If you’re looking for something to do this week and you’re anywhere near New York City, then you should come by the KGB Bar, located at 85 East 4th Street, and see me read with some other writer friends, including Taylor Polities, Sandee Gertz Umbach, Rich Uhlig, and Pat Florio. The reading is going to be a mix of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, and the event is free. I read at the KGB Bar last July, and it’s a unique venue that hosts several readings and literary events throughout the week. They also have a fairly large bar and a lot of drink and food specials.

Here is some info about the other readers:

Taylor M. Polites is a novelist living in Providence, Rhode Island with his small Chihuahua, Clovis. Polites’ first novel, The Rebel Wife, was published in February 2012 by Simon & Schuster. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University and BA in History and French from Washington University in St. Louis. In 2009, he was awarded the Norris Church Mailer Fellowship from Wilkes University. He has lived in Provincetown, Massachusetts, New York City, St. Louis and the Deep South. He has covered arts and news for a variety of local newspapers and magazines, including the Cape Codder, InNewsWeekly, Bird’s Eye View (the in-flight magazine of CapeAir), artscope Magazine and Provincetown Arts Magazine.

Richard Uhlig is the author of the Knopf-published novels, Last Dance At The Frosty Queen and Boy Minus Girl.  He is also the screenwriter of the award-winning film Dead Simple, starring James Caan and Patricia Richardson, as well as Kept, starring Ice-T.  He recently wrote, produced and directed the short film comedy Can’t Dance, starring Karen Lynn Gorny.  The film won Founder’s Choice Award at the Queens World Film Festival. Richard lives in New York with his wife and two small children.

Sandee Gertz Umbach is a poet and writer from Western Pennsylvania, currently residing near Pittsburgh.  Her poems have been published in numerous literary journals, including Poet Lore, The Ledge, Gargoyle, and The Green Mountains Review. She has been the recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowship grant and is a Sandburg-Livesay Award Winner. Her recently released poetry collection, The Pattern Maker’s Daughter, (published by Bottom Dog Press) is set in the industrial steel city of Johnstown,Pennsylvania and reflects coming of age themes with a strong narrative sense of place and landscape.  Geology, geography, weather, and even neuroscience collide as this “Girl Interrupted” speaker tells her stories from the heart of one of America’s colorful working class cities.

Patricia Florio spent 17 years as a certified professional court reporter in Brooklyn’s federal court system when she decided to change careers.  She’s had this constant buzzing muse prompting her to write since she was a teenager.   Her first book “My Two Mothers” was published in August 2011.  She has gotten excellent reviews.(see it on Amazon.com)  She’s married to her husband Ralph for 40 years and they live in the Historic Victorian town of Ocean Grove on the Jersey Shore.  She received her undergrad from Rutgers in Liberal Studies and her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Wilkes University.