October 11th Show at the Creative Alliance!

Hope you are well! In October, it has been written--there will be Halloween (and Creative's Alliance's excellent Lantern Parade). And there will be the Lit Show on Thursday, October 11, 2012.

Won't you come and join us? We've got an amazing lineup--playright and author (and part-time mime) James Magruder, poet rock goddess Leslie F. Miller, and special guests director Matthew Porterfield and writing partner Amy Belk. Stir it up with hosts Jen and Betsy and musical institution Howard Markman and Palookaville, and who knows what will happen? And if we did, it would probably be illegal to say.

Check out our awesome new promo . Be warned: there is miming (mimery?)

Please, please: advance ticket sales are strong encouraged:

Also, RSVP on our Facebook, if you could, so we know how many party hats and
balloons to buy:
The Lit Show! Thursday, October 11, 2012, 8 pm, Creative Alliance at the Patterson

Mixing late-night talk show, literary reading, and variety extravaganza, Betsy Boyd and Jen Michalski are back with Baltimore's favorite programming for the literary set. Rock star poet Leslie F. Miller shows us her riffs, playwright and author James Magruder lets us see it, Howard Markman and Palookaville are back for an encore, and we’re scored a special guest duo like no other¾writer/director Matthew Porterfield and cowriter Amy Belk! Go lit, and you'll never go back. 8 pm. $10, $5 members, students.

James Magruder’s adaptations of Marivaux, Molière, Gozzi, Labiche, Lesage, and Dickens have been produced on and off-Broadway, across the country, and in Germany and Japan. His fiction has appeared in New England Review, The Gettysburg Review, Subtropics, The Normal School, and elsewhere, and his début novel,Sugarless, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Current projects include a new version of The Madwoman of Chaillot for American Conservatory Theatre and Das Bourgeois Bigshot for Princeton University. He teaches at University of Baltimore, Princeton, and Swarthmore College.

Leslie F. Miller likes to break things and put them back together in a random, yet tasteful, order. A writer, photographer, mosaicist, and graphic designer, she is the author of the nonfiction book Let Me Eat Cake: A Celebration of Flour, Sugar, Butter, Eggs, Vanilla, Baking Powder, and a Pinch of Salt (Simon & Schuster, April 2009). Her first collection of poetry, BOYGIRLBOYGIRL, was just published by Finishing Line Press and is available here:http://www.finishinglinepress.com/product_info.php?cPath=4&products_id=578. 

Matt Porterfield was born in Baltimore, Maryland on October 6, 1977. He studied film at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. In 2006, he made his first feature film, HAMILTON and his second, PUTTY HILL, in 2010. Along with working as a director and screenwriter, Porterfield also teaches screenwriting and production at the Film and Media Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University. Matt has begun pre-production on his second feature, METAL GODS, about a group of kids living in southeast Baltimore who live and love heavy metal.

Amy Belk received her MFA in fiction writing in 2007 from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, where she was awarded the Richard Yates Prize for Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in literary journals such as Fiction, Eyeshot, and Epoch. In addition to the screenplay for TAKE THESE BROKEN WINGS, she co-wrote the feature I USED TO BE DARKER with Matt Porterfield and is developing a television pilot based on her experience in the odd world of corporate blogging. She teaches English and creative writing at the Community College of Baltimore County and the Maryland Institute College of Art.

The Eyeliner Rises

No, our summer has not been just sloe gin fizzes, egg custard snowballs, movie screenings of "Brave" and "The Dark Knight Rises," and sand-encrusted copies of Fifty Shades of Grey. We've been hitting the pavement in tropical Baltimore to find our latest victims--uh, guests--for The Lit Show, and we have found them in Leslie Fuquinay Miller, James Magruder, and our SUPER AWESOME, SOON-TO-BE REVEALED MYSTERY GUEST DUO. Better than Batman and his partner in a green speedo, we promise.

Mark your calendars now! Thursday, October 11, 2012, Creative Alliance. Be the first to say you were there when it all went down.

Thanks our Sponsors

These folks are really great! They supported the Lit Show, and we hope you support them, too!

Minas Gallery and Boutique, Hampden
The Laughing Pint, Highlandtown
Dangerously Delicious Pies, Canton
Matthews Pizza, Highlandtown
Narrowhouse Books, Baltimore
Publishing Genius, Baltimore
Sententia Books, Brooklyn

Shout Outs

Thanks to Andrea Appleton and The City Paper for the nice write-up about the Lit Show. And yes, we are the gateway drug to literature.

We're number 2 on b The Magazine's 10 Spot this week!

We got some strong coffee at the WYPR studios and had a nice chat with Tom Hall on Maryland Morning on Tuesday. The podcast is here.

And thanks to Marianne Amoss and The Urbanite for being the first to get on board with "Writers in the Hot Seat."

Our trailer!

Here's a trailer from Mikey and Felix and the nice folks at the CAMM Cage for the Lit Show:

March 22nd Inaugural Show!

The Lit Show is finally in business! Join us for our inaugural show on March 22nd, 2012, 8 pm, with Cathy Alter, Aaron Henkin, Jim Meyer, musical guest Height With Friends, and a mystery guest!

Cathy Alter's feature articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in local and national newspapers and magazines including The Washington Post, Washingtonian, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, Self, McSweeney’s, and SMITH Magazine. Her book, Virgin Territory: Stories from the Road to Womanhood was released in 2004 and her memoir, Up for Renewal: What Magazines Taught Me About Love, Sex, and Starting Over was released in July 2008. She holds an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, where she is currently a faculty member and nonfiction advisor.

Aaron Henkin is a co-creator and producer of WYPR’s weekly arts program, The Signal. He also creator and host of the internationally distributed music program, Tapestry of the Times, produced in partnership with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Henkin is a perennial host of radio editions of “The Stoop,” a program of true stories told in front of live audiences in Baltimore. He’s served as a guest-host on the American Public Media program, The Story, and his reports and features have aired on Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Day to Day, and PRI’s Studio 360 and The World. Aaron’s most recent endeavor is an original series called Out of the Blocks, based on the simple concept: One hour of radio, one city block, everybody’s story.

What can be said about Jim Meyer that hasn't already been said about either Ghandi or Batman? Like Batman, he is a crusader for justice, a powerful force that stalks the night righting wrongs and hitting people with boomerangs. Like Ghandi, he enjoys wearing tights, monitoring the city from his underground lair, and long walks on the beach with a certain someone special. But unlike Batman and The God Damned Ghandi, Jim Meyer is a writer, a comedian, an actor, a radio personality, a ninja, and an amateur phlebotomist. He’s also deathly afraid of South Dakota. Not the state. The concept.

In the winter of 2008, Height with Friends began to perform and record. Baltimore Highlands

, the first Height With Friends record, was released on Wham City Records in January 2009. Height With Friends are currently recording their third full length. They are gearing up for a tour of the US and Canada in October 2011. Listen to them at http://heightwithfriends.com/.