Hear Luna Luna Staff Read At Clash Books Reading in NYC

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

Excuse me for the love fest, but Clash Books is having a reading at NYC literary institution KGB Bar September 15. And there will be a bunch of Luna Luna editors and writers present—so come out and show the love. Let's cuddle.

Details below:

CLASH Books is proud to present this stellar lineup of authors reading from Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana Del Rey and Sylvia Plath, This Book Ain’t Nuttin to F**k With: A Wu-Tang Tribute Anthology, The Anarchist Kosher Cookbook, A Confederacy of Hot Dogs, and Dark Moons Rising in a Starless Night. *Editor Lisa Marie Basile will read from her Clash Books novella-in-progress.

Readers from Luna Luna include Loren Kleinmen, Christine Stoddard, Trish Grisafi, editor Lisa Marie Basile, Christoph Paul of Clash Books and Leza Cantoral of Clash Books.

LOREN KLEINMAN has published four full-length poetry collections: Flamenco Sketches, The Dark Cave Between My Ribs, Breakable Things, and Stay with Me Awhile, and a memoir The Woman with a Million Hearts. Her nonfiction appeared in The New York Times, ROAR, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Woman’s Day, Seventeen, USA Today, Good Housekeeping, and The Huffington Post, while her poetry appeared in Drunken Boat, The Moth, Columbia Journal, Patterson Literary Review, and more.

CHRISTINE STODDARD is a Salvadoran-Scottish-American writer and artist who lives in Brooklyn. She is the founding editor of Quail Bell Magazine, an art and culture magazine. She is also the author of Naomi and the Reckoning (Black Magic Media), Jaguar in the Cotton Field (Another New Calligraphy), Hispanic & Latino Heritage in Virginia (The History Press), Ova (Dancing Girl Press), Chica/Mujer (Locofo Press), Lavinia Moves to New York (Underground Voices), Harlem Mestiza (Maverick Duck Press), and other titles. Her work has appeared in national magazines and anthologies by Candlewick Press, Civil Coping Mechanisms, ELJ Publications, and other publishers.

LISA MARIE BASILE is an editor, writer and poet living in NYC. She is the founding editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine and the author of APOCRYPHAL (Noctuary Press, 2014), as well as a few chapbooks: Andalucia (Poetry Society of New York), War/Lock(Hyacinth Girl Press), and Triste (Dancing Girl Press). Her book NYMPHOLEPSY (co-authored with poet Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein), was a finalist in the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards. Her poetry and other work can be or will be seen in PANK, Spork, The Atlas Review, Tarpaulin Sky, the Tin House blog, The Huffington Post, The Rumpus, Rogue Agent, Moonsick Magazine, Best American Poetry, Spoon River Poetry Review, PEN American Center and the Ampersand Review, among others. 

PATRICIA GRISAFI, PhD, is a New York City-based freelance writer, teacher, and poet. Her work has appeared in Salon, Bitch, Bustle, Ravishly, The Rumpus, The Establishment, and elsewhere, and she is a contributing writer for Luna Luna Magazine. She is passionate about pitbull rescue, cursed objects, and designer sunglasses.

LEZA CANTORAL is a writer and editor from Mexico with a B.A. in Cultural History. She is the author of Cartoons in the Suicide Forest and the editor of the upcoming CLASH Books Anthology Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana Del Rey and Sylvia Plath. She hosts a literary podcast where she talks to cool ass writers atgetlitwithleza.podbean.com. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @lezacantoral

CHRISTOPH PAUL is the author of Horror Film Poems and Slasher Camp for Nerd Dorks. He is the editor of CLASH Books Anthologies including Walk Hand in Hand Into Extinction: Stories Inspired by True Detective and This Book Ain’t Nuttin to Fuck With: A Wu-Tang Tribute Anthology. He is co-publisher and editor of CLASH Media and CLASH Books. He plays in rock band Mandy De Sandra and The Deviants but still wishes he was a gangsta rapper. Twitter @ChristophPaul_

MAXWELL BAUMAN is a halfway-decent Jewish boy from the Bronx. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Door Is A Jar literary magazine. His collection of Jewish humor stories, The Anarchist Kosher Cookbook is coming out later this year from CLASH Books. Follow him on Twitter at @maxwellbauman

MAME BOUGOUMA DIENE is a Franco –Senegalese American humanitarian living in Brooklyn, New York, and the US/Francophone spokesperson for the African Speculative Fiction Society (http://www.africansfs.com/), with a fondness for progressive metal, tattoos and policy analysis. You can find his work in Brittle Paper, Omenana, Galaxies Magazine (French), Edilivres (French), Fiyah! Magazine, Truancy Magazine and Strange Horizons, and in anthologies such as AfroSFv2 (Storytime), Myriad lands (Guardbridge Books), You Left Your Biscuit Behind (Fox Spirit Books), This Book Ain’t Nuttin to Fuck Wit (New English Press), and of course Clash Media. Follow him @mame_bougouma on twitter.

Luna Luna's Resistance Reading Event + Woman's March Huddle Group

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

Luna Luna Resists: Protest, Lit, Community
February 5, 5-8pm.

Luna Luna Magazine presents a night of poetry, prose and dialogue in the spirit of resistance & community support. Partnering with GAMBA Magazine at the Gamba Forest space in Brooklyn, Luna Luna will host short readings and a space for informal discussion and conversation around support, organizing and personal stories. Each reader will present 1-2 short pieces. Drinks will be available for purchase. There will be a few intermissions and time for talking. We encourage people to bring friends and family. We especially welcome women, people of color, immigrants and other marginalized groups that are at risk under the Trump administration. RSVP HERE.

READER LINEUP

Lisa Marie Basile
Monica Lewis
Rowana Abbensetts
Jessica Reidy
Shafina Ahmed
Dianca London
Trish Grisafi
Melissa Hunter Gurney
Tala Abu Rahmeh
Stephanie Valente
Mercy L. Tullis-Bukhari
Joanna Valente
Karina Vahitova
Chris Carr
Christine Stoddard
Ronna Lebo
Olivia Kate Cerrone
Deniz Ataman
Yi Wu
Nicola Maye Goldberg
Jasmine Dreame Wagner

Writer, Blogger & Journalist's Huddle — Empowerment & Action via Women's March "First We Marched Now We Huddle"
March 4, 2pm

Lisa Marie Basile is the founding editor of Luna Luna Magazine. She is the author of Apocryphal (Noctuary Press) and a few chapbooks, including Andalucia (Poetry Society of New York) and war/lock (Hyacinth Girl Press). Her work has been published in Best Small Fictions, Tarpaulin Sky, The Atlas Review, PANK, The Rumpus, Huffington Post, the Tin House blog and Ampersand Review. She's also a journalist and editor. Entropy recently named one of her essays a Best-Read for 2016.

Femmequerade: The Witch Ball Recap

BY LIZ VON KLEMPERER with PHOTOS BY LEAH BANK

On October 25, Greenpoint’s Good Room was transformed into a femme haven for the second Femmequerade Ball.  The mission of the gathering was to both rally against toxic masculinity and honor the divine feminine through music, dance and revelry.  In keeping with this philosophy, admission fee was $18 for cis straight white men, and $15 for everyone else.

By 8 p.m. a smog machine puffed ample smoke onto the dance floor, which was illuminated by a glittering disco ball.  Pointed witch hats bobbed in the throng as femmes swayed together.  Organizers Raechel Rosen and Coral Foxworth flitted around the room, setting the tone by lighting incense and candles.

“Everything came together around the full moon,” Foxworth, also known as FXWRK, says of the planning process.  The success of first Femmequerade Ball, which was held on August 18, attracted artists such as Anna Wise, Latasha Alcindor, and more to join forces for the second installment.

Raechel Rosen, who doubles as the lead singer and keytarist of her band Mima Good, got on stage after Yatta Zoker.  Raechel beckoned for the crowd to come closer, and began to sing her witchy brand of rock and roll.  Her final song, American Finger Trap, featured her signature onstage move: slowly peeling a banana and circumcising it with a pair of scissors.  Much of Rosen’s artistic practice is dedicated to combatting rape culture and empowering survivors by through voicing trauma.

“Politically I think it’s fucked up the way that we’re taught to deal with sexual assault in our culture,” Rosen explains.  “The victim has this secret to bear.  She has to go be in support groups, get therapy and deal with PTSD.  People treat it like you’ve caught this sickness and you can’t say who gave it to you.  It’s as though it’s your personal secret, where in reality it’s the secret of the assaulter.”

Attendees seeking a brief respite from the high-energy dance floor could dip into Greenroom’s second smaller room.  The space was occupied by Catland, a Brooklyn bookstore which supplies spiritual goods such as candles and crystals.  Books about the occult were for sale, along with other memorabilia.  Catland practitioners were also available to give tarot readings.

Next Latasha Alcindor, also known as L.A., took the stage.  She began with a ritual in which she splashed water around the stage and then launched into a spoken word piece about the power of witchcraft and her Caribbean heritage.  L.A.’s last song was about her neighborhood, and the all too prevalent phenomenon of gentrification.

“I’ve never played this in front of anyone before,” she confessed to the audience.

“To be honest, it feels odd to sing this song in front of a group of white people.  But it’s important, so I’m going to do it.”

The rap was raw and authentic.  L.A.’s face knit with a palpable anguish as she sang about the displacement her hometown has had to face.  The crowd erupted in applause.

Headliner Anna Wise prefaced her performance by affirming the intention of the event.

“I’m all about this cause,” she said, addressing the crowd.

“This period of time is marked by the uprising of the oppressed,” she continued.  “That includes femmes, and it also includes racial minorities.”

Wise’s awareness is in part influenced by her experience working with Kendrick Lamar on his latest album, To Pimp a Butterfly, which she described as one of the most pro black albums of 2015.  Wise then launched into her hit songs BitchSlut and Precious Posession.  During her last song she hopped off the stage and danced amongst the crowd.

The DJs that spun after the live music portion of the event included FXWRK, DJ Dylan Sparkle, Abyss X and WWIII.

What can we expect of the next Femmequerade?  The goal for the series, Foxworth says, is to, “create a space to imagine interaction outside of previous oppressive contexts.  It’s also a place to play, because play is a really important and underutilized aspect of social change and activism.  That’s why we dressed up.  It’s a ball, it’s a spectacle, it’s tapping into an almost childlike energy in all of us, and I think that’s the kind of energy we need to heal.”

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Liz Von Klemperer is the author of the unpublished novel Human Eclipse. Liz is a staff writer for Art Report, and has work featured in Autostraddle, Bust, Electric Literature, Luna Luna Mag, Hooligan Mag, and Breadcrumbs Mag. Visit her at lizvk.com.

Leah Bank is a Brooklyn based photographer, possibly from Mars, who enjoys late night cupcake baking and climbing rocks. She has work featured in BUST Magazine, F-Stop Magazine, and American Photography.  Find her at www.leahbank.com.

It Was Romance Releases New Song + Shot By Shot Remake of Fiona Apple's Criminal

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

If you're reading this website, there is an 99.9% chance you were obsessed with Fiona Apple's Tidal. Because you're an angsty dreamer just like me. You probably also think "This world is bullshit." If so, read on!

Lane Moore – writer, comedian, musician and all-around amazing lady – is in a pretty amazing band, It Was Romance (Lane Moore, Alejandro Triana, Angel Lozada and Jeff Connors). They're celebrating Tidal's 20th anniversary – by releasing a shot-for-shot remake of the Criminal video to their own song, Hooking Up With Girls. Yay! Watch it below.

Also, I talked to Lane and she told me all about her music and love for Fiona:

You have so much going on. Tell me a little bit about why you guys started It Was Romance. 

I've been singing and writing and recording my own music since I was little. It Was Romance actually started as my solo project where I played all the instruments and sang and layered everything on my computer. It's kind of a name like "Cat Power" is. Everyone told me I should just go play shows by myself and try to do it all, but even if I was writing all these songs and could technically do it by myself, I'd always wanted to find the right musicians to play with. It took me years and years to find the people who play with me now and the second it all fell into place I was like, "YES! Good. Great. OK, let's make this record." I wrote a lot of these songs before I even knew these guys existed in the world, so to finally see everything taking off with the right people is so satisfying. 

It's the 20th anniversary (I am so old) of Tidal. It was the second cassette I owned and hearing Never Is A Promise as a wayward little goth made me who I am today. How did this album impact you growing up? What about today? Why is Fiona Apple just so goddamned amazing?

Fiona Apple has always been a huge influence on me, personally and professionally. I just think she's incredible and I relate to her on so many levels. When The Pawn was actually my gateway album and then I went back to Tidal after hearing that. I listened to both nonstop for most of my childhood and teen years and still listen to them all the time. She's just such a powerful singer and songwriter. I once heard one of the Crutchfield sisters (from PS Eliot) say something on Twitter like, "If you don't think Fiona Apple is punk rock, get away from me." It's so accurate. I get very intense on stage when we play live shows and I'm sure seeing her do the same at a young age gave me the freedom to show that intensity in my music and my performances. 

How do you think Criminal video stands up against all the music videos out there today?

It holds up incredibly well. You look at a lot of the way we're advertising things now and so much of it looks like '70s porn. 

What are some upcoming projects for your band?

I've been writing about 2-3 songs I was happy with per week since I was a kid, so I've always written them faster than any of my band members, past or present, could learn them. I have easily over 300 right now that I'd happily record in the studio/release tomorrow if I could. I'm really excited to make the second IWR album and keep making videos and touring and opening for bigger bands. All of it. I'm ready. [Follow them on Bandcamp, Facebook & iTunes]

What's coming up for you?

So many things. Maybe sleep eventually, but I doubt it. 

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PS: It Was Romance is playing Aug 17 @ Cake Shop in NYC and Sept. 30 @ Pianos in NYC. 

From It Was Romance's self-titled debut album out now on iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify. Buy now: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/it-was-romance/id987602074 & https://itwasromance.bandcamp.com/ Don't forget to subscribe for more exclusive videos:: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgkaJCVB19kOVpHRh-QWmEg Like It Was Romance on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itwasromance Follow Lane Moore on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hellolanemoore/ Starring: Lane Moore, Mila Polyak, Jax Richter, Cheroc Sebti.

An Interview with AmpLit Fest's Founder – June 11, Lit on the Hudson

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

I spoke with Clare Smith Marash, the Founder and Director of Amp Lit Fest, which is co-produced by Lamprophonic and Summer on the Hudson. If you're free June 11, it's worth heading to the festival, which has a really great lineup, with panels. (See bottom of the post for more).

AmpLit Fest is, as their site says, "a free, daylong festival that brings authors of all backgrounds, styles, and levels of recognition to center stage. With readings, workshops, panels, and a community market, AmpLit Fest makes one of life’s most solitary acts — writing — a public celebration."

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1. I love the idea of this festival – promoting new, fresh voices and emerging writers. So necessary. Literary scenes can, at times, feel repetitive and cliquey, so was it important to start from a place of celebrating other voices, new voices, diverse voices? 

Definitely. The mission of Lamprophonic is to encourage a robust, diverse, and supportive literary community, so those objectives were always in our minds.

2. Is the focus on emerging writers answering to a larger issue in the NYC literary arena?

Lamprophonic’s flagship program is a reading series for emerging writers. I won’t claim it started anywhere too lofty - I was in graduate school when I started the series, getting my MFA while working as a bartender. The bar wanted to drum up business during a slow summer, so I suggested I bring some friends in for a reading, those friends being my classmates, who were emerging writers. Pretty quickly, though, I saw real value in protecting that space. There are many reading series in the city, but most - to my knowledge - have a hierarchical structure.
There’s an established headliner. I thought about how hard it was to get up there and read your work in front of strangers, but also how important it was. I wanted to encourage that impulse to share at every stage of a writer’s career.

By keeping the series wholly emerging writers, we can celebrate the artist-in-process and not make any kind of judgment on what it means to be successful or known, what that line is between emerging and emerged. We can avoid the hierarchy and create a space for newer writers to make connections outside of institutions, which I think also fosters a more inclusive community. 

Anyway, that’s a really long way of saying that the emerging writer community is kind of Lamprophonic’s home base and we felt no reason to disregard that in AmpLit, though the festival has afforded us the opportunity to present people who we adore but would not necessarily consider themselves “emerging” and get those two parties side-by-side in a way that feels less tiered, to me, than wide-reaching. We’ll also be holding writing workshops, so we’ll be encouraging soon-to-be emerging writers to join the fun, too! 

(See a list of performers here).

3. I love the idea of having a community market. What's that about? 

For all we were able to do in this first run of the festival, there was so much more we wanted to do. There are so many literary-driven organizations in New York who do great work and if we had the time and resources, we’d be partnering with all of them. That’s rather unrealistic, though, so the community market was our way of extending our reach, offering a space for these great entities to share their efforts with our audiences, even if we couldn’t present them or formally partner with them at the festival. 

4. You are also offering a panel on diversity. This is such a necessary area of focus, and one that has been neglected for some time by many bigger institutions. Can you talk a little more about that – as well as prepping for and choosing what panels you are offering?

Again, if only we could do more! From the start, I felt it was really important to have a discussion about diversity in the literary field — because how could you not? It’s real, serious problem in the industry and, particularly if we were going to set out to amplify new and fresh voices in the field, we must acknowledge how many voices have been systemically muted and the work being done to change that. 

As for our other panel, YA Grows Up: A Genre For All, that came out of my desire to reach audiences who maybe don’t consider themselves “literary.” Because what does that mean, really, to be literary? YA seems to be this across-the-divide genre that engages people who don't consider themselves big readers as well as the passionate literati. It’s a fantastically popular genre and has now churned out repeated blockbusters, too. It got me thinking about how categories so often end up having all these additional implicit messages. 'Young Adult’ signals a lot for people, but not necessary does it signal an intended audience. So then I wanted to talk about the categorization’s use and usefulness in the market, and therefore talk about the business of books. Because it is a business, as well as an art.  

5. You have so many major literary sponsors! What do you think this says about the state of literary arts in NY?

Enthusiasm! I was totally stoked to put this festival together and yet, for whatever reason, remained completely surprised that other people were just as jazzed. Anyone who supported the festival in anyway - from donating books to being represented by an author or staff member, we asked if they wanted to be acknowledged on the website and almost everyone said yes. Not to promote themselves, but to say this was something they were behind, to say they were happy to be there. Which I think is amazing.

Throughout this whole process, we’ve gotten so few ‘no’s; it’s rather incredible. Or biggest hurdle was competing with wedding season (we had several people who wanted to participate but were out to town for a wedding on the 11th). It just shows you how much this community is built on passion. We all just want to talk about this stuff all the time and are so happy when a forum appears in which to do it! 

6. What do you want the community – writers and listeners alike – to take away from the fest?

Many things big and small. I want people to have fun. I want them to learn something. I want them to feel inspired. But if I had to choose one overarching thing, I think I want, at the end of the day, for literature to feeling more inviting to everyone. Everyone has a story to tell, and maybe we’ll get a few more people encouraged to try, or get a few more people to spend a bit more time with a book in their very busy lives, or get people to think about what influences their reading choices and change it up. We’re here to remind everyone just how much a good story can offer us. 

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Clare Smith Marash is the winner of the Avery Hopwood Award in Short Fiction and numerous fellowships, Clare received her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Columbia University. Clare currently freelances as a writer and editor. She has written about topics ranging from particle physics to political music, and has taught at the high school and university level. You can learn more about her writing and work by perusing claresmithmarash.com