Conjunctions Presents

A Conjunctions Reading by Andrew Durbin, Paul La Farge, and Edie Meidav

NEW YORK, NY—At 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 12th, at KGB Bar in Manhattan (85 East 4th Street off 2nd Avenue), the provocative, innovative literary journal Conjunctions will hold a reading celebrating Behind the Book, a nonprofit organization that supports literacy and reading culture in underprivileged New York City public schools. Conjunctions contributors Paul La Farge, Edie Meidav, and Andrew Durbin will read from their work in the journal, and copies of their books will be auctioned to the audience, with all proceeds going directly to benefit Behind the Book's mission.

The reading is free and open to all; no tickets or reservations are required.

Published by Bard College, Conjunctions appears in a biannual print and e-book edition of fiction, poetry, and narrative nonfiction, and as a weekly online magazine of web-exclusive content. In its pages, contemporary masters meet radical new voices through the investigation of themes such as exile, erasure, obsession, doppelgängers, impossible realism, cinema, or dark comedy. It's a compilation of works that are at once feverishly imagined and immaculately executed, a space for reading dangerously.

Rick Moody declares, "Without a doubt, Conjunctions is the best literary magazine in America." And Joyce Carol Oates concurs: "If you like good reading that's also provocative and original, naturally you would be reading Conjunctions."

Copies of the brand-new Fall 2015 issue on the theme of deception, Conjunctions:65, Sleights of Hand, will be available for sale.

Behind the Book works with low-income students in first to twelfth grades, bringing authors into the classrooms and helping educators create curriculum-based programs that make for direct and sustained interaction between the children and the writer. In workshop fashion, students do original writing or create illustrated books, and all receive free copies of the authors’ books to keep as their own.  The organization has been raising awareness about children's literacy via its KGB reading series since 2006.

KGB is one of Manhattan’s defining spaces for both literature and liquor—New York Magazine says "KGB's reading series is legendary," while Publishers Weekly calls it "a beloved fixture of the New York literary scene." KGB hosts a wide variety of prominent authors, including, in Fall 2015, Eileen Myles, Elaine Equi, Alexandra Kleeman, M. T. Anderson, Fanny Howe, Christopher DeWeese, and many others.

ANDREW DURBIN is the author of several chapbooks and the full-length poetry collection Mature Themes (Nightboat), about which Hilton Als wrote: "This collection not only marks Durbin's brilliant present, it pulsates with realities and possibilities that indicate a radiant future." Kenning Editions will bring out his chapbook MacArthur Park this year, and Blonde Summer will be published in 2017. His poetry is included in this year's Greater New York exhibition at MoMA Ps1 and Performa.  Durbin is also a former senior editor with Conjunctions, coeditor of the indie press Wonder and editor of the anthology Future Perfect (BGSQD).  An excerpt from his Reveler appears in Conjunctions' online magazine.

PAUL LA FARGE’s novels include The Artist of the Missing (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Haussmann, or the Distinction (Picador), and The Facts of Winter (McSweeney’s). His most recent book, Luminous Airplanes, was published by Picador in 2012 but continues in hypertextual form at luminousairplanes.com. Karen Russell is one of many readers to find his writing "brilliant, poignant, startling, hilarious." A recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize, La Farge's work has appeared in Conjunctions issues 34, 45, 53, and 55, as well as in the weekly online magazine.

"EDIE MEIDAV makes sentences perform like a snake-charmer's snakes," says Luc Sante, while Joanna Scott calls her "a fearless writer with a cosmic imagination." Meidav is the author of the novels The Far Field: A Novel of Ceylon (Houghton Mifflin/Mariner), Crawl Space (FSG/Picador), and Lola, California (FSG/Picador). Her Kingdom of the Young, a collection of short fiction with a nonfiction coda, comes out from Sarabande Books in 2017. A Bard Fiction Prize recipient and Conjunctions senior editor, her work has appeared in issues 41, 47, 50, 52, 59, 62, and 63, as well as in November's Sleights of Hand issue.

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For more information, call 845-758-7054, or e-mail [email protected].

Time: 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EST/GMT-5

Location: KGB Bar, Manhattan

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