Jersey Shore isn’t the only house of monkeys we can think of that is featured in a reality television show. Bestselling author Sara Gruen has written into her new book, Ape House, the story of an actual group of primates on primetime. Best known for her 2006 novel Water for Elephants, a…
If you’ve ever been to a Wynwood Second Saturdays Art Walk, you’ve probably met the Miami Poetry Collective. They’re the ones behind makeshift tables — littered with vintage typewriters and half-empty cups of beer — selling custom poems for a couple of bucks. The project is called Poem Depot, and…
Poets live in a state of perpetual observation, searching for meaning and beauty where others see barrenness. They dwell in the trenches; often acting as our greatest philosophers, reporting back in beautiful language. F. Daniel Rzicznek, a professor at Bowling Green State University and one of the top young poets…
Christy GastAs soon as we type the N-word, most of you are going to skim on by this post. So we won’t type narrative (damn! OK, we won’t type it more than once). Let’s just call it the ability to tell a good story. Anyway, three Miami artists will tip…
via FacebookIt is Friday, September 24, 8 p.m. at Books & Books in Coral Gables. Author Carolina Garcia Aguilera is pacing around the bookstore noticeably nervous. Smiling politely she greets her fans, most of whom religiously follow her writing. Just like the author, the readers are anxious. After all, they’re…
Grove Press published Jack Kerouac.Thanks to Barney Rosset, the man behind Grove Press and the Evergreen Review, we all got drunk on the road poetics of Jack Kerouac, blissed out on the ballsy cadence of Allen Ginsberg, and humbled by the witty domestic disputes of Tom Stoppard plays. Tonight, the…
OK. So admitting that you were a hostage negotiator at the Branch Davidian ranch outside of Waco, Texas in 1993–where more than 80 individuals ended up dying–is a little like saying you’re a chastity coach at a French cathouse. Then again, when you are dealing with a sociopath like David Koresh…
JJohn D’Agataohn D’Agata loves dogs, but he doesn’t own one of his own. He also loves reading art magazines because he enjoys the way the critics write. These are two interesting facts Cultist learned while corresponding with the poet and essayist who was credited by Annie Dillard as “redefining the…
Imagine being handed a VIP card to every major circle of the art world. Then try to convince yourself whether or not you can withstand the pressure, the glamor, the expectation, the academia, and the absurd amounts of money being spent. Art historian and sociologist Sarah Thornton goes on safari…
Static, deep silence, and the sound of thought waves wind and rush through Serge Carrefax. A boy raised on an English estate where his radio-obsessed father ran a school for the deaf, Serge watches his teenage sister Sophie die, serves as a radio operator during World War I, becomes a…
Bummed out that tennis superstar Venus Williams canceled her Miami Book Fair appearance? Oh hey good news! The multiple Grand Slam champion will be signing her book Come to Win at the Books & Books at Bal Harbour Shops on Wednesday, September 15. So instead of waiting in line for…
With the season five premiere of Dexter on Showtime only two weeks away, it’s as if all the planets have aligned for any fanboy of the show. As 58-year-old author Jeff Lindsay told us over the phone, the fact that his latest novel, Dexter is Delicious, was released around the…
Anyone who’s spent an afternoon on Key Biscayne or climbed the island’s lighthouse has seen them: the cluster of mysterious wooden houses, hugging the horizon, absurd and alluring in the middle of the sea. The ramshackle frames are all that remains of Stiltsville, a colony of homes built in Biscayne…
How do you kill an Argentine? Make him stand on his ego and jump. So goes the old Colombian joke as told by Sabina, a Colombian-American girl from New Jersey, the daughter of immigrants, and the protagonist of Patricia Engel’s Vida. In one of Vida’s nine stories, Sabina spends time…
Dating sites offer participants two things: 1.) the realization of how depressing their lives have become that they have to meet people virtually instead of IRL (in real life) and 2.) the ability to provide hope that they will meet someone ever. Then there’s deciding which site is the best…
Last Saturday was International Read Comics in Public Day. Did you miss it? Do you even know where your local comic books store is? Such stores have gone the way of Blockbusters and dodo birds; they’re practically extinct. Tate’s Comics in Broward gets a lot of love, but what about…
Carolina Garcia-Aguilera has got one kick-ass job. Not that New Times is jealous – after all, we spend most of our time writing about how to smother your boyfriend or have sex with appliances – but the SoBe-based mystery writer seems to having a helluva a good time.In Garcia-Aguilera’s newest…
All of fashion’s elite — Coco Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior — hail from France, so it’s only natural they were all inspired by legendary French dressmaker Madeleine Vionnet. You’ve probably never heard of her, but the “queen of the bias cut” is the reason we ladies no longer…
The more we learn about this year’s Miami Book Fair authors, the more it looks like a fantastical dinner party where Jesus Christ and Winston Churchill come over for Limoncello and shrimp carbonara. As we announced last week, the lineup already includes a cocktail of Sir Michael Caine, Jonathan Franzen,…
For such a superficial city, Miami does alright by its bibliophiles (that’s book lovers for you who aren’t). We have a big-time book fair every fall, successful independent bookstores like Books & Books, and a healthy helping of the two major chains Barnes and Noble and Borders. But without exception,…
Holy Lord, the Miami Book Fair International 2010 author lineup has been announced, and it is off the chain. For the literati out there, that translates to “It’s outstanding!” Not that last year was too shabby, with amazing presentations by Native American funny-man and brilliant storyteller Sherman Alexie, “the reason…
Remember in Que Pasa, U.S.A? when Abuela hears the nursery rhyme “Jack and Jill went up the hill” and screams, “Solos?!” Well, maybe Abuela didn’t understand that fine piece of poetry, but she definitely would have gotten into Hialeah Haikus. Last night, at Books & Books in Coral Gables, members…
