![\"With](\"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/With-Tom-Monteleone.jpg\")
<\/a>We took Manhattan.<\/p>\nThis past Wednesday, my good friend Tom Monteleone<\/a> and I\u00a0performed for an\u00a0enthusiastic crowd at New York’s KGB<\/a>, the literary venue in the East Village that has become known as the best literary venue in the city. That’s us (left) plotting before the show, having a sit down in a scene that looks as if it could have been composed by Martin Scorsese<\/a> or\u00a0Jules Dassin<\/a>. (It was shot by Ellen Datlow<\/a>, who took many of the photos featured in this post. You can see them all full size here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The Fantastic Fiction Series<\/a> hosted by Ellen Datlow<\/a> and Matthew Kressel<\/a> runs the third Wednesday of every month in KGB’s Red Room — an intimate space that fills up quickly. Readings start at 7:00, but it’s a good idea to get there early if you want a seat.<\/p>\n Our event kicked off with Matthew Kressel<\/a> (left) announcing the roster of upcoming readers, an impressive list featuring\u00a0Elizabeth Hand,\u00a0Kathe Koja,\u00a0Rio Youers, and others.<\/p>\n My selection for the night was “Beneath Between,” which originally appeared in The Stories in Between<\/a><\/em> and has since been included in Voices<\/a><\/em> (my 2011 print collection that is due to be released in ebook this fall). The story is a contemporary fantasy about the sf\u00a0genre, and I was keen to perform\u00a0it for an informed audience of readers and writers who\u00a0would catch its many inside references. I wasn’t disappointed. They were a perfect audience.<\/p>\n For his reading, Tom Monteleone performed the story “Horn of Plenty,” a tale\u00a0originally released as part of Dark Voices<\/a><\/em>, the well-regarded audio series from Borderlands Press. Tom has always been one of my favorite readers. A true 21st-century scop, he knows that reading live\u00a0involves more than showing up with the printed text and a\u00a0willingness to read it. He prepares his work, rehearsing\u00a0the voice and timing to guarantee a dynamic and nuanced presentation. When space permits, he breaks the fourth wall<\/a> by walking through the audience as he reads.<\/p>\n In all, it was a great night. The next morning, waking up in a\u00a0Midtown room that looked out on the art-deco\u00a0face of the historic New Yorker\u00a0Hotel, I was ready to do it all again.<\/p>\n Until then . . . scop on!<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong><\/span> We took Manhattan. This past Wednesday, my good friend Tom Monteleone and I\u00a0performed for an\u00a0enthusiastic crowd at New York’s KGB, the literary venue in the East Village that has become known as the best literary venue in the city. That’s us (left) plotting before the show, having a sit down in a scene that looks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-cat-21st-centuryscop","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6,8,856,7,701,50],"class_list":["post-8541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-centuryscop","tag-fantasy","tag-horror","tag-readings","tag-science-fiction","tag-spoken-word","tag-storytelling"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8541"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23429,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8541\/revisions\/23429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawrencecconnolly.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>If you’ve ever been to a reading at KGB, you know why it’s so highly regarded. If you haven’t, you should start planning your trip now.<\/p>\n<\/a>Among those attending our\u00a0readings were Meghan Arcuri<\/a>,\u00a0Daniel Braum<\/a>,\u00a0Trevor Firetog<\/a>,\u00a0Karen Heuler<\/a>,\u00a0Jack Ketchum<\/a>, and Christine Cohen, Vaughne Hansen and Will Reeve of the Virginia Kidd Literary Agency<\/a>. That’s Meghan and Trevor above right, sitting with SHU Popular Fiction<\/a> writer Tom Connair.<\/p>\n<\/a>Naturally, as I have been doing\u00a0for the past few years, I read the story from memory. (I have an upcoming post on this topic coming soon. Look for it under the title “Scop 102.”)<\/p>\n<\/a>Although the tightly packed crowd at the KGB didn’t permit such mingling while reading, Tom nevertheless managed to break down that fourth wall of performance without leaving the podium. Intimate and personable, his\u00a0story about musical obsession was well suited for the venue (especially when music from a\u00a0Salty Brine<\/a> show on an adjacent stage filtered into to Fantastic Fiction space).<\/p>\n
\nTom Monteleone and The 21st-Century Scop in a pre-performance meeting at the KGB. Photo copyright\u00a0\u00a9 2015 by Ellen Datlow.
\nMeghan Arcuri<\/a>, Tom Connair, and\u00a0Trevor Firetog<\/a>\u00a0get ready for the show.\u00a0Photo copyright\u00a0\u00a9 2015 by Ellen Datlow.
\nCover of <\/em>Dark Voices Volume 1: Thomas F. Monteleone’s Horn Of Plenty.\u00a0\u00a0Art and cover design\u00a0copyright\u00a0\u00a9 2015 by Borderlands Press.
\nThe New Yorker Hotel. Photo copyright \u00a9 2015 by The 21st-Century Scop.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"