Saturday May 5: Barrelhouse All Day Long

Usually only our in-home caregivers, entourages, hangers-on, and the paparrazi know what it's really like to spend an entire day in the warm embrace of our Barrelhousey goodness, but this Saturday we've got a unique opportunity to spend ALL DAY -- yes, all day long, just about, with Barrelhouse.

What an opportunity, right? You might be saying, I haven't heard of a similar deal since that late 80s MTV holiday contest in which Quiet Riot played a live concert at some poor bastard's mother's house on Christmas morning. Well, it'll be kind of like that, but with more talking about writing and less Aquanet and cocaine. Most likely.

Here's the scooop:

11:00 to 7ish, Conversations and Connections Writer's Conference, Bethesda, Maryland

Writers -- this is a damn good deal. For $35 you get an all day conference, featuring Fiona McCrae of Graywolf Press as the keynote, Amy Holman telling you how to place your fiction and where, and participation from about 25 literary magazines. You wont find this much lit mag brainpower in any place outside of the annual AWP meeting, and thats not until January. Plus, you get a subscription to a literary magazine of your choice. We just loaded the whole schedule onto the conference site. If you're skeptical, take a look at the participants -- they're the real deal. Click here for more information or to register today.

8:00 to 10:00, The Big Hunt, Washington DC

Help us celebrate our latest issue, and blow off steam from a long day of conferencing. Well have readings from our new issue -- Paul Maliszewski will be reading fiction, Valzhyna Mort poetry -- as well as booze, barrelhouse, and...and...wait for it...music from none other than Edie Sedgwick.

Who is Edie? Edie is Justin Moyer, formerly of influential bands El Guapo and Supersystem who, well, well let him or her do the honors: "Edie Sedgwick is the transgendered reincarnation of a vacuous Warhol Superstar who died of a barbiturate overdose in 1971. Edie was reborn at the dawn of the New Millenium to save the world by singing about celebrities."

Readings will start around 8:30. It'll run you a big five bucks at the door, and all proceeds go toward printing costs. You dont want to miss this. Everybody is invited! The Big Hunt is located at 1345 Conn Ave in downtown DC, south of Dupont Circle (on metro, take the Red line to Dupont Circle south exit).

See you Saturday! Bring the Aquanet, we'll bring the power chords and the, um, well, we'll bring the books.