There are three upcoming readings in the northeast, regulars all, with a nice cast of performers (and all have good crowds of attendees, which make for interesting evenings out).
First up is the Philadelphia Fantastic Authors and Editors Series, which is held the fourth Friday of each month. Readings, starting at 7:30PM, are followed by signings, followed by a pay-your-own-way group dinner. On 25 January, they’ll be hosting editors James Morrow and Kathryn Morrow reading from The SFWA European Hall of Fame.
James Morrow is a critically acclaimed author of science fiction, theological fantasy, social satire, and new wave fabulism. Among his other accolades, he has been called “our greatest living satirist” and been compared to Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut. His literary honors include two Nebula Awards, two World Fantasy Awards, the Grand Prix de L’Imaginaire and the Prix Utopia. His next novel, to be published in March, 2008 under the title of The Philosopher’s Apprentice, will be the subject of another Philadelphia Fantastic event.
Kathryn Morrow is a former bookseller who in recent years has focused her energies on freelance editing, book reviewing, and independant scholarship. With her husband, James Morrow, she created the set of Tolkien Lesson Plans for secondary school teachers currently featured on the Houghton-Mifflin Web site. A lifelong SF fan, her critical pieces appear frequently in The New York Review of Science Fiction.
The Philadelpahia events are held at Barnes and Noble, 1805 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On 22 February, their reader will be Michael Swanwick.
Next will be the New York Review of Science Fiction (NYRSF) Reading Series at the South Street Seaport Museum. On 5 February, the doors will open at 6:30PM for the usual 7 o’clock start time. This month’s event is a celebration of editor John Joseph Adams’s anthology Wastelands. The readers will be authors Carol Emshwiller and John Langan, and Adams himself.
Carol Emshwiller is the author of six novels and more than 100 short stories. Her short work has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, and has been collected in several volumes, most recently in I Live With You. In her career spanning five decades, she has won the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award. In 2005, she was presented the World Fantasy Award for Life-Time Achievement. Her most recent novel, The Secret City, was published in 2007.
John Langan has published several stories in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, two of which—”On Skua Island” and “Mr. Gaunt”—were nominated for the International Horror Guild Award. A collection of his short work, Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, is forthcoming from Prime Books. Langan’s reviews and essays have appeared in Dead Reckonings, Erebos, Extrapolation, Fantasy Commentator, The Internet Review of Science Fiction, The Lovecraft Annual, Lovecraft Studies, and Science Fiction Studies. An adjunct instructor at SUNY New Paltz, he is in the process of completing his dissertation on H.P. Lovecraft.
John Joseph Adams was born in 1976. He is the assistant editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and was guest-editor of Shimmer Magazine‘s special pirate issue. He is also a freelance writer whose work has appeared in: Amazing Stories, The Internet Review of Science Fiction, Kirkus Reviews, Locus, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Publishers Weekly, SCIFI.com, Strange Horizons, Subterranean Magazine, and Writer’s Digest. He lives in Perth Amboy, NJ and at johnjosephadams.com.
The NYRSF Reading Series takes place the first Tuesday of every month at the South Street Seaport’s Melville Gallery, 213 Water Street. Admission is free, but $5 donations are encouraged to offset costs and buy dinner for the readers. The producer and executive curator is radio producer and talk show host Jim Freund. For more information, see www.hourwolf.com/nyrsf.
Finally there’s the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series, hosted by Ellen Datlow and Gavin J. Grant (although it isn’t really final, because they all come again a month later). On 20 February they’ll be presenting a reading from Datlow’s new anthology, Inferno, with writers Nathan Ballingrud, Elizabeth Bear, Jeffrey Ford, and John Grant. As always, readings start about 7, but arrive early if you want to get a seat (the bar is kind of small).
Nathan Ballingrud’s short fiction has been published in Sci Fiction, The Third Alternative, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror 17, and will be in the forthcoming 22nd Annual Collection.
Elizabeth Bear is the author of the novel Dust, an adventure story set aboard a doomed generation ship. Forthcoming htis summer are the next two novels in her Promethean Age fantasy series, Ink & Steel and Hell & Earth.
Jeffrey Ford is the author of the novels The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque and The Girl in the Glass, and the story collection The Empire of Ice Cream. In 2008 he will have out a new novel, The Shadow Year, and a new collection, The Drowned Life. His short stories have appeared in the anthologies: The Dark, The Faery Reel, The Coyote Road, Wizards, Eclipse#1, Feeling Very Strange, and The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.
John Grant’s most recent books are the nonfiction Corrupted Science and the anthology New Writings in the Fantastic. Having recently finished a mosaic novel for grown-ups and a cute verse story about a dinosaur for kids, he’s currently working on a further history-of-science book and, with his other hand, on a book about film noir.
Fantastic Fiction at KGB is held in the KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Avenue, upstairs) the third Thursday of every month. Mobile Libris is usually present to sell readers’ books. For more information on the location, see www.kgbbar.com; for information on the reading series, see their Yahoo group. Co-host Datlow also usually takes and posts many photos of the events. Her photos from the 16 January reading (Dan Braum and Marly Youmans) are available at this link.