READING THIS SATURDAY at The Black Mountain Museum & Arts Center, Asheville: 1st in my series

The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) at 56 Broadway in downtown Asheville is pleased to announce MadHat's Poetry, Prose & Anything Goes on Saturday, November 20, from 7:00 - 9:00p.m. New Asheville resident, Carol Novack, publisher of Mad Hatters' Review and author of the collection "Giraffes in Hiding: The Mythical Memoirs of Carol Novack" (Spuyten Duyvil 9/2010), will initiate her popular NYC series here at... BMCM+AC. She'll be joined by San Francisco poet David Smith and North Carolina writers Carter Monroe and Traci O'Connor. The cost is $5 for BMCM+AC members + students w/ID and $7 for all others.

Carter Monroe lives and writes in The Provinces of Eastern North Carolina. He is the author of a novel, a collection of short stories and essays, and five books of poetry, the most recent of which is THE NEW LOST BLUES - Selected Poems 1999 - 2005 (Thunder Sandwich Press 2005.) He founded Rank Stranger Press in 2001 and has since published over 20 books including poetry, short fiction, and a novel for poets/authors across the country from Wilson, NC to Los Angeles CA.

Traci O Connor is the author of the short story collection, Recipes For Endangered Species, published by Tarpaulin Sky Press (May 2010), copies of which will be available for sale at the reading. She has also published fiction, non-fiction and poetry in many journals and anthologies, including Mid-American Review, DIAGRAM, LIT Magazine, PANK, Barrowstreet, and others. She lives in Greensboro, North Carolina with her spouse—the writer, Jackson Connor—their four children, one labradoodle, and a ‘cat.’

David Smith is a nervy sort of aperitif, hailed by the Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Funsten as “…one of the most original poets lately, to add his voice to American literature.” Smith’s books include: Closer to Jesus and Rockets Red Glare. The broadside with collaborative artwork by S.A. Griffin of his poem Genocide Sutra, a Love Story is a small press classic. In the 1980’s, through his Los Angeles based Ouija Madness Magazine and Press, he published works and books by the great and nearly great, including: Charles Bukowski, Richard Meltzer, Dennis Cooper, Amy Gerstler, Wanda Coleman, Bob Flanagan and Scott Wannberg. He is currently the literary editor of Off Beat Pulp Magazine. At the Black Mountain College Museum, Smith will be reading from and signing copies of his newest book White Time, published in 2009 by Off Beat Pulp Press, offbeatpulp.com, which the North Carolina poet and critic Tim Peeler has called "...a compelling read, penned by a man who has clearly worked outside of academia, but who has gained a wide range of experience and knowledge about the human predicament...."