Powell’s Portland: Burnside Store Reading Event for Small Presses
Powell's on Burnside
This coming Monday, March 15, I’ll be reading some work during Powell’s Smallpressapalooza, which I believe is in its third year. Hosted by Powell’s small press aficionado Kevin Sampsell, the event looks promising and should be a nice, full day of great readings and insight into the world of independent and small press publishers.
That said, I got a google news alert this morning with a link to a little bit of spotlight coverage in the Portland Mercury from writer Raquel Nasser.
Portland Mercury Blurb on Don’t Smell the Floss
Don’t Smell the Floss by Matty Byloos
(Write Bloody Publishing), reading at 7:30 pm
“Matty Byloos’ collection of short stories is shocking, but is also so rooted in the vapidity of existence that it dulls a reader’s response neurons. For instance, there is nothing overly disturbing about a heartbroken letter that a character receives from the leg he amputated himself; the way it is presented, he could have just as well received it from an ex-lover. Byloos’ voice is dark and painstakingly omniscient, offering the most minute personal details of even transient characters that we only meet for a paragraph or two: ‘Turk fingers a constant rhythm with his left hand along the wooden hand of the shovel, one-two-three, one-two-three….’ This does well to lift the characters from the paper and humanize them, but you never feel their anguish, you’re only vaguely curious about it, thanks to the literary lithium slipped into Byloos’ prose.”
Read the rest of the full coverage in the article here, at the Portland Mercury.
And here’s a link to the Facebook event page that Kevin Sampsell put together for the Smallpressapalooza day at Powell’s on Hawthorne.
