Stories & Beer | Sunday March 14th | 4 p.m. | Iron Post | Free
Driven by our compulsion to repeat, Smile Politely and HOBART: another literary magazine has tossed together another Stories & Beer event for you drinking/listening pleasure. If you missed the last one, check out Aaron Burch’s recap, wherein you can listen to the audio for each of our readers — and while you should definitely take the time to listen to all of them, make sure you check out Josh Bishoff’s reading of “Librarians of the Midwest” for the generally raucous response it evoked.
As for this month, we have taken to heart the various calls for “more estrogen.” Now, if I were in an apologetic mood, I’d say that the reason we didn’t have any readers who were of the feminine persuasion last time was because we were in a rush to get readers and we weren’t really concerned with inspecting anyone’s reproductive organs (apologies to Judy Butler) — we just wanted to make sure our readers (a) could read, and (b) were willing to read something that wasn’t about their uncle’s funeral. But since I’m not in an apologetic mood, I’ll say screw that, it was a great reading, and if you missed it, you missed out.
Now on to this Sunday, when the following readers will try to live up to the lofty standard set last month.
Featured Writer: Bryan Furuness
Bryan will be driving in from Indianapolis, where he lives with his wife and two smartypants boys. He likes to write stories and teach composition and watch the Chicago Bears; in other words, he doesn’t require a lot of reward in this lifetime. Today he spent all day helping a buddy with yard work, yanking out strange vines that may leave him covered with a hideous rash by Sunday. Come to the reading to find out (see what I did there? That’s called suspense, son).
Emily Cody
Emily is from Chicago, where she used to spend her time writing snarky things about the Chicago Transit Authority. Now she teaches middle school in Champaign, and writes snarky things about children.
Sara Gelston
Sara Gelston comes from Maine. She has an affinity for rural life and soul music and an aversion to most games. When asked for directions, she always points east.
Quoth Sarah: “An old boyfriend of mine took a business trip to Indiana and sent back a postcard. He circled the place he was staying on the front and on the back wrote “Can you believe people live here?” We were from Maine; we couldn’t imagine it. We laughed and laughed. Then I moved here.”
Brian Kornell
Brian Kornell grew up in Mentor, OH, 20 minutes east of Cleveland. Not exactly on the wrong side of the tracks, but very close. In first grade, he won the JC Award from St. Mary’s Elementary School for being the student who most exemplified the teachings of Jesus. He took this as a free pass to never go to church again. His work has appeared in Storyglossia, Ninth Letter, and on his grandparents’ refrigerator.
Sidney Sheehan
Sidney Sheehan was born not too many years ago somewhere in the Midwest. She loves elephants and cornbread. She doesn’t like littering or when people inquire about where her life is going. Someday she will buy a motorcycle with a sidecar. She’ll fill it with her stuffed animals and ride off into the sunset.
So come on out and listen to some stories while you drink some beer. It’ll make you feel better.
Note: Even though nobody complained about the lack of gingers, we made sure that our readers adequately represented C-U’s population of redheaded people.