
When I started DCW, the reading series I host at the KGB Bar back in 2004, it was in part because I missed the emerging and professional writers at The Writer's Voice, the literary arts center at the West Side YMCA where I worked for most of the last decade of the last century.
I met people there who transformed my work, and
who are still friends. I probably talk to, think about, or read the
work of at least one person I met at The Writer's Voice almost every
day. And what February's four readers have in common is that I met them
all there, and they're all really good writers.
Kaylie Jones and
Charles Salzberg are both outstanding, committed teachers as well as
being excellent writers, and both are responsible for launching many
more talented folks into their careers (some of whom will also be
reading this year!) I've been in workshops with Renette Zimmerly and
Bob Knightly, and both of them have original and fascinating
worldviews, beautifully expressed.
I still run into people all
over who look at me like they know me, then say: Writer's Voice? You
steered me toward [name of teacher] and it changed my life. Me too! Here are the deets:
Thursday, Feb. 18
KGB Bar
85 E. 4th St. NYC
7pm, FREE
Kaylie Jones is the author of five novels: A Soldier's Daughter Never
Cries, Speak Now, Celeste Ascending, As Soon As It Rains, and Quite the
Other Way.Her latest book, a memoir, Lies My Mother Never Told Me, was published in August, 2009. Kaylie chairs the
James Jones First Novel Fellowship, which awards $10,000 annually to an
unpublished first novel. A Soldier's
Daughter Never Cries, based on Kaylie's experiences growing up as the
daughter of celebrated novelist James Jones (From Here To Eternity, The
Thin Red Line, Whistle), was made into a Merchant-Ivory film starring Kris
Kristofferson, Leelee Sobieski, Jesse Bradford, Barbara Hershey, and Isaac de
Bankole. Kaylie is a graduate of Wesleyan University. She teaches in the MFA Writing and Literature program at
Stony Brook Southampton and at the Wilkes University MFA program in
professional writing.Born and raised in Paris, Kaylie lives in New York with
her husband, daughter, and two mixed-breed mutts, Layla and Natalie.



Drunken! Careening! Writers! is a reading series based on the proposition that readings should be by 1) good writers; 2) who read their work well; and 3) something in it makes people laugh (nervous laughter counts). And 15 minutes tops.
See you at KGB!