Monofonus Press

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.