Oct. 10: Vanessa Place and Steven Zultanski




Vanessa Place is a writer and lawyer, and co-director of Les Figues Press. She is the author of Dies: A Sentence, a 50,000-word, one-sentence novella, the post-conceptual novel La Medusa (Fiction Collective 2), a chapbook, Figure from The Gates of Paradise (Woodland Editions/Five Fingers Review) and the forthcoming Conceptualisms: An Ill-Conceived Guide to Kinda Conceptual, Post-Conceptual, Extant and Taxonomical Writings, etc., written with Robert Fitterman (Ugly Duckling Presse). Her nonfiction book, The Guilt Project: Rape and Morality, will be published in Fall 2009 by Other Press. Her collaboration with artist/performer Lamya Regragui will debut at Cent Quatre in Paris/Los Angeles in 2009, and she is collaborating with conceptual artist Stephanie Taylor on Olady, a visual/sound project. She lives in Los Angeles.

"Babygirl, you're going to pop," her daddy said once, catching her.
But that was a long time ago and not true. Two ways not true, that is, she wasn't going to pop and her daddy never said that to her, though it was the sort of thing she thought he would say if he could, like if he thought of to say it. But people are mostly not like how they could, for example, she rolls over, for example, the last time when Daddy came back from overseas, she was so excited.

From La Medusa



Steven Zultanski
is the author of the chapbooks Homoem (Radical Readout, 2005), This and That Lenin (BookThug, 2008) and Steve's Poem (Lettermachine, forthcoming). He edits President's Choice magazine, a Lil' Norton publication. His poetry has appeared in Antennae, FO(A)RM, The Physical Poets, Shiny, and elsewhere.

Steve will be performing with a musician.

Why don’t you have a boyfriend?
It’s no secret to you that I have an irrational little crush on Chicken John.
Keith fixes his belt, stuffs a tissue in his pants’ front pockets. The tassels on his fly swing. He paces around the living room with Marcus on the phone.
“I’m no pumpkin-eater.” He whistles. “I don’t wait for moods.”
He leaves el casa del Marcus.
Paco is rubbing puddle water. Keith breaks into a passing song about heartbreak and
joy and mold.
From "Paula and Keith"