Heat Lightning is ~alluring~
SCENE REPORT STARTER PACK 006
SCENE REPORT STARTER PACKS is a series from Scremes Report, spotlighting the readings and magazines keeping the flame of literary culture lit in New York, London, and LA.
Every few weeks, I invite the host(s) of a reading series or the editor(s) of an independent literary magazine to a collaborative iPhone note wherein they respond to a few choice inquiries, which I then turn into a starter pack. Electric!
Heat Lightning is a distant flash spotted on the horizon on a late summer night, the smell of damp mown lawns and pavement on the air, the distant tingle of electricity, if you’re willing to feel it, on your skin and in your hair.
It’s also one of NYC’s young and thriving reading series! And lucky for us, Michy and Zoë dropped by SCREMES HQ to undergo the SRSP1 treatment.
Heat Lightning is an NYC-based performance series that sets up collaborations between poets and artists for readings shaped by the space they take place in: from galleries to record shops to listening rooms. As poets and the co-curators of this series, we’re obsessed with creating unique interdisciplinary experiences in the city we love.
Heat Lightning, hosted by Zoë Bodzas and Michy Woodward, was launched in January 2025 and has hosted 5 readings, featuring 24 readers. Never in one place, you may find Heat Lightning at a wide array of venues around NYC, including their next one on May 30 at a gallery in Soho.
What’s that distant flash?
SOUND | Set the tone. Every good series needs a soundtrack. What’s yours?
Probably a blend of our music taste, which changes seasonally but generally overlaps somewhere in the realm of Big Thief, LCD Soundsystem, Blood Orange, and Japanese Breakfast.
TOUCH | Ok, let’s get textural with it. If your reading series were a material, what would it be?
Michy: Vintage dark wash denim
Zoë: Soft, comfortable, broken-in leather
SIGHT | Readings have become a runway! What’s your favorite thing you’ve worn to host? In your wildest fantasy, what would you wear?
M: I loved wearing a vintage Dior tie at our fifth reading! I would love to kick it in something hyper feminine with knee-high boots.
Z: In real life, my favorite was this lil red crochet polo. My dream is always the perfect, big, kind of insane black dress.
SCENT | Well, you look great. How do you smell? If your reading series were a fragrance, what would it be?
M: My everyday scent is Aesop’s Marrakech, which is woody, spicy and floral. Heat Lightning has no gender boundaries and is alluring.
Z: Golden hour, citrus and gin, jasmine, probably something a little fresh and synesthetic and hard to pin down.
TASTE | Doesn’t keeping the literary flame alight make you thirsty? What are you ordering from the bar as soon as the reading is over?
M: Amaretto sour followed by a Diet Coke with lemon
Z: Narraganset tallboy
I need a little more… can you bring in the thunder?
As literary people, obviously, we all love language. What’s a word or phrase, in English or another language, that nails the vibe of the series?
Forever: EXPANSIVE.
What’s your deserted island book?
M: The Safekeep (2024, Yael van der Wouden)2
Z: Lunch Poems (2014, Frank O’Hara)
Contemporary literary culture hot take?
M: Why are we having readings in FiDi???3
Z: Americans need to embrace novellas.
Digital flyering is the backbone of reading series promos. What was on the mood board when you came up with your flyers’ art style?
We’ve been inspired by all kinds of vibes this past year, from cyanotype to ‘90s zines to collage to album art outtakes to medieval art.
Thank you, Michy and Zoë! Remember, next Heat Lightning is next Saturday, May 30!
P.S. I really like this GIF of heat lightning that the National Weather Service has on their website.
SCENE REPORT STARTER PACK, for the uninitiated.
REALLY good question…