BANG OUT

Excerpt from “The Margarets” by Maria DeLorenzo

“I Would Not Date Me” by Geraldine Kim

“File This Under Supernova” by July Westhale

“File This Under Solidity” by July Westhale

“Committed” by Ezra Fox

“For The Love of Christ” by Kat Yoas

The tenth installment of BANG OUT Reading Series was on Saturday, February 12th with the theme “Tough Love.”  Lovelorn guests flocked to Amnesia in San Francisco’s Mission District to hear fresh new work from local writers based on our theme, Tough Love.

Monica Regan is a San Francisco writer and visual artist, currently completing an MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. Her work has appeared in New American Writing, VOLT, sidebrow, Parthenon West Review, 26, The Big Ugly Review, and Digital Artifact, among others. Her photographs have exhibited in shows at the Lincart Gallery, Seed Corn Gallery, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Monica was an artist-in-residence at the San Francisco dump, where she collected the materials that inspired her Tough Love submission.

Maria DeLorenzo is a MFA candidate for four years and holding at San Francisco State University, where she is teaching her first class of Fiction this spring. She is working on a novel which seamlessly combines nostalgia for the 80’s and Judy Blume with science fiction, called “The Margarets.” We shall see if this novel ever “come’s of age.” Ms. DeLorenzo has long been haunting the internet as a copywriter, editor, occasional journalist, and now a marketing 9to5er in a tall office downtown. She also leads a sordid double life, traveling occasionally with a female dominated clan of amazon circus freaks. She just turned thirty and is convinced this will be the best year yet. Amen.

Geraldine Kim is the author of Povel (Fence Books, 2005) which was featured in the Believer and Village Voice’s top 25 books of the year. She also wrote the play Donning Cheadle and has been published in Kitchen Sink, Big Bell, 2nd Avenue, 14 Hills, and others. She is part of the band, two boobies and a vagina, where she is not the vagina.

Stephen Elliott is the author of seven books including The Adderall Diaries which has been described as “genius” by both the San Francisco Chronicle and Vanity Fair. The Adderall Diaries was the best book of the year in Time Out New York, a best of 2009 in Kirkus Reviews, and one of 50 notable books in the San Francisco Chronicle.  His novel, Happy Baby, was a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lion Award as well as a best book of the year in Salon.com, Newsday, Chicago New City, the Journal News, and the Village Voice.  Elliott’s writing has been featured in Esquire, The New York Times, The Believer, GQ, Best American Non-Required Reading 2005 and 2007, Best American Erotica, and Best Sex Writing 2006. He is the editor of The Rumpus.

July Westhale is a poet, activist, archivist and femme shark with a weakness for botany and hot air balloons. In 2006, she was a recipient of the Out! Redwood Lesbian Rainbow Literary Award for Prose. This Spring, she will be presenting her article “Staging Archive: Queering Bodies, Borders and Subjectivities in Performance” at Mills College 2011 Literary Conference. Her poetry has been published in Spork Literary Press, Bitch You Left Me, Samizdat, Grad(e), Full of Crow, Blood Lotus Review and The Acentos Review. Her fiction has published in Full of Crow. A graduate of Mills College, she lives and writes in an attic in Alameda with her electric blue bicycle and her feline zoo.

Ezra Fox is an MFA Fiction student now in his final semester at SFSU. He’s working on a humble set of stories about the end of all time.  Originally from the Bay Area, Ezra has lived in Costa Rica, Malaysia, and Denmark, and currently resides in the hippie cow town of Davis. In descending order of competency he butchers the following languages: English, Spanish, French, Malay, Danish, and German.  He enjoys sandwiches and long walks on the beach that result in eating sandwiches.  Ezra’s work has been published in journals as obscure and varied as New Jersey Devil Press, Blue Moon, ezrafox.com, and Precipitate. He is also the founder of the resume-bolstering blog “Legitimate Literary Journal.”  In his free time he reviews the worst books, movies, and TV shows for http://read-weep.com. He has reviewed Twilight and Jersey Shore, and they have both ripped away a part of his soul that he’ll never get back.

Kat Yoas is a writer and performer living in the fair city of San
Francisco, though part of her heart belongs in the Midwest forever.
Her work has appeared in various anthologies, zines and her own home
made story books.  She’s performed her stories across the United
States, Europe and the UK with the legendary Sister Spit tour.  Kat is
currently at work on a collection of stories as well as her one woman
show.