Third Man Books will be attending the AWP Conference in Washington D.C. from February 8-11. For those not familiar with AWP, imagine SXSW for writers and publishers. Over fifteen thousand book lovers will be in D.C. for the weekend attending seminars and off-site events. If you love language and book-people, this is where you want to be. TMB will both have a table at the conference and will be THROWING A PARTY at our DISCO_VERY off-site event in collaboration with our friends at the BIRDS LLC and BLACK OCEAN presses. Along with the roster of award winning readers, there will be live music from D.C.'s own ESCAPE-ISM ( Ian F Svenonius of Chain and the Gang, The Make-Up, Nation of Ulysses ) and SISTR MID9IGHT. And of course, a dance party afterward featuring Third Man's own Ben Swank on the turntables with Kid Congo Powers ( The Pink Monkey Birds and The Cramps) and Svenonius. 

DISCO_VERY: A Night of New Poetry, Prose, and Revelry

Friday, Feb 10 | 6pm - 2:30am
The Dew Drop Inn
2801 8th Street NE, Washington, D.C. 20017
HAPPY HOUR PRICES OF FOOD AND DRINK
Admission is FREE for DISCVRY

READERS:
⟴ Ana Božičević, Kendra DeColo, Elisa Gabbert, Dan Hoy, erica lewis, Kid Congo Powers, Ciona Rouse, Kiini Ibura Salaam, Abraham Smith, Sampson Starkweather, Janaka Stucky

MORE ABOUT THE PERFORMERS:

Ana Božičević is both a poet's poet and the people's poet. Rise in the Fall, her second full-length collection, is a revolutionary book and an ars poetica for the polis in which she excludes nothing - even nothing. Navigating literary history, gender, sexuality, economics, family, friends and lovers, she is at ease deploying and subverting the universal political statement and the lyric "I”. Her newest book, Joy of Missing Out, is available from BIRDS, LLC. 

Kendra DeColo is the author of My Dinner with Ron Jeremy (Third Man Books, 2016) and Thieves in the Afterlife (Saturnalia Books, 2014), selected by Yusef Komunyakaa for the 2013 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize and named “Favorite Nashville Poetry Book of 2014” by the Nashville Scene. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, Indiana Review, Copper Nickel, Verse Daily, Third Man Books' Language Lessons Vol. I, and elsewhere. She has received awards and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Millay Colony, and the Tennessee Arts Commission. She is book editor at Muzzle Magazine and guest teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee. 

ESCAPE-iSM is Ian F Svenonius ... the sassiest boy in America, now and forever.

Elisa Gabbert is the author of THE SELF UNSTABLE (Black Ocean, 2013), THE FRENCH EXIT (Birds, LLC, 2010) and the chapbooks Thanks for Sending the Engine (Kitchen Press, 2207) and, with Kathleen Rooney, That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness (Otoliths, 2008), a collaborative collection.

Dan Hoy is the author of The Deathbed Editions (Octopus Books, 2016) and several poetry chapbooks, including The Tree (Solar Luxuriance, 2016) and Glory Hole (Mal-O-Mar Editions, 2009). His work has appeared in The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Triple Canopy, Elderly and other magazines and anthologies. He lives in Nashville.

erica lewis lives in San Francisco where she is a fine arts publicist. Books include the precipice of jupiter, camera obscura (both collaborations with artist Mark Stephen Finein), murmur in the inventory, and daryl hall is my boyfriend, book one in the box set trilogy. mary wants to be a superwoman, book two, is forthcoming from Jack White’s Third Man Books in spring 2017. Chapbooks include publications from Belladonna, Lame House Press, and After Hours/The Song Cave. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Kid Congo Powers is the stage name of Brian Tristan an American rock guitarist and singer, best known as a member of The Gun Club, The Cramps and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and his current group, The Pink Monkey Birds. 

Ciona Rouse is a poet, living in Nashville with her dog, her cat and her Patrick. She curates many poetry readings in the city, including the monthly Writings on the Wall at Atmalogy and Lyrical Brew reading series at Barnes & Noble at Vanderbilt. Her poetry is featured or forthcoming on WPLN Nashville Public Radio, Nashville Public Television, and Gabby Journal. Her first chapbook is forthcoming from Third Man Books.

Kiini Ibura Salaam is a writer, painter, and traveler from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her work is rooted in eroticism, speculative events, and personal freedom. Her fiction and essays have been included in such publications as Dark Matter, Mojo: Conjure Stories, and Colonize This!, as well as Essence, Utne Reader, and Ms. magazines. Her first short story collection, Ancient, Ancient was co-winner of the 2012 James Tiptree, Jr. award. She compiles micro-essays on writing in her Notes From the Trenches ebook series. Her latest book, When the World Wounds, is a collection of speculative short stories, and includes the novella Because of the Bone Man.

SISTR MID9IGHT 
During a search for a performer to appear in video for his band
Deathfix (Dischord Records), Rich Morel witnessed Jason Barnes performing as Pussy Noir at a DC Pizza joint. Morel was struck by Jason's fearless aggression, charismatic stage presence and his male-female sexuality. In addition to his own band Morel, Rich has collaborated with many ground breaking artists (Yoko Ono, New Order,Pet Shop Boys and Cyndi Lauper to name a few). This time Morel was looking to write and produce something that was both new yet also referenced the artists that were most important to him; Bowie, Grace Jones, Iggy Pop, Little Richard. Jason and his voice were the perfect fit! After a couple unanswered emails Morel ran into Jason at a local DC club and told him his plan -- Jason was on board and Sistr Mid9ight was born! 

Abraham Smith is the author of four poetry collections: Ashagalomancy (Action Books, 2015); Only Jesus Could Icefish in Summer (Action Books, 2014); Hank (Action Books, 2010); and Whim Man Mammon (Action Books, 2007). In 2015, he released Hick Poetics (Lost Roads Press), a co-edited anthology of contemporary rural American poetry and related essays. His creative work has been recognized with fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA, and the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Presently, he is at work upon a poetry manuscript about cranes--birds whose song and stature electrify him. Destruction of Man, his book-length poem about farming, is forthcoming in 2018 from Third Man Books.

Sampson Starkweather is a new American meta-realist poet born in Pittsboro, North Carolina. He is the author of PAIN: The Board Game (Third Man Books, 2015) and The First Four Books of Sampson Starkweather (BIRDS, LLC, 2013) and a founding editor of Birds, LLC, an independent poetry press. He is the author of nine chapbooks, including Flowers of Rad by Factory Hollow Press, the collaborative audio poetry album Flux Capacitor from Black Cake Records, and Until the Joy of Death Hits, a multi-media website of pop/love GIF poems from Spork Press. He lives in Brooklyn, NY. 

Janaka Stucky is a poet, performer, and publisher. The founding editor of Black Ocean, he is also the author of a few poetry collections. His poems have appeared in such journals as Denver Quarterly, Fence and North American Review, and his articles have been published by The Huffington Post and The Poetry Foundation. He is a two-time National Haiku Champion and in 2010 he was voted “Boston’s Best Poet” in The Boston Phoenix. In 2015, Jack White’s Third Man Records launched a new publishing imprint, Third Man Books, and chose Janaka’s full-length poetry collection, The Truth Is We Are Perfect, as their inaugural title.

Ben Swank was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio and has a life of toil behind him in the rock 'n' roll salt mines. Formerly of Soledad Brothers now in residence composing panic beats and sweeping the floors at Third Man Records in Nashville, Tennessee.