Hothouse In The House

On Sunday afternoon we were delighted to host a lively reading from the charming folks at Hothouse Literary Journal (including Malvern staff member Schandra, pictured below with a hot-off-the-press Hothouse and our ever watchful pirate).

Hothouse Sign

Hothouse CrowdHothouse is the official literary journal of UT Austin’s English department. It’s lovingly assembled by a team of English majors, who manage every step of the production, from layout to choosing submissions. And they’ve done an exceptional job—the journal is beautifully designed and chock-full of fantastic poetry and prose by talented students (including Clarissa Riojas, pictured above, reading to a full house). We were thrilled to see them launch their Spring 2014 issue on our fair stage, and we thoroughly enjoyed hearing their work.

Robinson & Reitberger

With National Poetry Month behind us, we decided it was time to add a lil’ prose to our busy reading schedule

Adeena

On Saturday we welcomed Austin writer (and coeditor of the excellent American Short FictionAdeena Reitberger to the Malvern stage. Adeena read from a story in progress called “Dreamers” (which, as she noted, is a name with some historical significance to Malvern Books).

Adeena was joined by Gregory Robinson, who read from All Movies Love the Moona collection of prose poems that explores how silent movies made use of words. (All Movies is published by Rose Metal Press, a fantastic indie publisher that specializes in hybrid genres and more experimental work… ask us about them next time you’re in the store!)

Gregory

For more prose and poetry, be sure to join us next Wednesday, when Tyler Gobble returns to host another round of Everything is BiggerThis month’s indomitable readers are Tim Earley, Jess Stoner, and Will Clark. 

The Picks of Poets

Last Tuesday we said a fond farewell to Poetry Month with Malvern’s first-ever Poets Picking Poets extravaganza. The event was organized by our very own Tyler Gobble (host of Everything is Bigger, which returns on May 14th), who assembled a sterling bunch of poets and then asked them to make a few difficult decisions…

Poets Picking Poets

Here’s how it worked: Tyler staged two poetry flights, with each flight consisting of four readers (much like a whiskey flight, a poetry flight offers an invigorating sampling of the good stuff—but with zero unpleasant next-day consequences). The two flights were led by Malvern employee Katherine Noble and W. Joe’s Poetry Corner host W. Joe Hoppe. They each read four poems: two of their own, a favorite poem by someone else, and then a poem by the poet they picked to follow them… and then the poet they picked to follow them would take over and read four poems… you get the drift? If not, the videos below will do a fine job of conveying the joyful and generous logic of Poets Picking Poets (and, as always, we also have a few photos up on our Facebook page). Sincere thank-yous to all the poets who took part—your picks were impeccable, and your generous sharing of such superb work was a fitting conclusion to an awesome month of poetry.

Celebrating Poetry (And Donkeys)

Two very exciting things happened in Austin on Saturday: Eeyore celebrated his birthday, and poets Samira Noorali and Nicolas Hundley gave a reading at Malvern Books! Alas, we don’t have any footage of everyone’s favorite anhedonic ass blowing out his (51!) birthday candles, but we do have a few clips of Samira and Nicolas treating our audience to a wonderful night of poetry. And if watching these videos makes you feel like a bit of a nitwit for missing out, fear not: this Saturday we’re playing host to writers Gregory Robinson and Adeena Reitberger, so you’ll have another chance to fill your weekend with readerly fun.