{"id":7793,"date":"2019-02-20T07:00:26","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7793"},"modified":"2019-02-20T07:00:33","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T12:00:33","slug":"reading-at-the-kgb-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7793","title":{"rendered":"Reading at the KGB Bar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Last night a writing friend and I participated in an even\nthat puts us right at the fringes of the fringes of New York literary society\u2014a\nreading sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America at KGB Bar in the East\nVillage. KGB Bar is hidden away on the second story of an old tenement, up a\nvertiginous flight of stairs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although this description doesn\u2019t do it justice in terms of its\nfine balance of joie de vivre teetering on the edge of seediness, here\u2019s what the founder, Denis Woychuk, says<\/a> about it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the years since it opened in 1993, KGB has become something of a New York literary institution. Writers hooked up in the publishing world read here with pleasure and without pay to an adoring public . . . The crowd loves it. Admission is free, drinks are cheap and strong, and the level of excellence is such that KGB has been named best literary venue in New York City by New York Magazine, the Village Voice, and everyone else who bestows these awards of recognition. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s right about the pleasure part. It was attentive crowd, even though I was the final reader of five, when the audience had already enjoyed several of those drinks! Wanting to appear convivial yet be one-the-ball for my reading, I\u2019d nursed one glass of wine all evening. \u201cWhat white wines do you have?\u201d I asked the bartender. \u201cPinot grigio.\u201d \u201cOh. What red wines do you have?\u201d \u201cCabernet Sauvignon.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll have that.\u201d The barrel savage. How appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other readers\u2014P.D. Halt, Mary Jo Robertiello, James D.\nRobertson, and A.J. Sidransky\u2014each read a scene from one of their novels. I\nread the opening of a short story to be published by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine<\/em>. No idea when it will see the light\nof day, but if you\u2019re a subscriber, watch for it! It\u2019s called \u201cNew Energy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m so thankful to my writing group, Room at the Table, for\norganizing our twice-a-year public readings. (The next one is March 27! For\ndetails, see our Facebook page.) Great prep for my eight minutes at KGB–a\nformer speakeasy and Lucky Luciano outpost, then h.q. for the Ukrainian Labor\nHome, a socialist hangout, which explains the Soviet memorabilia and the\nhammer-and-sickle matchbooks. It was fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night a writing friend and I participated in an even that puts us right at the fringes of the fringes of New York literary society\u2014a reading sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America at KGB Bar in the East … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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":"Reading at the KGB Bar - mystery, story, drinks, and fun on the Lower East Side!","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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[62,174,35,60,29],"tags":[1517,1518],"class_list":["post-7793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-authors","category-first-draft-blog","category-real-life","category-storytelling","category-writing","tag-kgb-bar","tag-mystery-writers-of-america"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/KGB-Bar.jpg?fit=272%2C337&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-21H","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7793","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=7793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7795,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7793\/revisions\/7795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}