Saturday’s KGB Reading

 

KGB Bar, 85 East 4th St, New York

Another spectacle of literary prowess transpired this weekend at a storied artistic hideaway, the KGB Bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a watering hole which has suffered my presence on many an occasion these last few months. This Saturday was the Rutgers University at Newark MFA reading, featuring two fiction writers and a poet. All three demonstrated such zest and talent that my hackles stiffened and became straighter than the heavily-insured hairs clinging to David Schwimmer’s scalp (another notable LES denizen who was, for some reason, absent from the KGB event). 

Fiction writers Katie Reilly and Serena W. Lin wowed the crowd with stories of hypnosis and domestic violence, respectively. Reilly and Lin showed wildly different sensibilities, yet their words pleased the ears like none I’ve heard in recent memory. What lovely wordsmiths they are!

The cerebral poetry of Caitlyn Ferguson punctuated the evening’s fiction. Who said the erudite couldn’t indulge in the language of the unwashed masses? A few epithets never hurt anyone. Thank you, Mlle. Ferguson, for gently reminding us of this truism with your gilded verse.

Keep an eye on KGB Bar’s online calendar of events next month, dear reader, for the Rutgers MFA program’s last reading of the semester.