Upcoming readings and festivals


It’s finally starting to feel like winter might really be over, which is as good a time as any to venture out to bookstores and literary festivals!

If you’re in the Boston area, you can find us or our authors at the following events:

Monday, April 23 at 7pm
Krysten Hill reads at AGNI release party
Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA

Thursday, April 26 at 7pm
Krysten Hill reads at Belmont Books (with Maggie Dietz and Sandra Lim)
79 Leonard St, Belmont, MA

Saturday, May 5
Massachusetts Poetry Festival

11am-4pm
Small Press Literary Fair
We’ll have a table at the book fair this year, so come out and see us. Pick up a copy of the latest issue of apt, or any other AP titles!

12:15pm
Panel and Workshop: Poetry as Social Action
Krysten Hill will join Boston’s Poet Laureate, Danielle Legros Georges, as well as authors Fred Marchant and Gloria Mindock, to discuss writing work that focuses on justice, resistance, and ways to bolster spirits and protect the disenfranchised in uncertain times.

9:30pm
Reading: What Poetry Means to Me
Krysten Hill joins Michael Ansara, Sean Thomas Dougherty, Alice Kociemba, and Lisa Mangini to tell stories about how poetry has changed their lives.

Saturday, June 23 1-3pm
Greater Boston Writers Resist/Greater Boston Writers Persist
Boston Public Library – Central Library at Copley Square
700 Boylston St, Boston, MA
Rabb Lecture Hall

Readers to include: Sam Cha, Jennifer De Leon, JoeAnn Hart, Krysten Hill, Simone John, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Timothy Patrick McCarthy, Kim McLarin, and Khury Petersen-Smith, among others.

Greater Boston Writers Resist in June at the Boston Public Library


Last year, I (Carissa) attended an inspiring event that coincided with Inauguration Day: the Greater Boston Writers Resist event, which was organized by a small group of volunteers and co-sponsored by more than two dozen area literary and democratic institutions (including AP). Before the election, I’d voiced concerns that our first amendment rights were being threatened, and since then, to no surprise, those threats have materialized. The travel ban targeting predominately Muslim countries, the gag order on the EPA (and countless other organizations), White House Press Secretaries telling reporters how they should cover the news, and proposed legislation that would make it legal to run over peaceful protestors.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, gathering is an important tool in resisting, but since writing is such a solitary activity, writers don’t often get together to produce work. Our resistance instead happens on the page. Luckily, Writers Resist events solve that problem.

And as last year’s GBWR event proved, there are a lot of writers in the greater Boston area who want to band together to combat white supremacy, fascism, and denial of our country’s ongoing social problems—there were so many people at the reading last January the library broadcast it into the lobby so the people waiting in line to come in could listen as well.

Of course, showing up is only one part of resisting. I’m invested in starting a conversation to ensure that our resistance exceeds the reach of picketing. I want to talk about how resistance becomes persistent. To that end, I’ve partnered with the Boston Public Library to host the next Greater Boston Writers Resist Event, which I’m calling Greater Boston Writers Persist.

All the authors who are reading have devoted many pages to political and politicized issues long before 2016, so this promises to be an exciting, necessary event. Join us on Saturday, June 23, at 1-3pm in the Boston Public Library to hear how writers have used their writing as a means of civil disobedience, and how we as fellow writers and readers can follow their lead.

More info to come, including the full line-up and partnering organizations, in the next two weeks.

Carissa and Randolph interviewed in The Writer magazine

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Halston and Pfaff: fearless leaders. (Photo credit: Megan Smith)

We’re humbled and excited to be featured in The Writer‘s round-up of Literary Power Couples, a.k.a. couples who run literary magazines and presses. We’re in the esteemed company of Leesa-Cross Smith and Loran Smith of WhiskeyPaper Press and Donna Talarico and Kevin Beerman of Hippocampus Magazine and Books.

Many thanks to Melissa Hart for asking us to take part in the article—be sure to read up on Hippocampus and WhiskeyPaper, and if you’re looking to start a literary journal, or even a press or a conference, etc., definitely look through the article. Working in publishing takes commitment from everyone involved, and longevity in publishing takes work—just like any solid relationship.

Boston Cultural Council grant for 2018

Logo from the City of Boston's Arts and Culture department
We’re thrilled to announce that Aforementioned has received a grant from Boston Cultural Council for 2018—and in the BCC’s official press release, Mayor Marty Walsh confirmed we’re in fine company: “This is an exciting time for the City of Boston because we are investing in organizations and projects that have the potential to enhance Boston’s arts and culture community.”

Boston has been home to so many of our authors and we’ve hosted dozens of events in the Greater Boston area since our inception in 2005. We’re so proud to continue serving literary communities throughout the city, and we hope to have more readings and books for you all year long.

If you’re in the area, be sure to drop by Porter Square Books tonight at 7pm to help us celebrate the eighth print annual of apt, with readings by local authors John Bonanni, Gillian Devereux, and Krysten Hill. And if you’re not local, you can still pick up a copy of our latest issue from the apt site.

Release party for apt’s Eighth Print Issue


We’re so proud to continue supporting long-form writing through apt–and we’re especially proud of our latest issue, featuring fiction by Michael Keefe and Anna Carolyn McCormally, and poetry by John Bonanni, Aaron Brown, and Danielle Mitchell!

Copies are now available, and if you’re in Boston, you can pick one up on Monday, February 5 at Porter Square Books, when we’ll have John Bonanni, Gillian Devereux, and Krysten Hill reading from issues 6-8!

The reading is free and open to the public, so bring a friend, get a warm drink, and help us celebrate these writers and their dedication to nuanced, in-depth writing.

Don’t forget to RSVP, and we’ll see you in February!

 

 

THE READERS

 John Bonanni lives on Cape Cod, MA, where he serves as editor for the Cape Cod Poetry Review. He is the recipient of a scholarship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and a residency from AS220 in Providence, RI. His work has appeared in CutBank, Assaracus, Verse Daily, The Seattle Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Prairie Schooner.

Gillian Devereux received her MFA in Poetry from Old Dominion University and directs the writing center at Wheelock College, where she also teaches creative writing. She is the author of Focus on Grammar (dancing girl press, 2012) and They Used to Dance on Saturday Nights (Aforementioned Productions, 2011), and her poems have appeared in numerous journals, most recently The Midwest Quarterly; The Rain, Party, and Disaster Society; Sundog Lit; Boog City; and Printer’s Devil Review. Gillian likes robots, knitting, small woodland creatures, film noir, gin, and the library.

Krysten Hill is an educator, writer, and performer who has showcased her poetry on stage at The Massachusetts Poetry Festival, Blacksmith House, Cantab Lounge, Merrimack College, U35 Reading Series, and many others. She received her MFA in poetry from UMass Boston where she currently teaches. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in apt, Word Riot, The Baltimore Review, Muzzle, PANK, Winter Tangerine Review, Take Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2016 St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award and her chapbook, How Her Spirit Got Out (Aforementioned Productions), received the 2017 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize.

 

Presented as part of the Roundtable Reading Series at Porter Square Books, sponsored by Journal of the Month.

Joyce Peseroff reviews HOW HER SPIRIT GOT OUT

hhsgo_blue_Joyce Peseroff, author of five books of poetry, most recently Know Thyself (Carnegie Mellon, 2016), wrote a knockout review of How Her Spirit Got Out. Here’s a peek at the beginning, and then a bit from the end:

Krysten Hill’s chapbook is as fresh as today’s headlines. It calls out a culture where women continually risk abuse, invisibility, and soul-killing erasures, and where black women are particularly threatened….

Hill’s poems include allusions to foremothers like Audre Lorde, Sylvia Plath, and Zora Neale Hurston. Like Lorde, she responds to sexism, racism, and injustice with passion and perception. From Plath, she’s learned to figure the details of her life in images that are fierce and arresting. Hill understands the power of narrative and savor of vernacular speech, both loved by Hurston. The result is a voice that is beautiful and raw, intimate yet public, both confident and vulnerable.

We couldn’t agree more, and there’s no time like the present to head over to the Aforementioned shop and pick up your copy of How Her Spirit Got Out.

Best American Essays 2017 + Best of the Net 2016

bestamericanessays2017-1508446780-4657Earlier, we heard from our contributor Michael Nagel via Twitter, who asked if we’d heard that his essay “Beached Whales,” which we’d published last summer, was included among the notable essays in this year’s Best American Essays?

We hadn’t heard! And it was featured on LongReads! It was an exciting hour or two.

Then I checked our site stats and saw we’d also had referring traffic from the fine crew at Sundress Publications, who publish the Best of the Net anthology each year. Lindsey Harding and her short story “List Lard Label” was a finalist for fiction this year!

So I ran off to email Lindsey with the good news.

Then I wanted to see the table of contents and the rest of the notable essays for this year’s Best American Essays, so I looked it up on GoogleBooks, and found that apt appeared more than once. Philip Arnold’s essay “Stereoscopic Paris” was also among the notable essays published last year.

All of which goes to say it’s been an astoundingly busy day for apt news.

If you haven’t read Michael’s and Philip’s essays or Lindsey’s story, head over to apt and catch up on what you’ve been missing.

HOW HER SPIRIT GOT OUT wins 2017 New England Poetry Club award!

hhsgo_blue_We’re thrilled to announce that Krysten Hill’s chapbook, How Her Spirit Got Out, is the winner of the 2017 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award from New England Poetry Club!

From Sara Backer, this year’s judge:

What struck me most were poems from Krysten Hill’s How Her Spirit Got Out: whether she’s recording a sister’s reaction to the shooting of her 12-year-old brother or the wreckage of a sweet potato pie, her words are fierce and fearless. Hill confronts us with the dangerous reality of the lives of black women, who may “go missing” because “they knew if they didn’t leave, they’d kill/ what they couldn’t afford to nurture” or go missing in another way when they hear a writing workshop leader ask “Is there any way/ you can write this poem/ from his perspective?” Hill’s words are precise and potent, and each time you read them, her poems mean more.

If you haven’t yet picked up your copy of How Her Spirit Got Out, there’s no time like the present!

And if you’re in the Boston area, you can hear Krysten read tonight at 7 at Porter Square Books for the release party of Simone John’s debut collection, Testify!

Aforementioned in AIDS Walk Boston 2017

AP_AW2017We mentioned this a few months ago, but now we’re just one month away from this year’s AIDS Walk in Boston. We’ve assembled an Aforementioned team to raise money and awareness for those living in Boston and Massachusetts with HIV and AIDS.

As we said before, we feel this cause is particularly important now, with the Affordable Care Act at risk of being eliminated. People with pre-existing conditions will be particularly vulnerable to losing their access to health care. And even more so, now that Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker proposed a $4.8 million cut to the state’s funding for HIV patients. The House budget committee got it down to a $3.8 million cut, but that’s still quite a gap. So we’re working to do our part to offset the deficit.

Even if you’re not in Boston, you can still help us by donating via the Aforementioned team page. And even if you don’t have the means to make a donation, we hope you’ll spread the word and help us reach as many donors as possible.

Recap of ICHH marathon reading

image1It snowed. It sleeted. There were 40 mph winds. If I didn’t believe in climate change, I’d say it was as if someone wanted to stop our marathon reading of It Can’t Happen Here. But we started with a crowd of 50 people, many of whom stayed for the first several chapters.

People came and went throughout the event. Friends showed up. Strangers showed up. Most stayed for 50-60 pages. A handful of people came at the beginning, left, and came back for the end. A couple said they went home and read some there, then came back for the finale.

One audience member named Alex stayed from start to finish.

Around chapter 29, I’d been awake for 24 hours.

We discovered the best way to stay alert was to move around. So people paced. Slow laps, circling in the back. We all wanted to hang in for as long as we could.

Shortly after the middle of the novel, Shuchi started streaming the reading via Facebook Live.

Toward the end of chapter 30, I was falling asleep. I took a 20-minute nap, and woke up not knowing where I was. Then, I heard Ann Leamon reading chapter 31. I remembered what was happening. I rejoined the reading and stayed awake through the rest of the event. After I read the final chapter, I reminded everyone of how we began.

The night started with a presentation, an overview of Lewis’s career, covering who he was and who he wasn’t (a writer who refused a Pulitzer Prize, and later was awarded the Nobel, Lewis never said “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”), also covering what the novel was and wasn’t. It wasn’t hindsight after World War II. It was a warning of the potential danger on its way. Lewis wrote ICHH before concentration camps were synonymous with extermination camps. He wrote it before Hitler’s capacity for malice was fully realized. Lewis wrote during a period of self-assured apathy—people were so sure that America had seen the worst there was of humanity (during the first World War). Of course, it could and did get worse. But that didn’t keep Lewis from rendering his warning.

I have a list of highlights from the marathon reading, but I need to be clear: it’s hard to say that any single amazing moment outweighs my amazement at the event overall. The book is rough. It’s filled with hateful, scared people carrying out orders and making decisions motivated by hate and fear. There’s personal violence and political violence. And, as the novel goes on, more people die by grisly methods.

And beyond that, of course, there are the parallel threats we face now:

The authoritarian in the White House. The constant distraction (Mexico, a dangerous religion, regular allusions to his election rival, etc.). The potential that the president has conflicts of interest (in the novel, he’s embezzling millions). The silencing of journalists, potentially by force. The hunting and killing of people who know more than the government feels they should. We’ve only seen it in Russia thus far, but it’s tied to our election.

ICHH is a difficult book to read just on its own. It’s harder still to handle with the current political climate. I was worried going in that people wouldn’t spot Lewis’s message, and the indomitable spirit of those who would resist attempts at silence. But I was grateful to be wrong.

One woman came up to me after the reading and said her book club had read the novel right after the election, but it hadn’t struck her as funny until she heard us read it aloud.

I laugh at all sorts of inappropriate subjects and times, so I blurted out, “Really?” She said it had been too soon.

More than one person in the audience said the relevance was hard to take. And I understand—I agree—but that’s hardship I think we need right now. This book is not easy, but neither is the situation we’re facing.

In the novel, the authoritarian government sabotages itself due to in-fighting. That could potentially happen to the current administration, but even before that, we’re still facing suppressed speech. Last week, the administration banned the words “climate change,” “emissions reduction,” and “Paris Agreement” in memos, briefings, and other written communication. What can we do in response? Lewis rendered a skeptical journalist who had to be faced with murder of someone he knew before he would speak out against an authoritarian regime. Let’s not wait that long.

If you’re a teacher, a writer, a parent, you can reach a community (even a community of two) who trust you. You can insist on remaining committed to facts. You can write about climate change. You can describe it, define it, make an easy-to-read overview of the Paris Agreement. You can write about how the lives of people of color are more adversely affected by climate change. You can explain to anyone—anyone, your neighbors, your kids, your family members who might be supportive of this administration—the dangers inherent in censorship.

This reading was fun, but it was also more than that—it’s a simple blueprint of what we need to do. Resist, despite the threats. Remain committed to facts, despite the dishonesty we’re fed on a daily basis. And remember that this doesn’t have to be a dour fight. We can fight and still experience joy. And just because we’re tired—and I’m speaking from experience here—we can still rally and make a difference.

And now, as promised, here are the highlights from the reading:

Aaron Devine’s decision to channel Drumpf through Buzz Windrip for the election chapter.

Simeon Berry’s rousing impression of Bishop Paul Peter Prang.

Nathan Gray’s quiet fury in reading the chapter when Lorinda decides to leave.

Tim Hoover doing justice for the Jessup daughters in two different chapters several hours apart—Sissy, still funny and lighthearted at that point, and then the sober fearlessness of Mary’s death

Ann Leamon’s astounding (and consistent) commitment to lending literal voice to every man at Trianon Concentration Camp.

Shuchi Saraswat’s dual dead-of-night chapters (the near escape to Canada, and the formation of the resistance publication the Vermont Vigilance), both read with the tension required by both the late hour and the content.

And every reader who pounded the podium with exasperation when the chapter seemed to call for it (Rob Arnold, Josh Cook, Randolph Pfaff and many others that I’m likely forgetting.

I feel so indebted to all the readers—Molly Howes, Kurt Klopmeier, Simeon Berry, Danielle Jones-Pruett, Maria Hugger, Ric Amante, Julia Kennedy, Rob Arnold, Aaron Devine, Josh Cook, Tim Hoover, William Pierce (who bravely took on another chapter!), Lindsay Guth, Joell Beagle, Travis Cohen, Currie McKinley, Shuchi Saraswat, Randolph Pfaff, Nathan Gray, Sam Cha, Catherine Parnell, JoeAnn Hart, Ann Leamon, Nicole Keller, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, and Molly Mary McLaughlin. A hundred thousand thank yous especially to the staff of Brookline Booksmith, and doubly (triply) Shuchi Saraswat and Lydia McOscar for helping me in innumerable ways to plan and shape this event. And so much gratitude to Randolph, who kept running to get coffee through the night. And to every single person who came, despite the atrocious weather, I thank you.

To watch some of the readings, check out Brookline Booksmith’s Facebook page, as they were kind enough to capture some of the readings via Facebook Live.

And for more photos and videos, head to our FB and Instagram feeds.