Rod Russell-Ides Reading & Book Signing

0 CommentsSaturday • October 13, 2012 • by admin

What: Rod Russell-Ides and his new book “Sparky and the Dipshit”
When: Saturday, April 6, 8 pm
Where: Lucky Dog Books, 633 W. Davis St. near Bishop Arts
Admission: Members FREE

Rod-Russell Ides is a poet, songwriter, musician, performance artist, landscape artist, dharma bum, and storyteller/writer. Join us as we celebrate the release of his new book “Sparky and the Dipshit”, published by Fireside Press. Rod lives in Dallas with his wife, poet/playwright, Isabella Russell-Ides.

Rauan Klassnik, Farid Matuk and Russel Swenson

0 CommentsSaturday • October 13, 2012 • by admin

What: Rauan Klassnik, Farid Matuk and Rusell Swenson
Where: Lucky Dog Books, 633 W. Davis St. (Oak Cliff)
When: Friday, January 25, 8 pm

 “Rauan Klassnik‘s HOLY LAND (Black Ocean) is not a book for the faint of heart. His poems–dreamlike fables that conflate the domestic and quotidian with the dangerous and the perverse–are bathed in tears and blood: a trip to the bank becomes a journey to Auschwitz; bullets and gore find equivalence in rivers, birds and lush grass. In Klassnik’s startling vision, ‘the world knows what you want, and it knows what you need. It brings you bodies. And it brings you a gun”–Gary Young.Rauan grew up in South Africa and then spent most of life in Dallas, TX where he was for many years an active part of the local writing community. Rauan’s first book, Holy Land, came out from Black Ocean in 2008. His second book, The Moon’s Jaw (also from
Black Ocean) releases end of 2012. Rauan’s poems have appeared in The Mississippi Review, Front Porch, The North American Review, Poetry Midwest & other venues. Rauan is now headquartered, close to Costco, in Kirkland, WA.

“There’s something wrong with Los Angeles. In his brilliant debut Santa Ana, Russel Swensen analyzes what it means to live in a city that sets all of its awful immune system on you, that fevers itself to burn off all but the most wicked and calloused. Here the city becomes a fantastic and terrifying Lynchian nightmare in which each person is an animal desperate to devour or be photographed. A girl sings “if you put your ear to an ash tray, you can hear the sea of flame replacing me” and maybe that’s the city itself, fire licking the corners of the pages, the moments seen as though through smoke. It’s all the speaker can try to do to escape, the wind that carries the flames always finding him, finding him out. This is a phenomenal work, nerve wracking and passionate, and will leave you with all the right kinds of scars.” -Glenn Shaheen.

Russel Swensen currently teaches at Prairie View A&M University.  He earned his MFA in fiction from the California Institute of the Arts and his doctorate in poetry from the University of Houston. His work has appeared inBlack Clock, Quarterly West, Prick of the Spindle, FRiGG, The Collagist, and elsewhere.

OffWorld-WordSpace Science Fiction Club

0 CommentsSaturday • October 13, 2012 • by admin

What: OffWorld: The WordSpace Science Fiction Book Club
Where: WordSpace, 415 North Tyler St.
When: Thursday, December 11, 7 pm
Admission: FREE
Hosted by:  Phllip Washington
The Author: Neal Stephenson

To join OffWorld  or for more information contact Phillip Washington at  offworld@wordspace.us or call WordSpace, 214-838-3554, ext. 2, Click here for the OffWorld Blog

If you are a science fiction fan, please read Section A below. If you are not currently a science fiction reader, please skip to Section B.

SECTION A

“Does your bucket list include things like “piercing the outer layers of corporate cyberstructures, surfing the burning neon matrix of the cosmic internet, picturesque holograms of your disembodied consciousness navigating 4 dimensional super-continuums?”

Do you have dreams of futuristic landscapes, cybernetic samurais, and psychic aliens? Have you ever wanted to travel through time?” “Do you see yourself living in future dystopias and utopias? We hear you loud and clear, You’re saying: “Yes As long as it ain’t as hot THERE as summer in Dallas.” We’d have to agree with you on that one.

Answering “Yes” to most of these questions indicates   a functioning imagination. And guess what? We have a place for you, and others like you. Join “OffWorld: The Official Dallas Science Fiction Book Club” today. Get ready to geek out, PhReAk out, and congregate with other kindred spirits who love Science Fiction literature.

(Please proceed to Section C, or read Section B just for the fun of it.)

SECTION B

Did you stop reading science fiction when you were fourteen years old? Is “1984″ the only science fiction novel you ever read, and then only because it was assigned in class? Do you assume all science fiction novels are either based on Star Trek or cater to adolescent, male sexual fantasies?

Well, there is a whole new alien landscape out there, and WordSpace wants to explore it with you.

The current crop of science fiction writers are complex, funny, visionary, and scary-smart on topics most people will know little or nothing about before they change our world forever. 

OffWorld: The Official Dallas Science Fiction Book Club will introduce you to a new perspective of the present by examining visions of the future

 (Please proceed to Section C)

SECTION C

 Joining is easy and fun. Here is how OffWorld  works:

1)    Rather than reading a particular book, OffWorld will choose a writer to focus on for a three-month period.

2)    Club members may read one or several books by that author during the three months.

3)    The website Worlds Without End has generously offered to host discussion forums for OffWorld. The forums will feature ongoing discussions of individual books and general topics related to the author. Members can propose their own forum topics.

4)    During the three-month session, WordSpace will host two discussions on the author and his or her work at our Tyler Street storefront in Oak Cliff.

5)    During the three-month session, Half Price Books on Northwest Highway will also host a public meeting, this one with  a guest speaker from the scientific, medical, or tech community who will discuss a topic —anything from robotics to advances in molecular biology, as it relates to science fiction.

6)    Joining OffWorld is FREE. The sessions at Half Price Books will cost $10, but will be free to WordSpace members.

 Neal Stephenson  is our first OffWorld author. (Warning! Warning! Some of Mr. Stephenson’s books are 1000 pages long, but hey, you have three months to read one, and some are much shorter.)

OffWorld-The WordSpace Science Fiction Club

0 CommentsSaturday • October 13, 2012 • by admin

What: OffWorld: The WordSpace Science Fiction Book Club
Where: WordSpace, 415 North Tyler St.
When: Monthly, Tuesday, November 13, 7 pm
Admission: FREE
Hosted by:  Phllip Washington
The Author: Neal Stephenson

To join OffWorld  or for more information contact Phillip Washington at  offworld@wordspace.us or call WordSpace, 214-838-3554, ext. 2, Click here for the OffWorld Blog

If you are a science fiction fan, please read Section A below. If you are not currently a science fiction reader, please skip to Section B.

SECTION A

“Does your bucket list include things like “piercing the outer layers of corporate cyberstructures, surfing the burning neon matrix of the cosmic internet, picturesque holograms of your disembodied consciousness navigating 4 dimensional super-continuums?”

Do you have dreams of futuristic landscapes, cybernetic samurais, and psychic aliens? Have you ever wanted to travel through time?” “Do you see yourself living in future dystopias and utopias? We hear you loud and clear, You’re saying: “Yes As long as it ain’t as hot THERE as summer in Dallas.” We’d have to agree with you on that one.

Answering “Yes” to most of these questions indicates   a functioning imagination. And guess what? We have a place for you, and others like you. Join “OffWorld: The Official Dallas Science Fiction Book Club” today. Get ready to geek out, PhReAk out, and congregate with other kindred spirits who love Science Fiction literature.

(Please proceed to Section C, or read Section B just for the fun of it.)

SECTION B

Did you stop reading science fiction when you were fourteen years old? Is “1984″ the only science fiction novel you ever read, and then only because it was assigned in class? Do you assume all science fiction novels are either based on Star Trek or cater to adolescent, male sexual fantasies?

Well, there is a whole new alien landscape out there, and WordSpace wants to explore it with you.

The current crop of science fiction writers are complex, funny, visionary, and scary-smart on topics most people will know little or nothing about before they change our world forever. 

OffWorld: The Official Dallas Science Fiction Book Club will introduce you to a new perspective of the present by examining visions of the future

 (Please proceed to Section C)

SECTION C

 Joining is easy and fun. Here is how OffWorld  works:

1)    Rather than reading a particular book, OffWorld will choose a writer to focus on for a three-month period.

2)    Club members may read one or several books by that author during the three months.

3)    The website Worlds Without End has generously offered to host discussion forums for OffWorld. The forums will feature ongoing discussions of individual books and general topics related to the author. Members can propose their own forum topics.

4)    During the three-month session, WordSpace will host two discussions on the author and his or her work at our Tyler Street storefront in Oak Cliff.

5)    During the three-month session, Half Price Books on Northwest Highway will also host a public meeting, this one with  a guest speaker from the scientific, medical, or tech community who will discuss a topic —anything from robotics to advances in molecular biology, as it relates to science fiction.

6)    Joining OffWorld is FREE. The sessions at Half Price Books will cost $10, but will be free to WordSpace members.

 Neal Stephenson  is our first OffWorld author. (Warning! Warning! Some of Mr. Stephenson’s books are 1000 pages long, but hey, you have three months to read one, and some are much shorter.)