Monofonus Press

June 1=Teleportal 5!
May 10 10

On Tuesday, June 1, head to the Hotel San Jose’s courtyard for a live reading by fiction writer Elizabeth Crane (You Must Be This Happy to Enter), a teleportal reading by journalist and Texas Monthly editor Jake Silverstein (Nothing Happened, and Then It Did), and an interactive performance by philosopher and Believer interviewer Tamler Sommers (A Very Bad Wizard). We’ll also be featuring videos from innovative DVD journal Rattapallax and a special musical guest. Domy Books will be selling a selection of timely titles, and we’ll have a fresh stock of Teleportal t-shirts and totebags for sale.

Elizabeth Crane is the author of two collections of short stories from Little, Brown, When the Messenger Is Hot and All This Heavenly Glory. Her most recent collection, You Must Be This Happy to Enter, was published by Punk Planet Books. The New York Times Book Review has said, “Crane has a distinctive and eccentric voice that is consistent and riveting.”

Jake Silverstein is the editor of Texas Monthly and a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine. His first book, Nothing Happened and Then It Did, a Chronicle in Fact and Fiction, was published by W. W. Norton in April. Annie Dillard called his book a “masterful literary debut,” while The New Republic dubbed it “one of the weirdest books I have ever read… a greatly entertaining and extremely funny book.”

Tamler Sommers is a professor of philosophy at the University of Houston and an interviewer for The Believer. Ian McEwan called his collection of interviews, A Very Bad Wizard: Morality Behind the Curtain, “an intellectual feast, completely engrossing.”

Teleportal 5
feat. Elizabeth Crane, Jake Silverstein,
Tamler Sommers, and Rattapallax
Tuesday, June 1, 8pm
Hotel San Jose
1316 S. Congress Ave.
Austin, TX

Teleportal 4: Fusebox
Apr 15 10

As part of this month’s Fusebox Festival, Monofonus presents the fourth installment of Austin’s most multimedia reading series. If you love reading but hate readings, fear not: this is literature at its most laid-back. This month’s Teleportal features a live reading by local fiction writer Amelia Gray, an interactive performance by blackout poet Austin Kleon, and a teleportal reading by Jon Cotner and Alex Karpovsky from Cotner and Andy Fitch’s Ten Walks/Two Talks. As always, there will be a special musical guest and a pop-up shop with selections from Domy Books.

Amelia Gray‘s writing has appeared in American Short Fiction, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, DIAGRAM, and Caketrain, among others. She is the author of AM/PM, published by Featherproof Books, and Museum of the Weird, due August 2010 through Fiction Collective 2.

Austin Kleon is a writer, cartoonist, and web designer. He’s best known for his Newspaper Blackout Poems — poetry made by redacting words from newspaper articles with a permanent marker. His first book, Newspaper Blackout, was published by Harper Perennial this month.

Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch are the authors of Ten Walks/Two Talks (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010). Cotner lives in New York City. Fitch is an assistant professor in the University of Wyoming’s MFA Program.

Teleportal 4

8pm, April 27,

Hotel San Jose

1316 S. Congress Ave

Austin, TX

Ralph White Record Release Next Tuesday!
Apr 08 10

Join us at 8pm next Tuesday, April 13, at the United States Art Authority for the release of Ralph White’s new album, The Mongrel’s Hoard. Thor Harris (Swans, Shearwater) joins Ralph onstage, and John Wesley Coleman Enterprise and His Dog opens. Check out Audra Schroeder’s review of the album for The Austin Chronicle.

11 Songs for 11 Videos!
Mar 23 10

Hey, we’re thisclose to finishing an awesome music/video project, and you can help! Check out the trailer below, and head over to our Kickstarter to find out how!

Over The Hill – Trailer for Video Album from Monofonus Press on Vimeo.

Teleportal 3: McSweeney’s
Mar 22 10

Annie La Ganga is a poet, performer, and visual artist. She is the author of Stoners and Self-Appointed Saints (Red Hen Press). She is a Scorpio. She lives in Austin, Texas. She loves candy. She hates housework.

Dean Young is the author of nine books of poetry,  including Design with X, Beloved Infidel, Strike Anywhere (which received the Colorado Prize for Poetry), First Course in Turbulence, Skid, Elegy on Toy Piano, Embryoyo (Believer Books), and Primitive Mentor. He holds the William S. Livingston Chair in Creative Writing of the Michener Center for Writers.

James Hannaham’s first novel, God Says No, published by McSweeney’s Rectangulars in 2009, was named an honor book by the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Awards. His stories have appeared in The Literary Review, Open City, Nerve, One Story, and several anthologies. His criticism and journalism have appeared in The Village Voice, Spin, Us, Out, and Salon.com, where he was once on staff, and have been reprinted in Best African American Essays 2009 and Best Sex Writing 2009. He teaches creative writing at the Pratt Institute and the New School.

March with Monofonus
Mar 06 10

We’ve got so much going on this month, we decided to share our schedule with you. We didn’t have room for all the unofficial day parties our bands are playing; those times are available on the bands’ own sites! Most bold items are clickable links.

SXSW FRI 3.12/MON 3.15/TUE 3.16/WED 3.17/THU 3.18/FRI 3.19/SAT 3.20

or, jump to POST-SXSW

FRI 3.12

Alamo Ritz, 10:15pm: SXSW Film’s Music Videos program, featuring the video for Diagonals‘ “Clones.”

MON 3.15

11am, Paramount Theater: Bryan Poyser’s Lovers of Hate, a film co-produced by Monofonus. We’re happy to announce that IFC Films recently purchased the film and will be making it nationally available to watch at home on OnDemand the same day.

TUE 3.16

3pm-2am, The Independent @ 501 Studios: Awthumfetht, feat. 16 bands and videos by Monofonus, among others

WED 3.17

12-2pm, Convention Center: Visit us at SXSW’s Indie Village.

1pm, Alamo Ritz: Music Videos, featuring Diagonals’ “Clones.”

2-8pm, Hotel San Jose: Monofonus Day Party, co-sponsored by the SIMS Foundation and featuring Ralph White, Eternal Tapestry, Soft Healer, Expensive Shit, Zs, Follow That Bird!, the Coathangers, and Turbo Fruits.

7:30pm, Velveeta Room: Ralph White official SXSW showcase

THU 3.18

12-2pm, Convention Center: Visit us at SXSW’s Indie Village.

9:30pm, Alamo South Lamar: Lovers of Hate

FRI 3.19

12-2pm, Convention Center: Visit us at SXSW’s Indie Village.

12mid, Wave: Follow That Bird! official SXSW showcase

SAT 3.20

3pm, Alamo Ritz: Music Videos, featuring Diagonals’ “Clones.”

8pm, Continental Club: Diagonals official SXSW showcase

12mid, Encore Patio: Golden Boys official SXSW showcase

FRI 3.26

Unit B, San Antonio: Over the Hill‘s video series & Okay Mountain

TUE 3.30

8pm, Hotel San Jose: Teleportal 3: McSweeney’s, featuring Bill Cotter and Annie La Ganga, a Teleportal reading by Dean Young, video from Wholphin, and a special musical guest

Teleportal Is Today!
Feb 09 10

As promised, it’s the second installment of Teleportal, Monofonus’ new monthly reading series in partnership with the Hotel San Jose and Domy Books. Designed for people who love reading but hate readings, Teleportal is a relaxed evening of multimedia literary delights. Every Teleportal features a live reading, a virtual reading, and video transmissions from some of the nation’s most exciting small presses and literary journals. This month’s Teleportal includes a live reading by prolific poet Nick Courtright, a virtual reading by noir novelist Richard Lange, and excerpts from 60 Writers/60 Places.

Poetry from Nick Courtright’s Levis Prize-finalist manuscript, Likely Fates, is forthcoming or has recently appeared in such esteemed journals as The Southern Review, Boston Review, The Kenyon Review Online, Gulf Coast, and Beloit Poetry Journal, among numerous others. His new chapbook, Elegy for the Builder’s Wife, will be debuting this month with Blue Hour Press. Courtright teaches at Southwestern and St. Edward’s and is also a music writer for the Austinist.

Richard Lange’s short-story collection Dead Boys and L.A. noir novel This Wicked World have won him praise from publications as highly regarded and far-flung as The L.A. Times, The New York Times, and France’s Le Figaro. Novelist T.C. Boyle has said, “Richard Lange’s stories combine the truth-telling and immediacy of Raymond Carver with the casual hip of Denis Johnson.”

60 Writers/60 Places is a film by Michael Kimball and Luca Dipierro (whose animation for Electric Literature screened at last month’s Teleportal). Inspired by tableaux vivants, the film features short readings in unorthodox venues, such as a laundromat, the subway, and a botanical garden. The film’s mix of established and emerging authors includes Gary Lutz, Sam Lipsyte, Deb Olin Unferth, Blake Butler, and Justin Taylor, among others.

will have a pop-up shop at this and every Teleportal.

Lovers of Hate Goes to Sundance
Jan 20 10

This year, Monofonus helped to produce Lovers of Hate, a film by BRYAN POYSER, which is now an official 2010 Sundance Film Festival selection. The film premieres this Sunday at the festival in Park City, Utah, so on the off chance that you’re there, keep an eye out for a Monofonus man passing around our Lovers of Hate interview book, posted here in futuristic, digi-book form.

Bear Claw one-sider out Jan 19th
Jan 14 10

Bear Claw’s one-sider includes four tracks from their recently self-released cassette that we felt more than deserved the vinyl treatment.  Wonderfully recorded, beautiful songs on a one-sided, 10″ vinyl.  take a listen.

Pick one up at the release show, Saturday Jan. 23rd at United States Art Authority when Bear claw plays with Soft Healer and Mutating Meltdown.

Teleportal Readings
Jan 06 10

Beginning on Tuesday, January 19th, the Hotel San Jose will become home to a multimedia reading series designed for those who love reading but hate readings. We’ve done away with the fluorescent lights, folding chairs, and library atmosphere of literary events. As for that opposite extreme of the reading world, the poetry slam, you can rest assured that this is a curated series – we’re all for democracy, just not when it means suffering through awful poems. Every month, we’ll be hosting live readers, virtual readings from some of the nation’s most exciting authors, and video transmissions from small presses and literary magazines across the country. In the coming year, Teleportal Readings will be expanding to other cities, hosted by various presses and publications in partnership with Monofonus.

Our first reading will feature a live performance by poet Jill Alexander-Essbaum, who’s been described as “a cross between Dorothy Parker and a lap dance.” Our virtual reader will be former National Book Award nominee Dan Chaon, whose Await Your Reply has appeared on the year-end top-ten lists of The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Salon, and The New York Times‘ Janet Maslin, among others. Electric Literature, a digital literary magazine whose innovative approach has won them mentions in The New Yorker and the Times, will also be contributing videos from their Single Sentence Animation series, in which video artists animate sentences by renowned authors.