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.

Memories of St. Mark's Bookshop

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

This is part of our brand new NYC vertical.

When I was a teenager, I'd come into the city on weekends to visit my boyfriend, Gabriel. He lived in this cozy, art-filled Upper West Side apartment--right on the Park. We'd always head downtown to the East Village, especially when he played shows at the Continental--before it was a ten-shots-for-10-bucks place, when it was still a cool music venue.

Right next door was the Bookshop, which would always speak to me; if the club owner at Continental (anyone remember the bouncer with the huge hat?) thought I was too young to come in (despite being the girlfriend of the guy in the band), I'd head to the bookshop and get lost. 

Back then, the premise of becoming a writer--let alone surrounding myself with the literary, or going to school in NYC for writing--was as ridiculous as becoming a Hollywood actress. I felt I had no plan, no voice, no money, and certainly no ability.

Gabriel and his parents nurtured me, leaving an imprint that I cannot ever deny. If I'm a product of anything, it's my parents, my resilience, and them. Standing outside that bookshop, peering in at this world, was something meaningful. I didn't realize it then, but it changed me. 

As the years went on and I found myself in college in 2005, long after the city had changed--along with my perception of it (it stopped being a giant; it started becoming home), I'd find myself at the bookshop. And again, in graduate school. I even madly kissed someone, drunk on mugs of $3 beer at Grassroots Tavern, against a stack of books. 

To speak of loss in New York is strange. There is so much here. There is so much to do, and think about, and so many people. There is the time that has passed, the locations that have gentrified, or died, or been stripped of their identities. And the institutions that watched.

To think sentimentally about any one space in a city so big--where we don't have neighborhoods to ourselves anymore, but an entire playground--seems futile. But those places are what center you. You know that among the millions, and under all the buildings, there's an anchor. What made it all OK. What made it real.

Goodbye, St. Mark's Bookshop.

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Lisa Marie Basile is a NYC-based poet, editor, and writer. She’s the founding editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine, and her work has appeared in Bustle, The Establishment, Hello Giggles, The Gloss, xoJane, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and The Huffington Post, among other sites. She is the author of Apocryphal (Noctuary Press, Uni of Buffalo) and a few chapbooks. Her work as a poet and editor have been featured in Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, The New York Daily News, Best American Poetry, Tin House, Best American Poetry, and The Rumpus, among others. She currently works for Hearst Digital Media, where she edits for The Mix, their contributor network.