{"id":7366,"date":"2018-07-18T07:01:27","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T11:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7366"},"modified":"2018-08-21T07:01:45","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T11:01:45","slug":"noir-at-the-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7366","title":{"rendered":"Noir at the Bar"},"content":{"rendered":"
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photo: Jo Sutera, with permission<\/p><\/div>\n

Last Sunday, the Manhattan efflorescence of Noir at the Bar had one of its irregular celebrations of crime fiction writing at Greenwich Village\u2019s Shade Bar (where the food is pretty darn good too). Ten crime fiction authors read from their works in three sets, with intermissions for nonstop talking and grabbing another beer.<\/p>\n

Jen Conley and Scot Adlerberg are the m.c.\u2019s, of the Manhattan group, and make an effort to exert some organization (no doubt plenty goes on behind the scenes). But the vibe is more good-natured free-for-all. Jen is an editor at Shotgun Honey <\/em>and read her short short story about the meetup of two teenage girls\u2019 soccer teams\u2014one preppy, the other from the \u201cNew Jersey girls, they have big hair\u201d school. It doesn\u2019t end well. Scott also read from his crime fiction, and he has written novels and short stories and conducts a series or two of Manhattan-based meet-ups about films.<\/p>\n

The stories live up to the billing with their emphasis on noir. Dark deeds and dark characters on the underside of down-and-out. Jennifer Hillier\u2019s excerpt from her new novel, Jar of Hearts<\/a><\/em>, featured a woman about to be released from prison; Rick Ollerman\u2019s story about a bunch of lowlifes in Las Vegas (I think), ends with a real ouch! twist; and Danny Gardner read a chapter from new work. At a previous Noir at the Bar I attended, he read from his highly rated A Negro and an Ofay<\/a><\/em>, and the new work sounded just as powerful.<\/p>\n

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photo: Jo Sutera, with permission<\/p><\/div>\n

What else? Especially enjoyable was the glamorous Hilary Davidson\u2019s excerpt from \u201cAnswered Prayers,\u201d a story that appeared in the May\/June Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine<\/em>. Even though we only heard a few minutes\u2019 worth, the conviction that a diabolical imagination lay behind what she read had everyone chuckling. Shout-outs also to Rob Hart, Alex Segura, and Kenneth Wishnia. My writing group does a public reading in March and October, and I can attest to how helpful it is for authors to have a live audience and get that feedback.<\/p>\n

In the book raffle, I was delighted to choose a copy of James McCrone\u2019s Faithless Elector<\/em>. Now what made him think that the people who actually elect U.S. presidents would be of any interest at all? Go figure.<\/p>\n

Many U.S. cities have Noir at the Bar events. Including, but not limited to Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Durham, N.C., Washington, D.C., St. Louis, New Orleans, St. Paul, the Bay Area, Dallas, Chicago, Denver, Baltimore, Miami, Queens and Staten Island, Seattle, Monterey, and cities around the world, from Glasgow to Melbourne. It may take a bit of sleuthing to find one near you\u2014try Facebook\u2014but it\u2019s a fun evening meeting authors, hearing new work. Treat yourself!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Sunday, the Manhattan efflorescence of Noir at the Bar had one of its irregular celebrations of crime fiction writing at Greenwich Village\u2019s Shade Bar (where the food is pretty darn good too). Ten crime fiction authors read from their … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Noir at the Bar - an evening out with the down and out--of literature, that is!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,52,1288,60,104],"tags":[91,472,1098,416,28,414],"class_list":["post-7366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-crime","category-culture","category-storytelling","category-the-morgue","tag-new-york","tag-noir","tag-noir-at-the-bar","tag-real-life","tag-writers","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1UO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7369,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7366\/revisions\/7369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}