Noir At The Bar - The Recap

Culver City, CA

So last night, Eric Beetner, Mystery Dawg and I held our third Noir At The Bar at The Mandrake and goddamn was it good.

DEMON BEETNER WILL DEVOUR YOUR SOUL

The crowd was fantastic and I saw some new folks I didn't recognize. That makes me happy. Whether they came to hear a friend read, hang out with a bunch of drunks telling stories, or were in the bar wondering what the hell this was all about I don't really care. I'm just glad we've managed to keep an audience and grow it a little bit each time.

We even had guests from out of state. Sabrina Ogden from Shotgun Honey was in the crowd to cheer us all on.

Travis Richardson opened up with a couple short flash pieces and a nicely jacked up story about a father and son on their way to a Boy Scout meeting when Bad Things happen.

I think he wins for most traumatic Boy Scout experience

AJ Hayes followed up with some short pieces that showed he's not just a pretty face.

Reading about the perils of witness protection

And then we had Aaron Philip Clark, whose book THE SCIENCE OF PAUL recently came out from New Pulp Press. He read a piece from a work in progress and damn that man is a talent. Watch out for this guy, folks. He's going to kick all sorts of ass.

You are going to be reading a lot about this guy, guaranteed

Bob Ward came on to read an hysterical, fucked up scene about a desperate man trying to roll over geezers at a casino, from his latest novel, THE BEST BAD DREAM.

I had no idea casinos were this dangerous

And then me reading a chunk from CITY OF THE LOST.

Drunker than I look

A huge thank you to Mysterious Galaxy for coming out and having books on hand. We're hoping to have that be a regular thing, so when we do the next one you'll be able to get copies of the readers' work and maybe get it signed by the author if you're into that sort of thing.

And speaking of the next one, we're already lined up for March 25th. So far we've got Hilary Davidson, Johnny Shaw and Gary Phillips lined up and we're working on getting more.

If you came by last night, thank you. I hope you enjoyed it and I'm really glad you could make it. And if you weren't around, well, you're missing out on some of the best crime writers out there.

Join us next time. We'd love to see you.