The First Edition
JUNE 1st-7th 2020
London, England
Third Man Books Presents
Tuesday 2nd and Wednesday 3rd of June
Get your tickets for the first night of Third Man Books Presents at: www.ticketweb.uk
Fusing together Third Man Records and Literature - Third Man Books presents their event spread over two evenings. Filled with literary discussions from Caroline Randall Williams, Sheree Renee Thomas, Janaka Stucky, Abraham Smith, Adrian Matejka and Robert Gordon.
To find out more about Third Man Books head over to their website at: www.thirdmanbooks.com
Caroline Randall Williams
Caroline Randall Williams is a Nashville poet who travelled to the UK to research the alleged affair between Shakespeare and a madame of colour. Her book of poems Lucy Negro Redux has been made into a major ballet.
“Part lyrical narrative, part bluesy riff, part schoolyard chant and part holy incantation, the book is an unflinching investigation of otherness and a dead-sexy exploration of the intersection of identity and desire. Above all it is a witty and audacious rejoinder to literary history and its systematic suppression of female voices. Especially black female voices.” - The New York Times.
To find out more about Caroline Randall Williams visit her website at: www.carolinerandallwilliams.com
Sheree Renée Thomas
Sheree Renée Thomas is an award-winning fiction writer, poet, and editor. Her work is inspired by myth and folklore, natural science and conjure, her roots in Memphis, and in the genius culture created in the Mississippi Delta. Sheree’s stories and poetry explore ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances. She is the author of Sleeping Under the Tree of Life (Aqueduct Press), honored with a Publishers Weekly Starred Review and longlisted for the 2016 James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and of Shotgun Lullabies (2011), described as “a revelatory work like Jean Toomer’s Cane.” Thomas edited the two Dark Matter (Hachette) black speculative fiction volumes that first introduced W. E. B. Du Bois’s work as science fiction, winning two World Fantasy Awards (2001, 2005). Her work appears in numerous anthologies and literary journal and her stories have received Notable Mention in the Year’s Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy and Honorable Mention in several volumes of the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror. Her editorial work uncovered a legacy of over a century of black science fiction writing and helped launch the careers of some of the most exciting new voices in the field. Nine Bar Blues from Third Man Books is Sheree’s debut, all fiction collection. The stories encompass the heart, spirit, and music of the Mississippi Delta and of Memphis, Tennessee, where she was born and currently lives.
To find out more about Sheree Renee Thomas visit her website at: www.shereereneethomas.wordpress.com
Janaka Stucky
Janaka Stucky is a mystic poet, performer, and publisher. The founding editor of Black Ocean, as well as the annual poetry journal, Handsome, he is also the author of a few poetry collections. His poems have appeared in such journals as Denver Quarterly, Fence and North American Review, and his articles have been published by The Huffington Post and The Poetry Foundation. He is a two-time National Haiku Champion and in 2010 he was voted “Boston’s Best Poet” in The Boston Phoenix. In 2015 Jack White’s Third Man Records launched a new publishing imprint, Third Man Books, and chose Janaka’s full-length poetry collection, The Truth Is We Are Perfect, as their inaugural title. Janaka’s poems are at once incantatory, mystic, and epigrammatic. His esoteric & occult influences, combined with a mesmeric approach to performance, create an almost ecstatic presence on stage.
To find out more about Janaka Stucky, visit his website at:
Get your tickets for the second night of Third Man Books Presents at: www.ticketweb.uk
Abraham Smith
Abraham Smith is the author of five poetry collections--Destruction of Man (Third Man Books, 2018); Ashagalomancy (Action Books, 2015); Only Jesus Could Icefish in Summer (Action Books, 2014); Hank (Action Books, 2010); and Whim Man Mammon (Action Books, 2007)--and one co-authored fiction collection, Tuskaloosa Kills (Spork Press, 2018). In 2015, he released Hick Poetics (Lost Roads Press), a co-edited anthology of contemporary rural American poetry and related essays. His creative work has been recognized with fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA, and the Alabama State Council on the Arts. He lives in Ogden, Utah, where he is Assistant Professor of English at Weber State University.
Adrian Matejka was born in Nuremberg, Germany and grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is a graduate of Indiana University Bloomington and the MFA program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He is the author of The Devil’s Garden (Alice James Books, 2003) which won the New York / New England Award and Mixology (Penguin, 2009), a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series. Mixology was also a finalist for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature. His third collection, The Big Smoke (Penguin, 2013), focuses on Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight champion of the world. The Big Smoke was awarded the 2014 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was also a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award, 2014 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and 2014 Pulitzer Prize in poetry. His most recent book, Map to the Stars, was published by Penguin in 2017. His first graphic novel Last On His Feet is forthcoming from Liveright in 2021, and a chapbook of poems inspired the albums Standing on the Verge of Getting It On and Maggot Brain by the group Funkadelic is forthcoming from Third Man Books in 2020.
Check out Adrian on his website here: www.adrianmatejka.com
Adrian Matejka
Robert Gordon
Robert Gordon is a writer and a filmmaker, a Grammy winner and an Emmy winner. He’s a native Memphian who has been exporting the city’s authentic weirdness since long before his first book, It Came From Memphis (1995), a 25th Anniversary Edition of the book is forthcoming from Third Man Books in 2020. He’s been nominated for six Grammys; his win was for the liner notes to the Big Star box set Keep an Eye on the Sky. His Emmy was for Best of Enemies, the 2015 documentary about Gore Vidal, William Buckley, and the demise of civil discourse in America. He’s not the rockabilly singer, he’s not the author of Deep Blues, and he’s not the university in Scotland. He lives in Memphis.