It's so hard to say goodbye...

But we had to. And you helped make this reading one of our best this year, so thanks to all who read, and all who attended, and all who ate chocolate chocolate chip pecan cookies. We'll see you this fall!

Our Wonderful Audience

Bryan Hurt

Stewart Grace

Jonathan Hamrick

Andrew Allport

Josh Bernstein

Gabriela Jauregui

Bon Voyage!

The Flying Jonathan Hamrick does Bok doing Ball

The Loudest Voice Cometh

Please join us for the last Loudest Voice of the semester...and the last Loudest Voice for Professor Katherine Karlin, who leaves LA for Manhattan (Kansas) this summer.

Featuring an array of performers, including:

-Guest poet Gabriela Jauregui, author of Controlled Decay (Akashic, 2008)

-Fiction by Katherine Karlin and Josh Bernstein

-Poetry by Stewart Grace

-Mimicry and theft by Jonathan Hamrick

&&And&&

Buccal Helmholtz resonances by Andrew Allport (accompanied by guitar).

Hosted, as ever, by Bryan Hurt.

Joshua Bernstein is a second year creative writing Ph.D. at USC. He writes almost exclusively about war, though he also enjoys sex (as a subject). His recent work is forthcoming in The Crab Orchard Review, Armchair General, and the Truth About the Fact: A Journal of Non-Fiction. Some of his prior accolades include a Fulbright Fellowship, the John Gunyon Prize for Non-Fiction, and two Honorable Mentions in The Atlantic’s Student Writing Contest. He’s moving to Israel in a couple months, so this is probably going to be his last reading at the Mountain Bar, sadly—at least for the time-being.

Stewart Grace has attempted several occupations in an effort to satisfy both his creative and practical interests: from paralegal work to bookbinding, "mannying" to internet marketing. Every year or two he skippers sailboats in fantastic tropical locations and forces a few of his friends to come and be his crew. Next time it could be you. Most consistently, he's been a poet, completing his BA in English and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia in 2005, and currently pursuing his PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California.

Jonathan Hamrick has been interested in the idea or concept of "poetry" for a long time, but it is only after learning about the recent avant-garde that he's been able to put some of his ideas into practice. The theme for his eight minutes might perhaps be mimicry and theft.

Gabriela Jauregui (b. Mexico City, 1979) is the author of Controlled Decay (Akashic Books/Black Goat Press, 2008). She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside and an MA in Comparative Literature from UC Irvine. Her critical and creative work has been published in journals and anthologies in the US, Mexico, and Europe, including, most recently, in New American Writing, The Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, The Afro Hispanic Review and in The Aesthetics of Risk (JRP Ringier, 2008). Gabriela is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at USC and a Soros Fellow. She lives and works in Los Angeles and Mexico City. You can find her on the web at: http://www.gabrielajauregui.net

Katherine Karlin's fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Pushcart Prize, New Stories from the South, ZYZZYVA, One Story, Alaska Quarterly Review and numerous other journals. In the fall of 2009 she begins teaching creative writing at Kansas State University.

Special Musical Guest:

Andrew Allport plays and sings in and around Los Angeles, land of merchandisable dreams. His myspace page is /drewallport. An album, Face to Face, is due sometime next year.