Tonight is the event that I booked my tour around: I’ll be doing a presentation at Powell’s (the world’s largest independent bookstore, for whatever that’s worth) tonight at 7:30pm, speaking with Ursula K Le Guin. Ursula is, and I know I’m not alone in this, without a doubt one of my literary heroes: unabashedly political and personal at the same time, not afraid of “genre,” and just, well. Yeah. If you’re in Portland, don’t miss this.
Tag Archives: MMLB
Tour Update #2
Tucson, Arizona: I spoke at what was Dry River‘s first event since running into (and navigating) a bit of a legal mess. The place was packed. Plus, I ate a ton of really cheap awesome burritos, since I was there for three days.
Los Angeles: I’d never been to Los Angeles before, and it’s sort of frightful, I have to admit. But I had a perfect excuse to listen to Black Planet by sisters of mercy (driving down the highway 101, heading for sunset [boulevard]). The weather was eerily warm, but the reception at Book Soup was warm as well, and I met several awesome folks, including the first time I’d met Carissa van den Berk Clark, who is in my book, in person.
Santa Barbara: I met the earth first! roadshow folks in a park in front of city hall, after busking on State street. It was refreshing to do an event outside, and it was creepy to be wearing a tshirt. The EF! folks did an awesome job afterwards of making everyone feel connected, and it was a pretty good place.
Santa Cruz: Santa Cruz is full of shiny people. That is, full of people that I’d known for years but hadn’t seen in equally as long, as well as awesome new folks. Today I saw sea lions and they weren’t even in a prison zoo. The event was at SubRosa infoshop and was coordinated by the talented artist and interesting fellow Wes Modes. Hurrah for anarcho-steampunks!
Right now I’m in San Francisco, getting ready to speak at Modern Times.
The -cate crew
Traveling is fun. Touring is fun. You come up with weird inside jokes that you think everyone will find hilarious, and then what’s hilarious is that no one else finds them hilarious. Anyhow, the first leg of our tour, from Baltimore to Pittsburgh, was the four of us pictured. From left to right, that’s Rollerskate, Relocate, Undedicate, and Vacate. Because we decided we were all named Kate. Since then, we’ve had Sophisticate, and “whatever, I’m ignoring your stupid game” with us. Anyhow, this photo is by the amazingly talented Undedicate, who authors the remarkable zine No Gods, No Mattress which is a personal zine that’s actually really really worth reading. Photo was taken in Athens, GA. And it’s true, a fisheye lens makes everyone look like a band.
Book Tour Thus Far
I’m halfway between Austin and Tucson (which is to say, I’m in El Paso) and I’m probably more than halfway done with the driving, but only a quarter done with my book talks. And it’s been going awesome. The book talks, to be sure, but I just feel… I feel like myself again. I was worried, going into this tour: who would ever want to travel with an itinerary? Where’s the fun (read: chaos) in that? But the trip has been full of adventure. Shove an amazing and rotating cast of 4-5 folks into a minivan, and everything will be interesting, if nothing else.
I’d been to New Orleans only briefly, but this time I may have left my heart there. I watched birds fly before the endless sunset while on an abandoned rooftop punk show, I found rusty stuff everywhere, and the Iron Rail Infoshop is one of the best I’ve ever seen. (It’s crusty friendly, and seems to be holding it down for anarcho and crusty, which is a dying trend across the country).
I’d never stepped foot in Houston before, but Sedition Books is lovely, and the place was packed for the book talk. And the hospitality? Incomparable.
Austin is a beautiful town. A local community radio recorded the event at Monkey Wrench Books.
Some Press: Nor’Easter and mentioned in Wired
So… sorta embarrassing to be the front page of a radical newspaper. But I got interviewed by the Nor’Easter, the magazine of the North East Anarchist Network about Mythmakers & Lawbreakers.
Also, comic book author Alan Moore mentioned me in a recent interview with Wired:
We’ve got an excellent article coming up in the second issue by Magpie, Margaret Killjoy, who was formerly an editor for the excellent Steampunk Magazine. She also helped bring out The Steampunk’s Guide to the Apocalypse, which was very useful. It included, and I think she designed it herself, a design for a desalination unit based upon a completely new principle, which was effective and easy to put together.
She’s moved on from that to the post-civilization movement, which is arguing that increasingly it is not becoming a matter of if civilization breaks down, it’s becoming a matter of when civilization breaks. She’s saying that when that happens, we’re probably going to have to do a lot of work to get things going again. She suggests that perhaps it will be a good idea to start doing this work before civilization has broken down, so that we still have some resources [laughs]!
I didn’t actually design the desalination unit, though… can’t take credit for that.
Three New Dates in Cali!
So… more information soon, but I’ll be speaking three more times in California:
SANTA BARBARA: January 12th, at De La Guerra Plaza at 3:00pm. I’ll be joining the Earth First! roadshow folks, which will be exciting!
SANTA CRUZ: January 13th, at SubRosa Infoshop. 6pm. Once again, with the EF! Roadshow!
OAKLAND: January 15th, at Long Haul Infoshop. 7pm. I’ll be sharing the stage with my friend Artnoose of Ker-Bloom! and with Tomas, who does the zine Rad Dad.
Mythmakers Tour 2010, updated!
4,500 miles and, at the moment, 10 events in 9 cities. Below are the confirmed dates (still waiting on a few holes that might be filled).
- New Orleans, LA: Sunday, Jan. 3rd at Iron Rail Book Collective. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- Houston, TX: Tuesday, Jan. 5th at Sedition Books. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- Austin, TX: Wednesday, Jan. 6th at Monkey Wrench Books. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- Tucson, AZ: Thursday, Jan. 8th at Dry River. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- West Hollywood, CA: Sunday, Jan. 11th at Book Soup, with Carissa van den Berk Clark. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- San Francisco, CA: Thursday, Jan. 14th at Modern Times Bookstore. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- Portland, OR: Monday, Jan. 18th at Powell’s Books with Ursula K Le Guin. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- Portland, OR: Monday, Jan. 21st at the Red & Black Cafe with Artnoose of Ker-bloom!. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- Seattle, WA: Friday, Jan. 29th at Left Bank Books. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- Olympia, WA: Monday, Feb. 1st at Last Word Books. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
Mythmakers & Lawbreakers Tour 2010!
Announcing the Mythmakers & Lawbreakers tour! I’ll be doing a strange sort of half-loop of the country, starting in Baltimore and ending up in the Pacific Northwest. Confirmed dates are below:
- Baltimore, MD: Thursday, Dec. 17th at Red Emma’s Bookstore and Coffeeshop. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- New Orleans, LA: Sunday, Jan. 3rd at Iron Rail Book Collective. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- Houston, TX: Tuesday, Jan. 5th at Sedition Books. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- Austin, TX: Wednesday, Jan. 6th at Monkey Wrench Books. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
- Portland, OR: Monday, Jan. 18th at Powell’s Books with Ursula K Le Guin. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
As you might notice, there’s a big ole gap in there between Texas and Oregon. I’m working on scheduling something in Tucson, but if anyone reading this is somewhere between Tucson and Portland, I’d love to get in touch about setting up an event in your town.
Further, if you live in one of these aforementioned towns, you would become my instant hero if you were to repost or twitter about the event, and even more so if you were to print out the flyers and distribute them!
I’ve been having a great time doing this presentation, and I really think it’s done a good bit for spurring appreciation for fiction in radical scenes, and of informing folks about the radical bias many “mainstream” authors have and had that has been left out of the classroom.
Interviewed by Alpline Anarchist Productions
My friend Gabriel from Alpine Anarchist Productions—a sort of comparable distro to Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness—has just interviewed me for their new Alpine Anarchist Meets series. The format was a single prompt: “In your book Mythmakers & Lawbreakers: anarchist writers on fiction you have fourteen writers tell you about how their work ties in with their politics and their lives. How about yourself? How do your political beliefs and convictions relate to what you do every day?”
Tuesday in Chapel Hill — Lewis Shiner, another anarchist storyteller, and myself will be speaking
Tuesday, October 6th, 7pm. Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
I’ll be joined by the esteemed Lewis Shiner, author of Slam, among many other novels, as well as another secretive guest (guess you’ll have to come, eh?).
I’m excited to share an event with Lewis, whom I interviewed for Mythmakers & Lawbreakers. He’s a first-class writer and has a lot of interesting things to say. I believe he’ll be doing a reading from his 1990 skate-punk-anarchist classic Slam, and then we’ll have some sort of guided discussion about anarchism and fiction.