Bad Princess Diaries

More vanity...

2012-01-31T17:47:00.000-08:00

Someone whose name shall remain unnamed made a tumblr fansite for me. I'm totes honored.

Featherless Reading Feb. 10th @ Stories Books in Echo Park

2012-01-31T16:58:00.000-08:00

8-9 pm, back patio
(bring a coat)

1716 SUNSET BLVD., Los Angeles, CA 90026

EDWARD GAUVIN
KATE DURBIN
CAMILLE ROY

read tonight!
...
The winner of the John Dryden Translation prize, Edward Gauvin has received fellowships and residencies from the NEA, the Fulbright Program, the Centre National du Livre, and the American Literary Translators' Association. His volume of Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud’s selected stories, A Life on Paper (Small Beer, 2010) won the Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award and was shortlisted for the Best Translated Book Award. Other translations have appeared in Tin House, Subtropics, The Harvard Review, The Southern Review, AGNI Online, and PEN America. The contributing editor for Francophone comics at Words Without Borders, he translates comics for Top Shelf, Archaia, and Lerner.

Writing under the name H.V. Chao, his fiction has previously been published in Epiphany, Nanoism, and Diet Soap. He is a first year fiction PhD student at USC.

Kate Durbin is a Los Angeles-based writer and performance artist. Her books include The Ravenous Audience (Akashic Books), E! Entertainment (Insert/Blanc Press Diamond Edition, forthcoming), Gaga Stigmata (Zg Press, forthcoming), The Fashion Issue (Zg Press, forthcoming), and, with Amaranth Borsuk, ABRA (Zg Press, forthcoming).

Camille Roy is a writer and performer of fiction, poetry, and plays. Her book, Sherwood Forest came out in 2011 from Futurepoem. She co-edited Biting The Error: Writers Explore Narrative, a book of essays by writers on their own experimental practices (CoachHouse). Her books include Cheap Speech, a play, from Leroy, and Craquer, a fictional autobiography from 2nd Story Books , as well as Swarm (two novellas, Black Star Series). Earlier books include The Rosy Medallions (poetry and prose, from Kelsey St Press) and Cold Heaven (plays, from Leslie Scalapino's O Books). She was a founding editor of the online journal Narrativity (http://www.sfsu.edu/~poetry/narrativity). Roy has taught creative writing in multiple genres and forms at several institutions, including San Francisco State University, California State University SummerArts, and Naropa.

Exciting! Exciting!

Pics and Write Up of TAN FAT Salon / The Dog Show in papermag

2012-01-31T15:33:00.000-08:00

There's a fun write up of the salon I read at at The Dog Show USA the other night in papermag, along with some awesome pics. The entire event was so dreamy. Pink cake + flowers everywhere + pillow necklaces a la TAN FAT + exploding unicorn heads + lavender champagne + silk bedsheets (I read in bed) + goth lyfe coaching a la Claire Cronin + 90's sportswear. What a dream!

2012-01-26T22:16:00.000-08:00

Here's a poster Tim Jones-Yelvington made for our upcoming reading at AWP. I'll be doing three readings at AWP--on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, and I'll have a different outfit/performance/reading for each night as well as different, all totally brilliant co-horts for each reading, too. More information on the whole she-bang coming soon. Hope to see you there! xoKate

2012-01-22T21:52:00.000-08:00

You can now order one of a handful of copies of a handmade, very limited edition art catalogue for SF artist Matt Momchilov, created by Birds of Lace / the amazing Gina Abelkop. I contributed a piece inspired by Courtney Love's and Divine's closets / google searches. Other contributors include Ben Fama, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Mike Kitchell, Leon Baham, and more.

2012-01-20T01:34:00.001-08:00

"The Hills" in brighstupidconfetti

2012-01-19T12:46:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to Christopher Higgs for featuring "The Hills" at his art blog/magazine brightstupidconfetti. If you aren't following brightstupidconfetti, you really should be. Art in America calls it: “…one of the more innovative and quixotic curated art websites in the blogosphere...”

"The Hills" on InDigest's Poem of the Day Podcast

2012-01-17T14:12:00.000-08:00

Click through here. I've also been working on the extended version of the episode for the Diamond Edition of E! Entertainment--I write one scene a day. This book will be three or four times as long as the chapbook--get ready!

2012-01-06T16:00:00.000-08:00

Tim Jones-Yelvington has a piece up at Requited inspired in part by Kate Zambreno's Green Girl and my talk at &Now PARDONMYWHOREMOANS.

PARDONMYWHOREMOANS will be published soon in the book 6 Memes for the New Millenium from Zg Press, along with a never released interview with JG Ballard.

Twitter

2012-01-01T13:58:00.001-08:00

You can now follow me on Twitter!

Follow @Kate_Durbin

Merry Xmas from Me and The Hills!

2011-12-26T02:45:00.000-08:00

I am once again thrilled to be a part of Delirious Hem's advent kalender, as Day 25 (Xmas Day!). Click through to listen to me reading an excerpt from "The Hills."

Happy California Xmas!

Becca Klaver's "I Would Never Raise My Hand"

2011-12-24T15:21:00.000-08:00

I love this poetic essay Becca Klaver wrote for my birthday, that takes it's jumping off point from my piece Pardonmywhoremoans (but really is its own wonderful angsty beast). Becca read this to me at her Brooklyn apartment on my birthday, at an amazing soiree she hosted for me that was full of fabulous NYC poets.

"I Would Never Raise My Hand"

In class, she is mute. At home, she screams I HATE YOU at her parents.
—Kate Durbin, “PARDONMYWHOREMOANS”

I would never raise my hand in class. I would whisper the answer to the boy sitting in front of me. I would never speak Spanish in Spanish class. I would scrawl musical sentences. The teacher liked my handwriting, asked me to write the placecards for her sister’s wedding to José Greco, famous flamenco dancer.

I would never raise my hand in class. I don’t speak your language I was a girl in a forest with three other girls and we made up our own. I would sign into America Online, get cryptic IMs from nerdy boys. They tried to psych me out but I kept getting better grades. I had all the answers why should I tell. When I wanted I’d whisper but I would never raise my hand in class.

2011-12-21T16:49:00.000-08:00

The amazing SF writer Dodie Bellamy wrote up this lovely blog post on the Insert / Blanc reading benefit and holiday party:

"Mostly I wanted to write a bit about the Insert Blanc Press Benefit & Holiday Party we attended Saturday night. It was held at Weekend Space gallery, on Hollywood Blvd, in Los Feliz. The event was way better than it had a right to be. I was steeling myself for the dull panic that a marathon poetry reading can bring on. But host Mathew Timmons wisely broke the evening up into 4 sets, with a handful of readers in each, with smoking and drinking (and book buying) breaks in between, so the overall feeling of the evening was a swinging party interspersed with poetic entertainment. The readings were excellent, and I got to hear a number of younger Los Angeles poets whom I wasn't familiar with. Kevin and I helped Kate Durbin read from the second excerpt of her new chapbook E! Entertainment, for which we played Lauren and Whitney of the MTV reality series The Hills. For the first excerpt Mark Wallace and Brian Stefans played Lauren and Whitney, acting out the mannerisms and facial expressions of the girls. Mark and Brian put their hearts and souls into their roles, and were a hard act to follow."

These are the red glitter blood tears my TV cries when I watch reality TV. We passed them around the room like communion. Photo by Harold A.

You can click through here to see more images that LA writer Harold Abromowitz took of the event. Harold is always so wonderful about photographing LA's writing events. We're lucky to have him--otherwise a lot of this history would go unrecorded.

WOMEN AS OBJECTS featured in Trickhouse Magazine

2011-12-17T14:48:00.000-08:00

From Kristen Nelson's introduction:

Internet writing projects have a satisfying immediacy. In so many blogs, the writing is raw, honest, passionate, direct. I think that the most successful blogs spark conversations like comfortable dinner parties, where after good food and a few glasses of prosecco someone explains what they have been thinking/writing/dreaming about. They ask, “Does that make any sense?” Everyone else unpacks it, dissects the thoughts, agrees, disagrees, explores, and feels nourished by the conversation.

A few months ago Trickhouse featured Origin, A Novel in Installments by Elizabeth Rollins (Madame Frankie Karamazov), a brilliant vehicle for publishing her novel that offers writing prompts and invites collaboration. The eight internet writing projects featured below are different in their content—dreams, the notes of teenage girls, political analysis, bibliomancy, an individual’s daily experience, virtual postcards. But like Frankie’s Origin, they reach an audience by carving their own niche in cyberspace and offer up their words without the filters of editors or presses. I suppose I should be careful and say that I love books and support publishers (many of the projects below are hosted by writers who publish and/or have published books). I appreciate the alternative that blogs offer. They are accessible to everyone with an Internet connection, an interest, and a desire to communicate. These projects will link you to others, which will link you to others, which will link you to others—a series of interconnected tubes, a circuitous journey into writing and art. There is beauty in this, don’t you think?

- Kristen E. Nelson, Trickhouse Curator

2011-12-11T00:07:00.001-08:00

Insert Blanc Press Benefit & Holiday Party

2011-12-05T19:27:00.000-08:00

Saturday December 17 from 6-12pm
Weekend Gallery
4634 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Donation at the door of $10 or more more$

Mathew Timmons invites you to the Insert Blanc Press Benefit & Holiday Party at Weekend Gallery, 4634 Hollywood Blvd, LA, CA 90027 on Saturday December 17 from 6-12pm.

$10.00 or more more$ Donation at the door (all donations will help cover expenses for Insert Blanc Press future and current projects and operations). Additionally, throughout the month of December Insert Blanc Press will run various tempting discounts on the whole catalog of books, all of which will also be available at the Holiday Party—many authors will be on-hand to sign copies of their books.

Artists & Writers performing at the Insert Press Benefit & Holiday Party include: Harold Abramowitz, Brian Ang, Allison Carter, Brian Joseph Davis, Robin Dicker, Kate Durbin, K. Lorraine Graham, Daniel Hockenson, Jen Hofer, Garrick Hogg, js makkos, Joseph Mosconi, Adam Overton, Christopher Russell, Ara Shirinyan, Brian Kim Stefans, Mark Wallace, and our special guests Dodie Bellamy, David Buuck & Kevin Killian.

Insert Blanc Press has published and promoted the work of over 60 artists and writers since it's humble beginnings in 2005. The PARROT series alone will publish the work of 23 writers over the course of its run and features the design work of the brilliant printer Margaret Lomeli. Blanc Press has recently published the enigmatic project (!x==[33]) Book 1 Volume 1 by .UNFO and has garnered attention by publishing the three volume series Tragodía by Vanessa Place.

From Mathew Timmons:
Over the course of December I hope to raise $5,000 for Insert Blanc Press in sales and donations to fund printing and press operations in 2012. I hope to raise $2000 of the goal at the party on Saturday December 17. $2000 will go principally to funding the printing of the remainder of the PARROT series, which, if that goal is met, I hope to have out by summer 2012. An additional $1500 will go to moving all of Blanc Press' publications to a new printer and distributor which will give us international distribution and access to sites like Amazon and actually lower the price of the books. Any additional money raised to meet our total goal of $5,000 will go towards publishing new projects in 2012, including Bruna Mori's Poetry for Corporations, Kate Durbin's E! Entertainment Diamond Edition, Joseph Mosconi's GRRR ARRRGH as well as a forthcoming project by Christopher Russell and many other projects I just can't tell you about quite yet.

Whether or not you can make it to the party, donations can be made to Insert Blanc Press anytime at the following link https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=XSKLUVBA2AFU4

Past and current Insert Blanc Press artists include: Harold Abramowitz, Amanda Ackerman, Will Alexander, Brian Ang, Stan Apps, Janine Armin, Gary Barwin, Guy Bennett, Gregory Betts, Amaranth Borsuk, Franklin Bruno, Amina Cain, Allison Carter, Teresa Carmody, Marcus Civin, Ginny Cook, Dorit Cypis, Brian Joseph Davis, Katie Degentesh, Michelle Detorie, Robin Dicker, Sandy Ding, Kate Durbin, Bradney Evans, Drew Gardner, Nada Gordon, K. Lorraine Graham, Nicholas Grider, Daniel Hockenson, Jen Hofer, Gabriella Juaregui, Maxi Kim, Janice Lee, Margaret Lomeli, Michael Magee, Joseph Makkos, Donato Mancini, Elana Mann, Sharon Mesmer, K. Silem Mohammad, William Moor, Bruna Mori, Joseph Mosconi, Jeffrey Joe Nelson, Julie Orser, adam overton, Vanessa Place, Amar Ravva, Dan Richert, Stephanie Rioux, Christopher Russell, Kim Schoen, Ara Shirinyan, Rod Smith, Michael Smoler, Brian Stefans, Stephanie Taylor, Jason Underhill, Mark Wallace, Christine Wertheim, and Allyssa Wolf.

Currently on view at Weekend Gallery: Jay Erker - This Is So Much Better - Erker's work often manipulates subjects from readily available popular imagery which, in a simple and personal way, investigates the notion of identity in public space, hierarchies of dissemination, and the desire for meaning in contemporary life.

Video from PRB Reading at Cafe RoyalT in Los Angeles

2011-11-16T22:02:00.000-08:00

"Kept Women"

"Anna Nicole Show" (featuring Lysette Simmons)

Video and Images from Poetry Project Reading in NYC

2011-11-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

2011-11-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

Silverlake Jubilee did a great write-up for E! Entertainment, and also discussed some of my recent performances.

Kate Zambreno wrote a lovely post about our reading at Skylight, along with pictures of the two Kates. If you haven't picked up her gorgeous novel Green Girl (a contemporary Bell Jar) yet, you really should.

PARDONMYWHOREMOANS

2011-11-08T18:40:00.000-08:00

I'm grateful to Danielle Pafunda and Johannes Goransson for posting my talk PARDONMYWHOREMOANS from the &Now conference in San Diego up on Montevidayo.

An excerpt: "The teenage girl is a consumer, valuable only as such. But she is inherently unstable; her identity ever in flux, the flickering roll of the tumblr scroll, the manic-heaving breasts of a cute bow-haired girl in a moving .gif. The market is always selling to this finicky, anorexic customer, who doesn’t even spend her own money. It’s mommy and daddy’s bling.

The teenage girls texts are excessive. She mumbles in girl code, she sends out an SOS to other girls she’s never met. She texts, she facebooks, she tumbles."

Read the rest here.

Visit my tumblr WOMEN AS OBJECTS here.

WOMEN AS OBJECTS

2011-11-04T20:52:00.001-07:00

I updated my WOMEN AS OBJECTS tumblr project's url.

E! Entertainment is out now from Insert Press!

2011-11-02T20:28:00.000-07:00

Purchase here. It's a full-color, limited edition, so get it while you can! And if you read and review it, do let me know.

I think it’s really cool that you write books about pop culture. I read your chapters on Lindsay Lohan & Anna Nicole Smith—love them both. —Josie Stevens, star of the E! reality TV show Married to Rock

There is no one sporting hypermediaflesh like Kate Durbin’s. With E! Entertainment she strips the TV image from its old curves, reupholstering 2D-packed pixelshit into clipped components, sentences, where somehow less surrounded they take on the shape of psychically deformed wallpaper. These are our icon baths hobbling toward you, reciting script-prayer in mime of sleep, and now Durbin is their lord. —Blake Butler, author of the novel Nothing: A Portrait of Insomnia

Kate Durbin is the brilliant combination of Warhol and Warhollian superstar—both pop satirist and performance artist. Courtroom defiant La Lohan, the clownish pathos of Anna Nicole Smith: these are Durbin’s Jackie O’s and car crashes. Her new conceptual poetry book, E! Entertainment, is both rapturous and ravaging of pop culture, sending up the paparazzi’s glare, the vampiric obsession with the lives of reality starlets, endlessly reported on E! news by fakebaked anchors with colgate smiles. Particularly poignant in this collection is Durbin’s opening piece on MTV’s The Hills, in which she narrates in microdetail the tedium and tragedy of reality TV, its scripted mumblecore, the punctures and weird rhythms, the edited, dramatic pauses, how nothing is said but there’s something bubbling underneath. All this Durbin builds to the (soap) operatic, into a backstabbing tragedy (later she counterpoises the toxic girls on The Hills with another televised catfight, in her piece on Dynasty). With Durbin’s meticulous slowdown we begin to read in between the lines, a meditation on these girls, their lives. —Kate Zambreno, author of Green Girl

2011-10-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

"Little Red's Ride" was featured in As it Ought to Be's Halloween edition.

Happy Halloween!

LES FIGUES AUCTION: CLUELESS, WHATEVER EDITION!

2011-10-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

GIVE A FIG: AS IF
5th Annual Les Figues Press Benefit Auction

(an auction as if it's an auction)
http://www.wix.com/i82418/lesfigues

Tickets:
$15-$50 in advance
$25-$50 at the door

Special: Buy 3, Get 1 Free
BUY TICKETS: https://app.etapestry.com/cart/LesFiguesPress/default/category.php?ref=1071.0.68552711

TIME: 4-7 p.m.

Featuring PERFORMANCES by:

Harold Abramowitz & Amanda Ackerman
Simon Leung
Myriam Moscona & Jen Hofer
Vanessa Place
Anna Joy Springer

Music by Heather Lockie and Billy Mark

Plus: WHATEVER: Clueless Edition! The characters of the hit 90s film Clueless do good by helping host the Les Figues 2011 auction. Embodied by Kate Durbin, Jon Rutzmoser, Cristian Flores, Samantha Cohen, and Stephen van Dyck.

Desserts by Saehee Cho
Food by Joe Monteferrante

Featuring ART & MORE by:

Alice Rutherford, Amanda Montei, Andy Kolar, Art Works Studio, Bhanu Kapil, Bill Montei, Calvin Allison, Danielle Adair, Dawson Weber, Divya Victor, Dong Hoon Jun, Dorit Cypis, Doug Nufer, Erica Baum, Geneva Skeen, Hammer Museum, Iva Gueorguiva, Jennifer Calkins, Jen Hofer, Jeny Graniel, Joe Milazzo, Joey Yearous-Algozin, Jon Rutzmoser, Kate Durbin, Katrin Jurati, Larkin Higgins, Leslie Ford, Lisa Ohweiler, Lisa Popeil, Mary Corey, Mathew Timmons, Material Press, Melissa Buzzeo, Molly Corey, Myriam Moscona, Portrait of a Bookstore, POTG Design, Redcat, Renee Petropoulos, Rob Ray, Shane Guffogg, Sarah Balcomb, Skylight Books, Stephanie Taylor, Steven Bankhead, Susan Silton, Susan Van Horn, Stommen Tutoring, Sylvia Immel, Sylvia Sukop, Tan Fat, Vanessa Place, Yedda Morrison, You Nakai, plus...

Princesses Pee

2011-10-26T22:12:00.001-07:00