Skylight Books Podcast Series

Snowflake/Different Streets (Wave Books) Celebrated poet Eileen Myles visits Skylight Books to read and sign her highly anticipated new poetry collection Snowflake/Different Streets. "One of the savviest and most restless intellects in contemporary literature—honest, jokey, paranoid, sentimental, mean, lyrical, tough, you name it." —Dennis Cooper "[Myles' writing] comes across simultaneously as effortless and utterly gorgeous. . . . To be able to write with such gentleness and force all at the same time is such a gift, and Myles is completely generous in how she uses this." —Ron Silliman Eileen Myles was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, graduated from U. Mass (Boston) in 1971, and moved to New York City in 1974 to be a poet. Snowflake/different streets, a double volume (of poems) will be out in 2012 from Wave Books. Eileen’s Inferno: a poet's novel (2010) which details a female writer’s coming of age was described by John Ashbery as "zingingly funny and melancholy." Alison Bechdel called Inferno "this shimmering document." She writes about books, art and culture for a wide variety of publications including Art Forum, Book Forum, and Parkett, and she blogs on Art in America and Harriet’s sites. Please visit her at eileenmyles.com. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MARCH 16, 2012.

These Dreams of You (Europa Editions) We're thrilled to present Steve Erickson, author of Zeroville and editor of the literary journal Black Clock, who will read and sign his new novel These Dreams of You. "In its gorgeous, vivid prose and its acutely sensitive soul, These Dreams of You shows us just what a novel can still do in our own crazy times." --Boston Globe "Erickson's seemingly fractured novel turns out to be something else -- the novel as fractal, a series of endless, astounding tessellations." --The New York Times Book Review "Over his entire career Erickson has challenged readers with a fiercely intelligent and surprisingly sensual brand of American surrealism." --The Washington Post Steve Erickson is the author of eight previous novels, including Zeroville, which was named one of the best novels of the year by Newsweek, the Washington Post Book World, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review, and noted as one of five favorite novels in a winter 2008 National Book Critics Circle poll. He also has written two books about American politics and popular culture, Leap Year and American Nomad.  Erickson has written for Esquire, Rolling Stone, Bookforum, Frieze, Conjunctions, Salon, the L.A. Weekly, the New York Times Magazine and other publications and journals, and his work has been widely anthologized. Currently he is the film critic for the Los Angeles Magazine and the editor of the literary journal Black Clock, which is published by the California Institute of the Arts where he teaches in the MFA Writing Program. Erickson has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts grant and a fellowship from John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. In 2010 he was been nominated for a National Magazine Award for criticism and received one of seven awards in literature given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS February 22, 2012.

When the Killing's Done (Penguin)  Acclaimed novelist T.C. Boyle (The Women) returns to Skylight to read and sign this new paperback edition of his latest novel, When the Killing's Done, a fictional take on real-life battle between the National Park Service and animal welfare activists over invasive species in the Channel Islands. With vividly drawn characters and heart-pounding plot twists, Boyle asks an important question: When it comes to restoring delicate ecosystems, are the lives of some animals worth more than those of others? "He writes lyrically, beautifully — about the ocean, the land, about California history and its pitfalls and perils.... Boyle makes us laugh and wonder at his dazzling gifts but his comedy is a dark business." --Los Angeles Times "Terrifically exciting and unapologetically relevant." --The Washington Post "Character, science and history co-evolve marvelously here in a tale of fanaticism gone literally overboard." --Barbara Kingsolver, The New York Times T.C. Boyle is the author of twelve novels including most recently, The Women, a New York Times bestseller, and nine collections of short stories, including Wild Child. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he lives near Santa Barbara, CA and is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. Photo of the author by Jamieson Fry. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS March 8, 2012.

At Last (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Acclaimed British novelist Edward St. Aubyn (Mother's Milk, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize) will read and sign his new novel At Last. "Sparkling... With the wit of Wilde, the lightness of Wodehouse, and the waspishness of Waugh, [St. Aubyn] wraps his fancy prose style around the self in extremis ('suffocated, dropped, born of raped as well as born to be raped"), situations more familiar to readers of Cooper or Burroughs."  --Zadie Smith, Harper's "A miraculously wrought piece of art." --Suzi Feay, The Financial Times "St. Aubyn's technique is to crystallise emotional intensity into sentences of arctic beauty, which can be caustically witty or brutal. His novels are uncommonly well controlled, and thus their impact is all the more powerful... In At Last this crystallisation and control are on glittering display... We have reached the pinnacle of a series that has plunged into darkness and risen towards light. At Last is both resounding end and hopeful beginning." -- Philip Womack, The Telegraph "Ferociously funny, painfully acute and exhilaratingly written... Brimming with witty flair, sardonic perceptiveness and literary finesse." --Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times Edward St. Aubyn was born in London in 1960. He is the author of A Clue to the Exit and On the Edge, and of a series of novels about the Melrose family, the trilogy Some Hope and Mother’s Milk, which was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. Photo of the author by Timothy Allen. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS FEBRUARY 19, 2012

No One Is Here Except All of Us (Riverhead) We're pleased to present debut novelist Ramona Ausubel for a reading and signing of her beautiful and riveting novel No One Is Here Except All of Us. "Here is a world created out of the most curious and beautiful remnants of our own: opera, suitcases, letters, rivers, daughters, strangers, and shovels. Ramona Ausubel cracks open the very idea of a book and fills its shell with a thing glimmering, thrilling, and new." — Samantha Hunt, author of The Invention of Everything Else "A special work of the imagination, an original gift, dark and light, and Ramona Ausubel colors it all with a glowing wisdom." — Ron Carlson, author of Five Skies "A wise, compassionate book that even in its darkest turns uplifts." — Christine Schutt, National Book Award finalist for Florida and Pulitzer Prize finalist for All Souls "Ausubel has written a riveting, otherworldly story about an all-too-real war and the transformative power of community." — Library Journal Ramona Ausubel grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She holds an MFA from the University of California, Irvine where she won the Glenn Schaeffer Award in Fiction and served as editor of Faultline Journal of Art & Literature. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, One Story, The Paris Review Daily, and Best American Fantasy. Her work has also received special mentions in Best American Short Stories and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Ausubel was also a finalist for the Pushcart Prize. She lives in Santa Barbara, California. Photo of the author by Twin Lens Images. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS FEBRUARY 10, 2012.

When We Were Outlaws by Jeanne Cordova (Spinspters Ink) Dr. Chris Freeman riffs off the style of hard-hitting PBS interview host Charlie Rose, and tosses the tough questions to Jeanne Cordova, author of When We Were Outlaws: a memoir of Love and Revolution Delve back in time to the early 1970s birth of activism in the lesbian & gay movement.   Get the nuts and bolts on... Lesbian separatism, Advocacy journalist (ala the infamous L.A. Free Press), Lesbians in the Symbionese Liberation Army, Butch daughters and their seriously confused fathers, The politics of non-monogamy (polyamory) as a multi-generational lifestyle & more... Special guest: Art Kunkin, Founder of the Los Angeles Free Press Dr. Chris Freeman teaches Gender Studies at USC, including, "Queer L.A." Freeman is the co-editor of the Lambda Award-winning THE ISHERWOOD CENTURY and the Lambda finalist LOVE, WEST HOLLYWOOD. Jeanne Cordova, pioneer dyke activist, queer organizer, lesbian journalist/publisher.  Author of SEXISM IT'S A NASTY AFFAIR, KICKING THE HABIT, and a contributor to LESBIAN NUNS BREAKING THE SILENCE & THE PERSISTENT DESIRE: A FEMME BUTCH READER THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS FEBRUARY 4, 2012.

A Hole in the Ground Owned by a Liar (Counterpoint) Novelist Daniel Pyne (Twentynine Palms) launches his new novel, A Hole in the Ground Owned by a Liar, here at Skylight. "Daniel Pyne's A Hole in the Ground Owned By a Liar will put to rest any idle fantasies the reader may have of setting out prospecting for gold. A harrowingly funny story of brotherly strife, amorous misconduct, and small dreams blown disastrously out of proportion. I loved it." --Scott Phillips, author of The Adjustment and national bestseller The Ice Harvest "Smart, sexy, funny, and a brilliant storyteller. And that's just me. Wait till you read Dan . . . " --Eric Idle Throughout his career, Daniel Pyne has moved freely between the world of television, film and books. His writing credits include The Manchurian Candidate, Fracture, Any Given Sunday, and Miami Vice. He is also author of the noir novel, Twentynine Palms (which was also made into a feature film). Pyne has a BA in Economics from Stanford University, and an MFA from UCLA’s film school, where he teaches a graduate seminar in screenwriting every winter. He lives in Los Angeles and Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife and children, two cats, two dogs, two lizards, and a turtle. For more info on Daniel Pyne, visit www.danielpyne.com. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS FEBRUARY 7, 2012.

All There Is: Love Stories from StoryCorps (Penguin Press) Dave Isay, founder of the revolutionary oral history project StoryCorps (as heard on NPR's Morning Edition), will discuss and sign his new collection of tales from the project, All There Is: Love Stories from StoryCorps. Dave Isay is the founder of StoryCorps and the recipient of numerous broadcasting honors, including five Peabody Awards and a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. He is the author/editor of numerous books that grew out of his public radio documentary work, including two StoryCorps books: Listening Is an Act of Love and Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps—both New York Times bestsellers. Photo of the author by Harvey Wang. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS FEBRUARY 3, 2012.

The Flame Alphabet (Knopf) Ben Marcus (Notable American Women) will read and sign his highly anticipated new novel, The Flame Alphabet. In The Flame Alphabet, the most maniacally gifted writer of our generation delivers a work of heartbreak and horror, a novel about how far we will go, and the sorrows we will endure, in order to protect our families. A terrible epidemic has struck the country and the sound of children's speech has become lethal. Radio transmissions from strange sources indicate that people are going into hiding. All Sam and Claire need to do is look around the neighborhood: In the park, parents wither beneath the powerful screams of their children. At night, suburban side streets become routes of shameful escape for fathers trying to get outside the radius of affliction. With Claire nearing collapse, it seems their only means of survival is to flee from their daughter, Esther, who laughs at her parents' sickness, unaware that in just a few years she, too, will be susceptible to the language toxicity. But Sam and Claire find it isn't so easy to leave the daughter they still love, even as they waste away from her malevolent speech. On the eve of their departure, Claire mysteriously disappears, and Sam, determined to find a cure for this new toxic language, presses on alone into a world beyond recognition. The Flame Alphabet invites the question: What is left of civilization when we lose the ability to communicate with those we love? Both morally engaged and wickedly entertaining, a gripping page-turner as strange as it is moving, this intellectual horror story ensures Ben Marcus's position in the first rank of American novelists. "Language kills in Marcus's audacious new work of fiction, a richly allusive look at a world transformed by a new form of illness . . . Biblical in its Old Testament sense of wrath, Marcus's novel twists America's quotidian existence into something recognizable yet wholly alien to our experience." --Publishers Weekly (Starred review and Pick of the week) "Echoes of Ballard's insanely sane narrators, echoes of Kafka's terrible gift for metaphor, echoes of David Lynch, William Burroughs, Robert Walser, Bruno Schulz and Mary Shelley: a world of echoes and re-echoes--I mean 'our' world--out of which the sanely insane genius of Ben Marcus somehow manages to wrest something new and unheard of. And yet as I read The Flame Alphabet, late into the night, feverishly turning the pages, I felt myself, increasingly, in the presence of the classic." --Michael Chabon Ben Marcus is the author of three books of fiction: Notable American Women, The Father Costume, and The Age of Wire and String, and he is the editor of The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories. His stories have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, Tin House, and Conjunctions. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and awards from the Creative Capital Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in New York City and Maine. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS FEBRUARY 2, 2012

Students in the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing program will read from their work. The theme will be "Gluttony and Temperance." The student readers will be Josh Jackson, Breene Murphy, Bryce Glen, Barrington Smith Seetachitt, and Michael Du Plessis. USC faculty member and screenwriting guru Syd Field will also read! THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS, NOVEMBER 18, 2011.