March events at Greenlight!

March is Women's History Month, and it's looking like another great month for events! We've got a mentoring event for music industry hopefuls, a PACC-hosted reading about immigrant labor, discussions between writers, critics, and bloggers, a conversation between two taxidermists named Melissa, humor from Steamboat, and the newly rescheduled Rick Moody / John Wesley Harding mini-concert. And for kids, we're hosting a special month-long series featuring Brooklyn women children's authors and illustrators. In fact, there's a high percentage local authors in the event mix this month, which makes us proud of our neighborhood and our borough. Details are below -- you can RSVP for any of these events on our Facebook page to help us get a sense of attendance, but seating is first come, first served. We'll see you at the bookstore!


Thursday, March 4, 7:30 PM Mentoring Event & Panel Discussion: New Year, New Career!
Featuring Thembisa Mshaka, author of Put Your Dreams First!: Handle Your [Entertainment] Business
With entertainment business entrepreneurs Abby Dobson, Celia Faussart (pka Blue Nefertiti), Jackie Rhinehart, Danrella Dunham, DJ Reborn, Nefertiti Strong, and Raqiyah Mays
Moderated by Fiona Bloom of The Bloom Effect
Author and industry veteran Thembisa S. Mshaka interviewed stars and the people who make them for her new book Put Your Dreams First, described as "mentorship in a bottle" for those hoping to break in to the business. This evening, a panel of those featured in the book, moderated by publicity maven Fiona Bloom, will talk about their experiences and answer your career questions in an unmatched intimate setting.

Panelists include:
Independent recording artist Abby Dobson
Celia Faussart, co-founder of Les Nubians
Darnella Dunham, Radio Trade writer and producer
DJ Reborn, DJ instructor and Music Director of Def Poets on Broadway World Tour
Jackie Rhinehart, marketing veteran and author, My Organic Soul
Voice and stage actor Raqiyah Mays ("Platanos & Collard Greens")

The pre-event mixer will also include Rhonda Cowan, Vice President of BET.com, filmmaker/producer Nefertiti Strong of Catch-A-Dream Entertainment, and other music and media movers and shakers, and will offer attendees the chance to gain the benefit of the experience of women in the business.


Monday, March 8, 7:30 PM Tiphanie Yanique reads and discusses How to Escape from a Leper Colony with Tayari Jones
Brooklynite Tiphanie Yanique was born in the Hospital Ground neighborhood of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and now teaches at Drew University. Her debut work of fiction, How to Escape from a Leper Colony, is a collection of stories and a short novel set in her native Virgin Islands. Part oral history, part postcolonial narrative, the book tells odd and magical stories that are both epic and intimate. Tiphanie discusses her work this evening with fellow Brooklyn author Tayari Jones, author of Leaving Atlanta and The Untelling. Jones has called Yanique "a writer to watch" and writes "Each of the stories contained in this gorgeous collection is clear-eyed, honest while still zinging with emotion. Tiphanie Yanique is blessed with an electric imagination, an expansive heart, and an unflinching gaze."


Tuesday, March 16, 7:30 PM Pratt Area Community Council presents Gabriel Thompson, author of Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won't Do
Reading and Reception
What is it like doing the back-breaking work of low-wage immigrants? To find out, Brooklyn author Gabriel Thompson spent the year working alongside Latino immigrants. He stooped over lettuce fields in Arizona and worked the graveyard shift at a chicken slaughterhouse in rural Alabama. He dodged taxis as a bicycle delivery "boy" for an upscale Manhattan restaurant and was fired from a flower shop in Chelsea. Combining personal narrative with investigative reporting, Working in the Shadows shines a bright light on the underside of the American economy, exposing harsh working conditions, union busting, and lax government enforcement-while telling the stories of workers, undocumented immigrants and desperate US citizens alike, forced to live with chronic pain in the pursuit of $8 an hour.

Not so long before he went undercover as part of the low-wage immigrant workforce, Gabriel Thompson was the director of community organizing at Pratt Area Community Council (PACC) in Fort Greene. The Young Friends group of PACC is thrilled to co-host this book reading. Refreshments will be served.


Thursday, March 11, 7:30 PM Melissa Milgrom, author of Still Life, talks taxidermy with Melissa Dixson
Journalist Melissa Milgrom spent five years investigating the world of taxidermy and came away with a profound respect for this controversial occupation. She met taxidermists from around the world, attended the world championships in NJ, and even took a try at stuffing her very own squirrel, and she chronicles the results in Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy. Tonight at Greenlight, Melissa Milgrom talks with another Brooklyn taxidermist, Melissa Dixson, about the book and their shared obsession - they may even compare squirrels.


Thursday, March 18, 7:30 PM Steamboat: A Literary Humor Series Hosted by Bob Powers and Jason Reich
Featuring Julie Klausner, author of I Don't Care About Your Band: What I Learned From Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, Felons and Other Guys I've Dated
Mike Albo, author of The Underminder: Or, The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life
And other funny people TBA
On the third Thursday of every month, join Bob Powers (author of Happy Cruelty Day) and Jason Reich (former writer for "The Daily Show"), as they welcome the city's best humor writers for a night of wine-addled text-based hilarity. Julie Klausner's memoir of her horrific dating life, I Don't Care About Your Band, sheds light on the humiliations we endure to find love - and the lessons that can be culled from the wreckage. Mike Albo's The Underminder channels the hilarious and mysterious evil everyone has encountered--the toxic best friend who slowly and relentlessly dismantles the life of a nameless victim. Klausner and Albo join Powers, Reich, and other funny people culled from New York's best (or most available) talent for March's edition of Steamboat - stay tuned for additions to the lineup.


Monday, March 22, 7:30 PM
Blogger/Author Pairings:
Victor Lavalle reads and discusses Big Machine with Maud Newton
Our monthly Blogger/Author Pairings series features a noted literary blogger hosting a book or author that they are passionate about. Victor LaValle's award-winning novel Big Machine, newly released in paperback, is the story of a middle-aged hustler inducted into a band of paranormal investigators. His other books include the short-story collection Slapboxing with Jesus, and the novel The Ecstatic, which inspired Mos Def's album of the same name. Brooklyn blogger Maud Newton's literary website, MaudNewton.com, has been extensively praised, criticized, and cited in newspapers and magazines, and her fiction, essays, and criticism have also also appeared in Granta, Bookforum, The New York Times Book Review, and many other publications. Newton, a fan and advocate of LaValle's work, talks with him this evening about belief, race, genre, pop culture, and the other big themes that define and complicate his writing.


Wednesday, March 24, 7:30 PM
Words and Music with Rick Moody and Wesley Stace (John Wesley Harding)
* * * RESCHEDULED FROM FEBRUARY 25 * * *
Brooklyn artists Rick Moody and Wesley Stace (aka John Wesley Harding) both have the rare distinction of being recognized for their talents as writers and as musicians. Rick Moody is the author of The Ice Storm, The Diviners, Demonology, The Black Veil, and other novels and nonfiction works, and has performed with the Wingdale Community Singers and One Ring Zero. Wesley Stace is the author of the novels Misfortune and By George, and as John Wesley Harding has released 15 albums and performed with Iggy Pop and Bruce Springsteen. For this special evening at Greenlight, Rick and John plan to read from new unpublished work. They'll also play together as the band Authros, described by Rick as "really just the two of us and an acoustic guitar."


Friday, March 26, 7:30 PM
Shannan Rouss reads from Easy For You
Fort Greene resident Shannan Rouss is a former Los Angeleno; her debut story collection Easy For You provides a momentary glimpse into the characters who inhabit the sprawling space of metro Los Angeles, where lines and lives are constantly intersecting. Set within this city of actors and moviemakers, glamour and glitz, these stories depicts the universal desire to find something true. Join us for a hometown celebration of Rouss's exploration of West Coast lives.