Elvin Slaughter updates. 3

Haven't had time to upload all the readings. Hope this satisfies your burning wonder and curiosity. What have we been up to?

Elven Slaughter Update.

I am aware that I sometimes spell Elven Elvin. But sometimes people read Elven as Eleven. What I'm trying to say is that it's an imperfect world we live in. Go figure.

Elvin Slaughter updates. NYC

It's a kickstarter world

Our friend Nat is doing a kickstarter for his porn book. I didn't do any illustrations for this one.

Kundiman & Friends Poetry Reading last week

...a success! I joined Soham Patel, Sally Mao, and Jenny Johnson in a reading featuring Jennifer Chang. The event was to benefit Kundiman, a collective of Asian-American poets that sponsors a poetry retreat and a reading series (more info on kundiman.org).

Sally and Soham, joint organizers of the event, decided to hold the reading at Modern Formations, where Elwin held a reading a couple months ago. In addition to a raffle in which everyone won, they put together breathtakingly irresistible and delicious tea and soups.

Everyone was honestly a pleasure to read with. The atmosphere overall was warm, inviting, and other such friendly synonyms. Thanks Sally and Soham for putting this event together, thanks Jenny for being the best honorary Asian-American I've read with, and thanks Jen Chang for your and your poetry's existence!

(right to left: Brenda Battad, Jenny Johnson, Jennifer Chang, Soham Patel, and Sally Mao)

Elvin Slaughter part 1: wetting our blades

Our station wagon reeked faintly of Elvin blood as we cruised down I-78 last night with Dio in the tape-deck. It had been a rainy night in Philly so there was low attendance at the Wooden Shoe, but we gave our best performance and the collective members seemed to enjoy it.
Two nights previous was our first opportunity to read together at Bloombar's in DC and then we preformed back to back for the first time at Red Emma's in Baltimore. We're knee deep in this tour now, and we expect to kill tonight at Blind Willow Books.

We'll keep you posted.
In the meantime here's a clip of Elwin reading in Philly. More videos of us reading and the rest of this story can be found on our youtube channel.

Brenda Battad: readings & screenings

CpA resident Brenda Battad will be reading a handful of poems tomorrow night: 23 April
CMU Senior Reading

8 - 11:30pm

Carnegie Mellon University Creative Writing Class of 2010 Senior Reading, 8pm

at Adamson Wing, Baker Hall, Carnegie Mellon University (5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh PA).

Epic list of readers: Elyssa Goodman, DAN ARCHER, Tony Paletta, Fracesca Halleman, Felix "Ahmadinejad" Park, Nathan Zoob, Dillon!, Elliot Smith, Alice Sun Seger, Austin Redwood, Jordan Rosenfeld, John Lehman, Jane Wu, Shannon Deep, Corey Werner, Brian J Burdulia, Tom Pike, Su Chu, MAJA orsic, Gahl Pratt (in spirit), Graham Swindoll, Alicia Ledden, Brenda Battad, Lucas Seidman, Jonas Altman-Kurosaki, Jackie Sizemore, and Katherine James.

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Also tomorrow night: 23 April

START ART RIGHT
at the NEW 21st St Coffee & Tea at the base of the new PNC building

255 5th Avenue

6 - 9 pm

part of the Gallery Crawl!

across the Pittsburgh metropolis!

videos by BRENDA BATTAD
music by SUNDOGPEACEHOUSE
art by JULIE MALLIS

yesyesyesyesyesyes

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Battad participates in more video screenings this weekend!: April 24 - 25

ART ALL NIGHT LAWRENCEVILLE

Iron City Brewery, 3340 Liberty Avenue

Doors open at 6pm & stay open until 2pm the next day.

VIDEO LOUNGE:

5 hours of video from Pittsburgh's own video artists and filmmakers!

The cinema is in the 3rd building, next to the live painting & the bar, a cozy corner for video viewing.

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2 video works by Battad will screen on 28 April

CAUGHT LOOKING IV
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
SCREENING, 7-8pm, PNC Park, North Side
RECEPTION, 8:30-10pm, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, 477 Melwood Ave.

For the 4th year in a row the School of Art and Pittsburgh Filmmakers take over one of our country’s most beautiful sports stadiums in the name of video art! Don’t miss this rare chance to see 1-minute videos on Pittsburgh’s biggest screen — the Jumbotron.
CO-CURATED by JACOB CIOCCI and ANDREW SWENSEN.

Screening order included on the Facebook event page.

Help Dan G. make a movie!

Former visiting writer Dan Gingold is working on an exciting new project: the production this summer of a short film called Brother Go Find Your Brother. Dan has already written the screenplay for this film, which takes its title from a line in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It's about a rafting trip that three friends take together and is based on similar trips that Dan has taken on the Delaware River.

He made a very short video describing his project on a fundraising page through Kickstarter.com. He's offering some rewards at different donation levels, including a copy of the finished DVD and a poster made by yours truly. Definitely check out the link above. The video will take less than two minutes of your time, and it's very... well, I like it.

Elvin Slaughter Tour

Elwin Michael Cotman (author of The Jack Daniels Sessions EP) and Daniel Patrick McCloskey (founder of the Cyberpunk Apocalypse Writers' Project) are coming to a reading venue near you. Join them for a night of entertainment, magic, comics, despair, excitement, and speculation. Because if you don't come they'll curse you, and it'll give your grandma nightmares.

Elvin Slaughter Tour 2010: making genre a threat.

Cotman solo gigs:
Washington DC-Bloombars-April 19th, 8-10pm
Baltimore, MD-Red Emma's-April 20, 7pm

Cotman/McCloskey gigs:
Philly-Wooden Shoe Collective-April 21, 7pm
Emmaus, PA-Blind Willow Books-April 22, 7pm
NYC-Times Square-April 24th, 4am
Ithaca, NY-house show (don't know address yet)-April 27
Buffalo, NY-Talking leaves Bookstore-April 28
Cleveland, OH-Visible Voice Books-April 29, 7pm
Athens, OH-UnionArts-April 30
Columbus, OH-sporeprint-May 1st, 2pm
Bloomington, IN-Boxcar Books-May 3, 7pm
Chicago, IL-Quimby's-May 5, 7pm
Madison, WI-Rainbow Bookstore Collective-May 7
Cincinnati, OH-U.Turn Art Space-May 8

Release party

Just a reminder that tonight is the launch party for my debut book, "The Jack Daniels Sessions EP." Starts at 7pm, at Artist Image Resource on the northside.

DJ sets from:
Sean MC
DJ Sideboob
DJ Sara Vicious

Readings from:
Elwin Cotman
Bill Kirchner, Pitt professor of English
Madeleine Barnes, three-time poetry contest winner

With a special appearance from Pabst Blue Ribbon. Hope to see you there!

Karen Lillis reading from her novel, The Second Elizabeth

April 22, 2010 - 4:00pm - 5:30pm

2201 Wesley W. Posvar Hall

Women's Studies Program

Lillis is the author of the feminist novels, i, scorpion: foul belly-crawler of the desert (Words Like Kudzu Press, 2000) & Magenta’s Adventures Underground (WLK, 2004). She is Program Assistant for the Cultural Studies Program, and a 2009 MLIS graduate of the School of Information Sciences.

“Karen Lillis writes with a cadence and a rhythm that are hypnotic….The Second Elizabeth celebrates what my theologian father called ‘the mystery in the ordinary.’ ”

Eckhard Gerdes, Journal of Experimental Fiction

"...A novel of simplicity as well as survival, and the often untouched-upon intimacy of these two concepts....With The Second Elizabeth, the coming-of-age novel grows up."

Kimberly Ann Southwick, Gigantic Sequins Magazine

Light reception to follow.

Elwin got his book in the mail.

Amanda Huminski reads her poetry

Amanda Huminski reads at the Cyberpunk Apocalypse 1 year anniversary from Cyberpunk Apocalypse on Vimeo.

James Jones

Cyberpunk Apocalypse Issue 3 is coming. To the right is an image I just put together to be coupled with Elwin's story.

The reading on the 9th was great. Peter Kusnic extrapolated from a brutal youtube video in order to create an emotionally dense story about a drag queen on her birthday.

Of course the Elvin Slaughter tour is creeping up, 500 posters are stacked in our living room waiting to be filled out and sent out.

I gave a talk at Parsec yesterday. If you haven't heard of Parsec, it is Pittsburgh's Premiere Science Fiction Organization For the promotion of literary Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and other Speculative Fictions--and you should check them out. Parsec has their hands full with an affiliated publication, a program for teen fiction writers, and Confluence the Pittsburgh sf convention.

These guys are into what I'm into, and have been doing in 10 times as long. Apparently sf writer's colonies were once a fairly common thing. Like the James Jones "Handy Writers' Colony" which seems to have ended in utter failure.

So let's toast all the folks that gave it a go, and continue our work in the cyberpunk apocalypse.

reading friday 7pm at the house

The snow has melted, so it's time to really start heading out to all those rad local events. There's a lot of great literary talent here in the City of Steel, and the bill for this event is no exception.

Featuring:
Sally Mao
Peter Kusnic
Elwin Cotman
Patti Emory

Reading to welcome spring

Time:7:00PM Friday, April 9th

Location:Cyberpunk Apocalypse

Ex Libris

We were pleased to get this wonderful rubber stamp in the mail to mark books in our permanent collection. It was drawn and made by one of the house's fans, and is a good example of the kind of community support we get in the form of donations, whether it's fire wood, coffee, or shelving for our library. Thanks!

Titles affect how you interpret a story

The Cyberpunk Apocalypse is one year old. We have kept a lot of our promises. We have created a space for writers and we have maintained a residency program--we have written our hearts out of our asses and so on. But I know that some of you are disappointed.

Because we promised to be crazier than your average writers' house. We promised to keep the idea that we live in a cyberpunk apocalypse close to the heart of our project. We promised to be cheesy and bold and write angry essays about the end while wearing tinfoil hats.

I feel personally responsible for this disappointment.

And this is my promise: I will be crazier this year. Cross my damned heart.

Now to play catch up with what's been going on:

We got a stamp from my friend Alfredo for the perminent collection here.

A big wind blew a hunk of our roof away and I patched it in time to stop the rain from getting gunner and my bedroom wet.

I've been busy with preparations for Elvin Slaughter Tour with Elwin.

I've been working on a speech for PARSEC.

Artnoose's Kickstarter is kicking ass.

I should really fix up our website but I am not up for it currently.

Our visiting writer Marisa is great. She's working on a zine about borders.

Gunner finished a draft of her first novel (novella?--it's in the border regions).

Elwin's book is coming out on the 15th.

Brenda... where is Brenda? Brenda's busy.

Here is a list of things you should check out.

Crazy Pittsburgh sf nerd music

Me N' Gunner's work plus a nice description of Artnoose's room

A picture of a bear (any will do)

DOKTA D()()M

When I grow up I want to be able to write like Deltron 3030. Until then here's Ross (former best resident) holding it down.