were taken by Bea Lamar. In the photo embedded above, author and typographer Denis Wood posed with his new book, Everything Sings. Below, we’ve posted a picture of Victoria Patterson posing with her book, This Vacant Paradise.

Both of these writer will also appear at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this weekend. This GalleyCat editor will report on the event all weekend long.

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A dispatch from correspondent Cynthia Shannon

The San Francisco Writer’s Grotto held their annual open house earlier this month, unofficially kicking off the fall literary season in California (Litquake, the beloved SF literary festival that has just started gaining traction in New York, launches today). Readings were short and sweet, emceed by former SF Chronicle Book Editor Oscar Villalon, featuring original Grotto founder Ethan Watters, author of Crazy Like Us, new member Justine Sharrock, author of Tortured: When Good Soldiers Do Bad Things, and the best-dressed man in the room, James Nestor, author of Get High Now.

The Grotto is a writer’s co-op, unique to San Francisco in that it gives freelance writers the impression of having a day job. Started 16 years ago by Po Bronson, Ethan Watters, and Ethan Canin, it has grown to about 30 writers in residence, meaning everyone contributes their share of rent for use of “office-like personal space” in order to feel less lonely as a writer. Members gain valuable feedback from a prestigious (and published) community that hosts workshops and networking events to help writers hone in on their craft.

“It ritualizes the feeling of being a freelancer,” says author Julia Scheeres, author of Jesusland and the upcoming Jonestown (Free Press). One wall in the shared community space painted in dark orange displays the signatures of visiting writers (pictured), most notably Gay Talese. “Over 1000 people have come through the Grotto,” explains Watters, who read his amusing piece of advice for authors appearing on The Daily Show. “It’s a place they can learn about the industry, make connections, and in some cases, friends.”

Last night GalleyCat mingled with financial journalists and publishing types at editor Tina Brown‘s Upper East Side apartment. The Daily Beast founder had thrown a party for author Randall Lane, a Daily Beast editor-in-large who wrote the new memoir, The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane.

During the party, Brown gave a brief speech praising the book. “It would make a great musical,” she quipped. “I’d love to see Zeroes on Ice.” Lane followed up with his own short speech, summing up the crazy atmosphere of his book: “We were in the middle of something historic,” he said. “Not necessarily good, but historic.”

UPDATED: Yesterday the Daily Beast broke an excerpt from the book with some passages about financial guru Jim Cramer. Entitled “Jim Cramer Stock Touting Scandal,” you can read the whole essay here.

Last night publishing leaders, technology writers, magazine editors, and mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby mingled at the glitzy book party for David Kirkpatrick. We missed the party, but received a dispatch and that photo of Kirkpatrick (via Gabriel Cid).

Here’s more about the party: “Miles Nadal, Chairman & CEO of MDC Partners, hosted a cocktail party last night celebrating the release of David Kirkpatrick‘s new book, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World. The event was held at Michael’s Restaurant and was attended by Saul Hansell (noted technology writer), Andy Serwer (managing editor of Fortune), Dan Colarusso (Managing Editor of Bloomberg TV), and Priscilla Painton (Editor in Chief of Simon & Schuster).”

Next week, mediabistro.com’s video series MediaBeat will host a three-part interview with Kirkpatrick, talking about his new book, his magazine career, and how he turned his nonfiction reporting into a book deal.

Yesterday we prowled BEA parties with Garrison Keillor‘s dour “Publishing is about to slide into the sea” pronouncement ringing in our ears.

Our night began at The New York Times‘ literary party where Ryan Chapman discussed upcoming projects and P.E. Logan chatted about book reviews. Carolyn Kellogg pondered the long night ahead of us, Thomas Rogers critiqued Sex and the City 2, and Leslie Koppenhaver cheered Graywolf Press‘ good year. Laura Miller shared her feelings about the Lost finale and Jonathan Lethem suggested we read a certain biography of the late, great Nathanael West.

At the Harper Perennial blogger apprecition party in the historic Algonquin Hotel, we talked with Ron Hogan about his reading series and debated publishing profits with Levi Asher. Jurgen Fauth chatted about Fictionaut while Marcy Dermansky explained her upcoming novel. Kevin Smokler talked about book tours. Susan Henderson showed off her new galley and Robin Slick said her son had joined the rock band Dr. Dog.

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BookExpo America’s party season began with a bang at Monday night’s annual Literati-a-Go-Go BEA soiree hosted by literary agent, Donna Bagdasarian and publishing industry veteran, David Nudo.

National Book Critics Circle’s Jane Ciabattari and John Reed co-hosted the event which was sponsored by Agency212 and Palmer Vineyards.

Held at the posh, Vig 27, publishing industry’s who’s-who came out in droves. Open Road’s Jane Friedman, Sally Richardson of St. Martin’s Press, Jon Anderson of Simon & Schuster’s Children’s Division, and George Slowik of Publishers Weekly were just a few of the power players that intermingled.

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In the video embedded above, four young adult authors partied like rock stars last Friday–leading the YA supergroup, Tiger Beat.

Libba Bray wailed on vocals, Daniel Ehrenhaft played guitar, Natalie Standiford played bass, and Barney Miller handled drums. The band headlined the launch party for Sourcebooks Fire, the publisher’s brand new YA imprint. GalleyCat missed the party, but Sourcebooks passed along the excellent video.

Here’s more from the blog post: “At Books of Wonder, Sourcebooks threw the biggest, baddest YA launch party this side of the Mason-Dixon line. Rocking the house was Tiger Beat … creatively titled ‘YA Song.’ From the people that brought you Dr. Seuss… Tiger Beat!”

Today the PEN American Center unveiled the schedule for the sixth annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature–a New York City-based festival with 150 writers from 40 countries. In the video above, you can see PEN American Center executive director Steven L. Isenberg introducing the festival at Instituto Cervantes this sunny afternoon.

For the first time, the event will also feature a traveling show, as World Voices Festival participants will head to events around the country, from San Francisco to Washington DC. Running from April 26 until May 2, the New York City festival will feature a Natalie Merchant, an adaptation panel featuring Barry Gifford and Richard Price performance, and an interview with filmaker and novelist Melvin Van Peebles.

The festival concludes with a Sherman Alexie lecture on “The artistic, political and economic responsibilities of writers in the digital age.” It should be an interesting speech, based on the outspoken novelist’s past comments on Amazon and the digital future.

Earlier this week, former GalleyCat editor Emily Gould read alongside the young girl band Supercute! at the 92YTribeca in Manhattan–see all the pictures here.

Along with Sean Fennessey and Elizabeth Spiridakis, Gould helped support Marisa Meltzer‘s new book, Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music. The book studies “the role of women in rock since the riot grrrl revolution.”

GalleyCat missed the event, but TimeOutNY had a great write up of the rock & roll party: “[Supercute!] performed songs in between sets, including a cover of Britney Spears‘s ‘Oops!…I Did It Again.’ They also pitched in during blogger Emily Gould‘s presentation, which began with a performance of one of the dirtiest songs ever recorded, Liz Phair‘s ‘Flower.’ While Gould read a cleaned-up version of the lyrics (‘Blow Pop queen’ subbed in for one of the song’s more memorable lines), the girls of Supercute! sang a G-rated version of the song’s backing vocals.”