THE BOOK RELEASE WILL FEATURE SHORT APPEARANCES, READINGS, AND PERFORMENCES BY:
Edgar Oliver
Patricia Spears Jones
Joseph Keckler
Steve Dalachinsky
Yva Las Vegas
Steve Cannon
and
Chavisa Woods
End of ceremonies ritual and book blessing led by Thain Damon Stang
After Party/Cutting of the Cake- Same Location, 8pm-11pm
About Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country:
Capturing the lyricism of lives without a future in southern Illinois, southern Indiana, and New York City, Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country introduces us to Chavisa Woods’s people. They are smart and poor, lost and hoping not to be found, with high hopes but few expectations—inhabitants, mostly young, of a hidden country without a name that exists within America.
The eight stories in Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country bring the underbelly of America into vivid focus. The strange and unique characters in this collection include a “zombie” who secretly resides in a local cemetery; a queer teen goth who is facing ostracism from her small-town, evangelical church; a Brooklyn artist who learns more about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict than he ever wanted to; and the UFOs that trouble a group of friends in the rural Midwest. And then there is the woman who leaves New York City once a year to go home to see her “little little” and “big little” brothers and bear witness to the injuries from stripping copper wire from abandoned houses, the smell of the meth lab in the woods nearby, the sounds of the police scanner radio, and the early deaths that happen for a whole host of reasons.