MIXER Reading & Music Series

Mixer Reading and Music Series

Wednesday, January 20, 2016, 7:00 p.m., FREE

with readings by

Alexandra Kleeman

Brett Fletcher Lauer

Rae Meadows

Camille Rankine

Music by SAVVAS

with your hosts, Michelle Campagna, Melissa Febos, and Rebecca Keith

at Cake Shop

152 Ludlow St., bet. Stanton and Rivington

F, V to 2nd Ave., F, J, M to Delancey/Essex

https://www.facebook.com/Mixerreadings


Alexandra Kleeman was raised in Boulder, Colorado, and currently lives at the North Shore of Staten Island. Her work has been published in The Paris Review, Zoetrope: All-Story, Conjunctions, n+1, and The Guardian. She is the author of the novel You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine and Intimations, a story collection (Harper 2016).


Brett Fletcher Lauer is the deputy director of the Poetry Society of America and the poetry editor of A Public Space. He is the author of memoir Fake Missed Connections: Divorce, Online Dating, and Other Failures, and the poetry collection, A Hotel In Belgium. In addition to co-editing several anthologies, including Please Excuse this Poem: 100 News Poets for the Next Generation and Isn’t It Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger American Poets, he is the poetry co-chair for the Brooklyn Book Festival.


Rae Meadows is the author of Calling Out, which received the 2006 Utah Book Award for fiction, No One Tells Everything, Poets & Writers Notable Novel, and most recently, Mercy Train, which has been published internationally. Her fourth novel, I Will Send Rain, is forthcoming July 2016. She lives with her family in Brooklyn.


Camille Rankine’s first book of poetry, Incorrect Merciful Impulses, was published this month by Copper Canyon Press. She is the author of the chapbook Slow Dance with Trip Wire, selected by Cornelius Eady for the Poetry Society of America's 2010 New York Chapbook Fellowship, and a recipient of a 2010 "Discovery"/Boston Review Poetry Prize. Her poetry has appeared in Atlas Review, American Poet, The Baffler, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Gulf Coast, Octopus Magazine, Paper Darts, Phantom Books, A Public Space, Tin House, and elsewhere. She is Assistant Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Manhattanville College and lives in Harlem.


SAVVAS is an eight-piece, vocal-centric outfit of soul-scuffing, hook-rocking misfits. The songs are the brainchild of front woman Angela Savvas, who combines R&B-inspired writing with heady compositional conceptualism. Her husband, David Schneider, a pop/rock vet and former lead guitarist of The Press, dressed up the tunes in a Wrecking Crew style rhythm section and dissonant 90’s guitar squalls. Cuddled in the womb of marital alchemy and the low light of a studio, 10 richly layered tracks create their debut album (and first born) OCEANS. With six indie-squawking suckers at their side, SAVVAS recreates the album as a full-bosomed band. You can find them on soundcloud.

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About MIXER:

http://www.facebook.com/Mixerreadings
http://www.melissafebos.com/mixer

Follow us on Twitter: @MIXERseries

For 7 years, Mixer reading and music series has brought established and emerging writers and bands to Cake Shop on the Lower East Side, on the third(ish) Wednesday of every month. Co-founded and curated by Melissa Febos and Rebecca Keith, Mixer is a frequent New York magazine critic’s pick, was named "Coolest Multi-Genre Series" by Electric Literature, and has been recommended by The New York Times, the L Magazine, Galleycat, and Maud Newton, among others.

Past readers include: Mary Jo Bang, Paul Muldoon, Jonathan Lethem, Colson Whitehead, Mark Doty, Tracy K. Smith, Jennifer Egan, Joshua Ferris, Nick Flynn, Eileen Myles, Elissa Schappell, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Monica Youn, Matthea Harvey, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Dan Chaon, Paul Lisicky, Rob Sheffield, Chuck Klosterman, Terese Svoboda, Joshua Henkin, Irini Spanidou, Rachel Sherman, Olena Kalytiak Davis, Vijay Seshadri, Keith Gessen, John Burnham Schwartz, Susan Wheeler, Brenda Shaughnessy, Mark Bibbins, Martha Collins, Jeff McDaniel, Cathy Park Hong, Amanda Stern, Aaron Fagan, Ross Gay, Amy Holman, Nathaniel Rich, Cate Marvin, Pat Rosal, Nelly Reifler, Craig Teicher, Meehan Crist, Ali Liebegott, Deb Olin Unferth, Arthur Bradford, Sloane Crosley, Sean Wilsey, Joan Silber, David Hollander, Joel Brouwer, Elizabeth Haukaas, Robert Lopez, Jonathan Dixon, Maggie Estep, Martha Collins, Michael Dahlie, Katie Peterson, Victoria Redel, Allison Amend, Nathaniel Bellows, Janice Erlbaum, Matthew Zapruder, Bret Anthony Johnston, Nicholas Dawidoff, Fiona Maazel, Hannah Tinti, Pamela Ryder, Matthue Roth, Cintra Wilson, Sara Marcus, David Goodwillie, and Tiphanie Yanique.

Musicians include: Joan as Policewoman, Richard Baluyut (of Versus), The Lisps, The Chapin Sisters, Uninhabitable Mansions, The Scamps, La Marcha, Amie Amis, Elizabeth Harper & the Matinee, Chris Moore, Lariats, Cat Martino, Schwervon!, Rebecca Pronsky, Nan & the One Nite Stands, Five Point Perspective, The Solid Set, Disbelief St., Bjorn Quenemoen, Mindtroll, and Spectacular Bird.

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What they say about Mixer:

the New York Times' David Orr says:

"New York's tradition of small-scale bar-based readings is ably carried on by series like Mixer on the Lower East Side."

Electric Literature's Julia Jackson says:

"When I go to the best kind of reading, I leave with this feeling like my brain is a sponge, newly pulsating with added Culture and Thought and Odd Beauty–and this happened to me at Mixer."

Flavorpill's Elena Schilder says:

"Hosted by Sarah Lawrence MFAs Rebecca Keith and Melissa Febos, music venue/record store/bakery Cake Shop's monthly reading series provides a quick pace—each edition features a little poetry, a little fiction, and a rock band or two—and a highly watchable crowd."

The L Magazine/The Hairpin's Edith Zimmerman says:

"May 7, 2008: This month's MIXER reading series, combining good music and good literature, isn't messing around--they've got a Pulitzer winner, a MacArthur winner, a mostly unknown poet, and a band with that Pulitzer winner on guitar and percussion. Nice work, MIXER."

Galleycat's Jason Boog says:

"An enthusiastic crowd of poetry fans packed the Cake Shop bar last night, bringing back a bit of Lower East Side's bohemian spirit that the recently departed stock market boom had almost smothered--the basement poets versus the encroaching condominiums, if you will."

Lauren Cerand at Maud Newton.com says:

"New reading series alert, and it sounds brilliant. Presented by Melissa Febos (writer of fiction and nonfiction) …[and]… Rebecca Keith (a poet)...It is going to be a monthly gig, featuring a bunch of writers and a musical act. Highly recommended."

Writer Courtney Eldridge says:

"Mixer is a monthly series that showcases some of the best writers and musicians out there, whether famous or not (yet). In addition to their consistently great lineups, Mixer draws consistently great crowds. I mean, that there’s a crowd to speak of is worth seeing to believe, but that people actually pay attention and give back to the readers, well, it warms the heart. If not, buy yourself a couple drinks at the bar, and it’ll be fine."