Good friend Karen Lillis was recently featured twice on The Orange Alert podcast. Karen reads her own short story, “The Roaches That Stayed Behind,” and then New York City’s own Tim Hall jumps in to read an excerpt from Karen’s “A Bookseller in the City,” which is now being serialized on Undie Press.

You can listen to the podcast episode (hosted by Jason Behrends) here. And you can read “A Bookseller in the City” here.

Good friend and fellow Blacksmith for Literary Progress Karen Lillis has organized a special memorial reading for our departed friend Richard Lick here in New York City on May 9th. Do stop by the Bowery Poetry Club for the event. Full details are below…

Words Like Kudzu Press will host a memorial reading for Richard Leck at the Bowery Poetry Club on Saturday, May 9th from 2:00pm-3:30pm. It will be called “Praise Day Reading for Richard Leck.” Admission will be free. Several writers will read from Richard’s poems and excerpts from his memoir, “Jumped, Fell, or Was Pushed.” Come celebrate Richard’s humor, his life, and his words.

Free giveaways: Richard Leck’s poetry chapbook, Memory Hair, and
copies of Go Metric No. 22, with an excerpt from Richard’s memoirs.

Readers:

• Steve Dalachinsky, NYC poet
• Bob Holman, NYC poet who runs the Bowery Poetry Club
• Arthur Nersesian, East Village novelist
• Jackie Sheeler, NYC poet and poetry MC
• Margarita Shalina, poet, translator, indie press book buyer @ St Mark’s Books
• Brian Cogan, author of Encyclopedia of Punk Music and Culture
• Tom Hendrickson, writer under the radar
• Karen Lillis from Words Like Kudzu Press will MC

It was great to learn this week that good friend and fellow Blacksmith for Literary Progress Karen Lillis has given birth to a poetic little novel titled The Second Elizabeth. Karen has a great adeptness with language — being a poet helps — so the novel has a rhythm and flow all its own. It is filled with punchy little paragraphs that tell micro prose-poems about the characters, while still fitting into the greater story of the novel.

Knowing that Karen’s been hard at work on the novel (and getting it released) for quite some time, I was excited to find my copy waiting for me in the mail.

You can grab a copy here, and I do recommend that you do so.

As I wrote a few weeks back, poet Richard Leck, whom I had the good fortune to meet at this year’s Small Press Fair in New York City, passed away on December 19th.

Unfortunately, Richard had no next of kin and had become estranged from the rest of his family. Because of this, Richard’s friends Karen Lillis and Frances Winn have not been able to claim his personal effects and arrange for a proper burial. This means Richard’s body has been sitting in the city morgue since December 19th and is likely to be buried at Potter’s Field, the notorious city-run cemetery for the forgotten. Karen has been working especially hard to try and convince someone to claim Richard’s body so he will not wind up at Potter’s Field, most notably the Veterans Administration. Even though Richard did serve in the Army, the Veterans Administration refused to claim him and flatly denied paying for a burial. By law, all veterans are entitled to a military burial, but there a exceptions and technicalities that often require a judgment call by the Veterans Administration.

It seemed that Richard was destined for Potter’s Field until The Village Voice became involved after being contacted by Karen. Voice writer Graham Rayman jumped on the case, writing this article, and contacting the Medical Examiner’s office, who agreed to hold Richard’s body for an additional two weeks in order to give Karen and Frances more time to obtain approval for his release.

Things kept snowballing from there. Someone showed the Voice article to the Mayor’s Office of Veterans’Affairs, who have agreed to look into the case and see if Richard is eligible to be buried in a national veterans cemetery with the city picking up the bill.

Needless to say, this is a big IF. So if you are a New Yorker, and would like to help, please write to the Mayor’s Office of Veterans Affairs and ask them to arrange a proper burial for Richard. You can do so using this online form. Let them know you had read The Village Voice story about Richard and would like him to receive a proper military burial. Hopefully, with enough messages from local citizens, Richard won’t become a resident of Potter’s Field.

The Blacksmiths for Literary Progress will have our own table at the 21st Annual Indie & Small Press Book Fair. We’ll be featuring new books and zines (and possibly old lamps, used furniture, and rusted cutlery) from Brian Cogan, Mike Faloon, Tim Hall, Karen Lillis, Ben Tanzer, and Ken Wohlrob. We’ll also have some free books to give away. Do stop buy, say hello and take home some damn good independent lit.

Here are the details:
Saturday, December 6, 2008, 10 AM to 6 PM
Sunday, December 7, 2008, 11 AM to 5 PM
Location: The New York Center for Independent Publishing
20 West 44th Street (btw 5th and 6th)
New York, NY 10036