Reading with Jesus Angel Garcia & Cyberpunk Apocalypse Writers Collective (28)

Monday, July 11 · 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Location: Belvederes Ultra-Dive 4016 Bulter Street
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

San Francisco author Jesus Angel Garcia comes to Pittsburgh on tour with his new transmedia novel, 'Bad bad bad.' Cyberpunk Apocalypse writers Nate McDonough, Artnoose, and Gunner will join him for this group reading.

Suggested $1-5 donation at the door for our traveling writer.

What People Are Saying About BAD BAD BAD:

“A wildly different concept of what novelized fiction can be.” -
Paul M. Davis at Shareable

“An original mix of literary and neo-noir styles.” - Orente Churm at
Inside Higher Ed

'García wants to toy with the similarities, crafting a narrative wherein the desires of disparate communities are revealed to be not so different after all—wherein addiction, manipulation, and insincerity exist alongside transcendence, radical freedom, and utter authenticity, all of these manifest, at times, by hypocritical zealots, pious believers, abusive pervs, and vulnerably open creatures aware that whatever they are, this identity is constituted, foremost, by their physical needs and wants.' - Spencer Dew (decomP)"

Kickstart the Zine of the Month Club

The first handful of zines for the Zine of the Month Club subscriptions have been sent out. Now we're trying to really get things going with a good old kickstart.

More information will be posted shortly, but in the mean time check out the video and tell us what you think.

library reading coming up

Last September, the public library invited us to perform as part of their monthly Sunday reading series... in nine months. Since none of us even had 2011 calendars yet, we suspected our schedules would be free the following summer. We happily said yes.

Well, it's that time, so join us for a reading at the Carnegie Main Public Library on Sunday, June 19 at 2 pm sharp. The event is free to the public and is a great way to meet the residents and find out what we're all about.

Our event even made the short list for the local City Paper (see photo).

Our poor people

When Eva Kokopeli, our May visiting writer, was here less than a week there was a mournful conversation in Cyberpunk's kitchen. "I think we want them to make it, but just barely. I don't know. It took me a month to kill him. Even though I knew it had to happen."

We were talking about our characters, the ones we hurt. We try to kill them, to drive them insane, to give them just a little more than they can handle every time, until they either become gods or crumble into nothing. One question is, how sick do we have to be to toy with (imaginary(?)) people this way?

Last Tuesday Eva got on stage at Fleeting Pages and read a story about just that. The story of a character who's author could not kill or drive him mad no matter how she tried. Instead the character began to drive the author insane. He drew her from he invulnerability, compelled her into her own story, where she was converted to a mortal form, subject to his opinion, and scorn.

Perhaps Eva's story was so satisfying to me is because as I writer I often feel guilty. We were not bred to be gods, and when we wrong each other we have a (sometimes small) desire to be held accountable. The more we love the people we hurt, the more we wish they would hurt us back. Like a cheating husband, who secretly wishes his wife would beat him or cut him in his sleep.

And of course, what's really weird is that in the end these characters are part of our own. We invest our identities into them and then torture them, find out what ways we might break ourselves, and finally feel guilty. We're guilty for hurting ourselves? Is that the logical conclusion to this?

I don't think so....

Hm.

Something to think about, until (if (?)) Eva's full story is available to the public.

-dan (what's up with these parentheses (?))