A Swollen, Red Peckerwood Does Not Grow Back

Where is the place to be Thusday, November 20? The Maplewood Public Library (7550 Lohmeyer Ave, Maplewood, Missouri 63143) at 6pm. I'll be there with Matthew McBride and Fred Venturini to come clean about dirty words. Expect red faces, blue content and purple nurples as well as false starts, awkward pauses and completely reactionary fuddled beef.

And speaking of non-sequiturs: Books! Three of the most... um, two of the best books of the last year will be at the event for defacing by the scribes and you can get copies. They make great passive aggressive gifts for your frenemies. What better way to say 'hey, you strike me as barely literate' than with books of this caliber? So, be there, huh?

What's that? You can't get out of Chicago for the event? Sit tight then, and let me suggest that you show up for N@B-Chicago's event at Quenchers on Tuesday, December 9. You can check out N@B favorites Kent Gowran, Kevin Lynn Helmick, Jake Hinkson, Frank Wheeler Jr. plus Sam Reaves beginning at 6pm. Skip your commute home and unwind with these degenerates. Rumor has it the Livius and the Robb from the Booked podcast will be onhand to make offhand remarks and pimp their shit... which deserves to be pimped. Have you been keeping up with the Booked? Here's a quick rundown of 'recent' highlights:

Guest and N@B irregular David James Keaton helps review his own book, The Last Projector.

The guys discuss what might've happened if Biggus Dickus' empire reached the new world in a rousing review of N@B's official horror scribe John Hornor Jacobs' The Incorruptibles.

The Rain King, a wild 'n wolly western of N@B cowboy Kevin Lynn Helmick gets an unruly lasso about it's slim waist and guess who gets the better of that situation. Here's a hint: the horse.

Methland, Missouri loves company and the guys hang out amongst the grim gangsters of Gasconade in A Swollen, Red Sun, alongside N@B's very own Virgil, Matthew McBride.

And N@B's man on fire, Richard Thomas has his co-edited collection Burnt Tongues given the Booked anthology treatment (they cherry pick stories and review them individually). N@B favorite son Fred Venturini also has a story in this collection and his novel The Heart Does Not Grow Back is the subject of the next episode of Booked, so stay the fuck tuned.