READING MONDAY JANUARY 26 9PM PITTSBURGH
I'll be reading from my short story "What We Saw"
Monday January 26 at the venerable Fuel & Fuddle literary series, thanks to MFAers
and impresarios extraordinaire Libby and Billy. Come for PB home brew and Billy's awesomely entertaining introductions
9pm
with co-reader & Pitt MFAer Renee Aukeman
212 Oakland Ave., PB
"GOING HUNGRY" ANTHOLOGY RELEASE (sept 2008)
A new anthology from Anchor Books with essays by Francine du Plessix Gray, Louise Gluck, Jennifer Egan, myself and others.
An early batch of reviews is rather favorable: chek em out in the New York Times "Style" Section and Newsweek
AWARDS AND FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
You'll find my fiction and creative nonfiction forthcoming or on the stands in the following publications (click on underlined links):
Wild Things, Fall 2008, an anthology from Outrider Press, excerpt from my novel-in-progress The Noticers
Antioch Review, Spring 2008, essay/autobiography, "Modeling School"
TriQuarterly, Fall 2009, my short story "Dermagraphia"
Best New American Voices, September 2007, my short story "Men More Than Mortal"
Glimmer Train Family Matters Fiction, Third Place, Spring 2008, for my short story "Dermagraphia"
Miami Review Novella Contest, Finalist, Spring 2008, for my novella "In Valletta"
Dana Award, Spring 2008, finalist for an excerpt from my novel-in-progress, formerly the novella, "In Valletta."
other recent awards:
Bourse Ténot, Centre d'art Marnay Art Centre (CAMAC) (France), Spring 2008
Fellow, Fondación La Napoule, Mandelieu, France, Spring 2008
Black Lawrence Press, Hudson manuscript prize, finalist (results pending) for my collection of novellas, Spring 2008
Fellow, Djerassi Foundation, Summer 2008
Fellow, Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, Summer 2008
Full Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center, Summer 2008
for your listening pleasure, an mp3 from our reading at KBG Bar, September 2007, of my short story "Men More Than Mortal."
AN EXCERPT FROM MY NOVEL IN PROGRESS, THE NOTICERS
Check out this excerpt on the excellent online literary journal of politics, art and culture, Guernicamag.com. New in the January 2008 issue. 
INTERVIEW AND SHORT STORY
Literary critic and blogster par excellence Shalla de Guzman interviews Kadetsky and posts her short story "Men More Than Mortal" on her magazine Shalla.
READINGS SCHEDULE 2007-2008
Come see readings by Kadetsky and other contributors to Best New American Voices 2008, edited by Richard Bausch and available at your local bookstore.
NEW YORK, NY
February 2, 2008
AWP (open to conference participants only)
Hilton New York & Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers
1335 Avenue of the Americas
Elizabeth Kadetsky, Peter Mountford, Sharon May, Jamie Poissant
10:30-11:45 a.m.
PHILADELPHIA, PA
January 24, 2008
Drexel University Campus Bookstore
33rd & Chestnut Streets
MacAlister Building
(215)895-2860
6 p.m.
NEW YORK, NY
November 25, 2007
KGB Bar
5 East 4th Street, NYC 10003
Elizabeth Kadetsky, Natalie Danford, John Kulka, Jedediah Berry, Orianne Delfosse, Garth Risk Hallberg, Leslie Jamison
7 p.m.
BROOKLYN, NY
October 9, 2007
Brooklyn Book Court
163 Court Street
Elizabeth Kadetsky, Orianne Delfosse, Garth Risk Hallberg
7 p.m.
BOSTON, MA
September 25, 2007
Boston University Bookstore
660 Beacon Street
Elizabeth Kadetsky, Leslie Jamison, Adam Stumacher
7 p.m.
am
Recent Journalism
Thoughts on Big A Amitabh Bachchan, Bollywood, and global culture, on AlterNet.
On KillingtheBuddha "Yoga for Skeptics--Desperate for enlightenment, Westerners flock to India. But the modern yogis’ link to a mystical ancient lineage may be mere hocus pocus."
Recent fiction commendations
Scholar in fiction, Breadloaf Summer Writers Conference, 2005
Finalist, Roanoke Review fiction contest, 2004 (on stands now)
Finalist, 2004 Dana Award in Short Fiction
Finalist, Iowa Award in Fiction, 2005
Finalist, Crazyhorse Fiction Prize, 2005
Fellow, Moulin a Nef, Auvillar, France, 2005
Top pick, AWP's (the Association of Writers & Writing Programs) Grace Paley Fiction Award for a short story collection, 2004
Awarded, Pushcart Prize 2005, (for The Poison that Purifies You)
Turkish edition. You can now read First There Is a Mountain in the language of Ataturk. Just ask for Bir Yoga Yolculugu. And check out the cool cover design (left).
photo (top) of EK in urdhva dhanurasana: Carol Sykes
Amazon
Who's been following the Amazon discussion (see Poets & Writers, the New York Times, NPR)? If you haven't been following it, just let it be said that the writer John Rechy (remember that brilliant narrative nonfiction underworld extended poem, City of Night?), when caught writing his own Amazon reviews, said 'Damn straight. It's rigged anyway!' I'd like to know what you all think, and for any friends who might be responsible for stellar Amazon reviews of FTaM, do tell (I love you!). And, who wrote that FTaM was "an unkind book?" Did I cut you off at the prop closet? Sorry! I take it back. Now you take it back.
Cool Review
Check out Identity Theory for a new review from poet and essayist extraordinaire Colette LaBouff Atkinson. And keep checking for details on a new reading in Philly, a book group visit at The Shala in NYC, and a reading at the luminous Junno's bar in the West Village, with S. Mitra Kalita, on March 29. Meanwhile, thanks to the scientist Dave Gresham for reading Time Out New York with the proverbial fine-toothed comb. There, on the books page (Feb 19-26 issue), he discovered me. I am grateful.
Santa Barbara and the Web
Here's a tale of serendipity and the beauty of having an amorphous ethereal space such as the world wide web into which to belt out your calls to the spirits. Back in January, about three days or so before I was leaving for my "book tour," it occurred to me that very few events had been set up, so I put out a rather desperate plea to various anonymous email addresses that I found on a yoga website.
One of these poor recipients generously responded, from Ojai, California. A yoga teacher who knew how to put links in her emails, she was just writing to say hi. Armed with the knowledge that Ojai was near Santa Barbara and that Santa Barbara was rather groovy and likely a good place to find yogis burrowing in the woodwork, I asked the teacher if she knew a place in Santa Barbara that might host a reading. She introduced me by email to Jenni at Drishti, one of this new genre of thing called a "yoga store," and there the success story began.
Jenni it turned out is a master at creating community (her email newsletter, an excerpt from which follows, attests to this). She put on a gorgeous event with yummy (I hear) cookies (which I was too nervous to eat), and lots of yogis, scholars and their friends. Here's her writeup, from the newsletter, of the fete (and thanks, Jenni, for calling me "acclaimed"). Her store can be found here. Drishti, by the way, means "gaze," as in, we yogis sometimes gaze at our navels.
"Acclaimed Yoga Author Visits Drishti On January 18, Elizabeth Kadetsky came to Drishti on her tour through California to give a book reading and Q&A session. Elizabeth teaches journalism at Columbia University and has been a yoga practitioner for 20 years. Her newly-released book, First There is a Mountain, has received much critical acclaim, and has raised the eyebrows of some in the yoga community. Through her research in India with B.K.S. Iyengar and some of his contemporaries, Elizabeth attempts to piece together a history of modern yoga, one which doesn't necessarily match up to the often-touted notion that the practice of yoga stems back 5,000 years. Her book also tells the story of her personal experience practicing yoga in India, earning it the description of travel memoir as well as yoga history. "The book reading at Drishti drew a crowd of very interested yogis who have themselves spent time studying similar topics. The Q&A discussion was full of insightful questions from the crowd and well-thought-out answers from Elizabeth, and had to be cut off due to time constraints, rather than a lack of questioning! The general feedback from the evening was that it was an excellent opportunity to gather and discuss the practice of yoga from an intellectual and potentially critical standpoint. People were appreciative of this forum, the likes of which we are rarely able to experience."
"
A Night at KGB
Thanks to everyone who showed up to that no-longer-smoky den of literature, G&T's and rattling upstairs floorboards last night for a very enjoyable reading (I did lose my place marker as I was about to start reading and had to extemporaneously choose a new section--did anyone notice?). Thanks to Beatrice.com for turning out, my old pal Evan who I used to hang out with at Stuy High (well, actually, we spent more time in the vestibules across Fifteenth Street doing things that annoyed all the tenants who weren't potheads), and thanks to the Santa Cruz gang, the Veselka's (a very apt Ukrainian-sensitive choice I thought) contingent.
But on to the meat and pierogis of the matter.
KGB Bar: Threat or Enemy?
My friend Garth tells me there is a rather sordid tale behind the making of KGB, and a longstanding if little-known boycott. Here's what his sources tell him:
"I'd like to come but don't tell my mother in law as that location will be eternally boycotted. you see it used to be the old ukrainian home and dave's mom ran a ukrainian folk dance group that practiced there on the weekends. dave and his family and their lefty friends spent their weekends there dancing and eating peirogi that the old ukrainian ladies would make for them. it was a true 'proletariat' joint and the sale of the building was a loss but the renaming of the social room into KGB was downright offensive. the bar even hung up framed photos that had been left behind, presenting them as soviet kitsch."
Here's the other view, from KGB itself:
"On Sundays in the Ukrainian Labor Home’s great hall there was a dance class for children just a little older than I--I was about five at this time--they dressed in folk costumes from the old country and pranced to an accordion. Did I want to join them? No, I did not. The room was too large, twenty-five feet wide and one hundred feet long, larger than any room I’d ever seen before, and the sheer size of it took my breath away; it gave me vertigo. Rather than dance lessons, I preferred the company of my father’s cronies in the intimacy of their private club one flight up. There, we drank. (Yes, we drank.) Formerly a Lucky Luciano joint called the Palm Casino, the bar was built during prohibition well before the membership of the Ukrainian Labor Home bought the place in 1948. This was the members’ true domain, and my dad and his pals set themselves up with shots of whiskey, vodka, Four Roses or whatever--with a little shot for me. I tried to drink it down without spitting it up while the men laughed. We had a good time... KGB has been rocking along ever since."
There you got it, pro and con. Please write with more info if you have an opinion or clarification on this disturbing matter. I remain, in the tried and true tradition of American journalism, decidedly undecided.
Welcome to the Blog
In this section, I'll post observations from my recent book tour in California, thoughts from the left coast of yoga, musings on such topics as, Yoga: History or myth?; The extraordinary BKS Iyengar: Divine or just smart? I'll tell you about my encounter with an old teacher in LA, driving through fog dense as a piece of paper at four a.m. in Bakersfield, tacos in the Mission. Above, see co-conspirators Brian (forthcoming in Seattle Review) and John (raffle-operator extraordinaire) revel at FTaM's Yoga Shala book party. All is coming.
photo: Oliver Ryan
