Today I am launching a new project called Scremes Report. Consider it your guide to the Anglophone world’s literary culture. I am as interested in great writers and great writing as I am in the scenes that form them. The cultural context, the taste communities, the collaborations and the rivalries — these I find as compelling as (if not sometimes more than) the work itself.
As longtime subscribers will know, the interest in identifying and investigating the webs that form culture is nothing new for me. With Scremes Report, I am setting out to hone in on that in the literary world specifically, while also providing a resource for new releases, upcoming literary events, independently published fiction, essays, and poetry, and recaps of the readings, parties, and happenings we all love.
I started Scremes Report out of a realization that city-dwellers with culturally attuned minds are hungry for literary events and that there was no comprehensive place where these happenings were recorded. This was solidified for me a few weeks ago when I attended the Heavy Traffic launch party, which was way over capacity, with the crowd spilling out onto Orchard Street. Standing on the threshold of the space, I felt more distinctly than ever the two reasons people go to readings — yes, we’re there to hear some (hopefully) great writing, maybe see a writer we particularly like, but we’re also there for the scene. Rather than leave, those who didn’t make it into the venue that night hung around on the street, smoking cigarettes and chatting, feeling more like partygoers than audience members. And this is what I love about lit events, what I have specifically encouraged in my own reading series—we need not sit around in a basement cafe snapping; we can actually have a blast.
Reading—that most solitary of acts—has become communal. We are lucky to be experiencing an explosion of literary culture with a fun bent to it. The majority of my contemporaries in New York were made through this literary scene in one way or another and I’m excited to share it with you every other week.
Everything is more fun with a rocking crowd, so if you have a friend who you think would like Scremes Report, please pass it along. Below the fold, you’ll find the fortnight’s news; the event guide; and a palate cleanser.
The Ticker
Airmail opened a store in the West Village last month, serving a rotating selection of Graydon Carter-curated books, magazines, and objets d’art. I checked it out last week and co-sign a lot of the picks. 🌞 Semiotext(e) has just published an extended version of Anne Rower’s If You’re A Girl, one of the first books published under the Native Agents series that the press launched in 1990 to print more American women and queer writers. I went to the book launch last month, which was one of the most unconventional readings I’ve experienced. 🌞 The release of Honor Levy’s first book, titled My First Book, has the publishing world and adjacent circles ablaze with conflicting feelings. You can form your own opinion at the New York or LA launch parties happening next week (see below). 🌞 Phillipa Snow has just published a book, Trophy Lives, that examines celebrities as art objects. Sam McKinnis take notes!
Fortnight Ahead: May 5–May 18
TONIGHT: Metropolis Literary Salon with Richard Cabut and Cynthia Ross. 6 pm at TV EYE: 1647 Weirfield St, Ridgewood. Free.
Wednesday, May 8: Eileen Myles and Emily Johnson in Conversation. 8 pm at The Poetry Project: St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery. $8.
Sunday, May 12: Dirt Child Presents: TRUST (Feat. Aristilde Kirby, Willow Hour, Ayaz Muratoglu, Tyhe Cooper, Naomi Burjorjee van Pelt, and Sophia Dahlin). 4 pm at Bar Freda: 801 Seneca Ave, Ridgewood. $3–5.
Tuesday, May 14: Launch of My First Book by Honor Levy. 6:30 pm at McNally Jackson Seaport. Free.
Friday, May 17: Launch of My First Book by Honor Levy. 7 pm at Stories Books and Cafe, Los Feliz. Free.
Palate Cleanser
With each send, I’ll suggest a great place to read and something to read there.
Where
The Granddaddy, on Grand and Eldridge in the LES has some of the best light of any cafe in NYC. It gets busy, but come here for some early afternoon sun and you’ll manage to tuck yourself into a corner and get some proper reading done. I witnessed it in action Friday!
What
A Year on Earth with Mr. Hell (Young Kim, 2020). I’ve been hearing lowkey buzzings about this book for a few months now, first through Rachel Tashjian’s Opulent Tips in February, also discussed on the Bret Easton Ellis podcast and recently written up in The New York Times, Daily Mail, and New York Magazine, even though it came out back in 2020. Kim, who was married to the British punk rocker and fashion designer (and Vivienne Westwood collaborator-turned-rival) Malcolm McClaren, has written a memoir about her affair with the American rocker Richard Hell. I’ve yet to pick up a copy myself, but from what I hear, it’s intensely sexy, full of excellent writing about clothes, and certainly fits the bill of scenester literature. Let me know if you read it!