Category: Stray Thoughts

Tour with Ray Raposa (Castanets)

Essayist Amy Long and musician Raymond Raposa today announced a joint tour in support of Long’s debut essay collection Codependence, out September 10 via Cleveland State University Poetry Center. The pair will celebrate the book’s release at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn on September 14 and end their tour on October 1 in Portland, Oregon. Most shows will feature both a reading by Long and a solo performance by Raposa, who last toured the U.S. on the back of his 2012 release Little Death Shaker (Asthmatic Kitty). Full dates are posted below.

Long’s book, Codependence: Essays was selected by Brian Blanchfield as the winner of CSUPC’s 2018 Essay Collection Competition and has been deemed “an essential book for the opioid era.” The essays juxtapose Long’s past recreational opioid use against her current medicinal use to treat chronic pain. “I wanted to do the tour with Ray because our work addresses similar themes—despair, death, love, pain—in wildly different ways, and touring with a band just seems more fun and gives audiences a more immersive experience than a traditional reading,” Long said Friday. She and Raposa will do solo events in some cities, adding other bands and writers into the mix as well. 

DATES:

Sept. 14, 2019 — Brooklyn, NY 

Pete’s Candy Store @ 6PM

  • with Amy Shearn

September 16 — Blacksburg, VA +

Virginia Tech, Shanks Hall @ 8pm

September 17 — Durham, NC 

Okay All Right (Mettlesome) @ 7pm

  • with Brice Randall Bickford

September 18 — Athens, GA 

The World Famous @ 8pm

  • with Brice Randall Bickford

September 21 — Austin, TX

Bookpeople @ 2pm +

  • in conversation with Amy Gentry 

Hotel Vegas @ 7:00 *

  • with Little Mazarn

September 24 — Phoenix, AZ *

Chopper John’s @ 8pm

  • with Some Dark Hollow

September 25 — San Diego, CA

VENUE @ 8pm

September 27 — San Francisco, CA +

Green Apple Books @ 7PM

  • with Anna Hamilton

September 28 — San Francisco, CA*

Hotel Utah @ 9pm

September 30 — Portland, OR*

Polaris Hall @ 8pm 

October 1 — Portland, OR +

Valentine’s @ 6pm

  • with Sophia Shalmiyev 

+ Long Solo

* Raposa Solo

LINKS

Codependence: Essays

Castanets Bandcamp

Castanets Facebook

I’m Notable: Best American Essays 2018

My essay “A Glossary of Terms,” originally published in Hayden’s Ferry Review, was listed among Best American Essays 2018‘s Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2017. The essay is also a Pushcart nominee.

I never thought I’d see my name on the same list with Jonathan Franzen or in a book with work by Leslie Jamison, Heidi Julavitz, and Rick Moody, but there it is! The BAE 2018 Notable list also includes Alexander Chee, Juliet Escoria, Nick Flynn, YiYun Li, Valeria Luiselli, Rebecca Solnit, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Julie Marie Wade, and a ton of other writers I love and admire. I’m honored and humbled that my name is listed with theirs. Hayden’s Ferry Review received a Notable Special Issue designation for Issue 60, The Marginalized and the Avant Garde issue, in which “A Glossary of Terms” appears. Congratulations to HFR, my fellow Notables, and the writers whose work appears in the anthology.

Thank you to Robert Atwan for deeming my essay Notable.

Buy a copy from your local independent bookstore or via your preferred online retailer!