“Cool” and Now

There was a Saturday in February when I tried to remember everything I thought was cool 10 years ago. I walked the East Village, weaving my way in and out of stores bearing everything from boldly colored scarves to Thai hand salve to photography books I’ll never be able to afford. I gripped my leather jacket tighter around me because, after nearly 11 years in this town I still haven’t learned how to attire myself properly on cold days. My thoughts quickly turned to avoiding the patches of ice I’ve slipped on in the past only to fall in the exact same place every time, leaving myself with scars directly under my kneecaps. I remember some of them now, though. I remember flavored vodka sodas at Beauty Bar (agh), lengua tacos from the truck on 14th and 8th at 3am, the house band at the Village Underground. Ladyfag’s Vandam party on Sundays at Greenhouse in Soho. A now defunct Australian restaurant on the Upper West Side called The Sunburnt Calf where we’d sit in giant parties of 6, 8, 10 or more for birthdays or out-of-town-visits or maybe just a Saturday night. Pay-what-you-wish nights at the International Center of Photography. Free lectures at NYU. CHERYL parties somewhere in what were then the wilds of Brooklyn.

Few of these things still exist and my own realms of possibility have also expanded beyond them, but I remember the feeling of chasing cool across New York City. It was a feeling I duplicated recently as I searched for Kim Hastreiter’s The New Now in different locations throughout the East Village. Hastreiter, who in 1984 co-founded Paper, iconic magazine of a very specific New York kind of cool, had undertaken a new project in the pandemic, a DIY newsletter offered for free at specific businesses throughout three three of the five boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx). I saw this newsletter popping up all across my Instagram feed, populating the grids of the capital-C chic and cool of New York and I had to have it. It would be not just a historic artifact of New York publishing, but it would be like being in on a small(ish) secret, insiderdom. Something that, as much as I love the life I’ve lived and carved out for myself in New York, is not something I’d ever say I had.

I think often of a Lou Reed quote I once saw at The Andy Warhol Museum when I was living in Pittsburgh: “If you weren’t a journalist, you’d never be invited to anything cool.” For a long time, I fully believed this was true. In many ways, I still do. I have forever thought of myself as a raging nerd, though my obsessions with and passions for cultural arbiters outside “the mainstream” have occasionally earned me opposite designations from others. Over a decade has gone by and I’m still chasing “cool,” a sentiment which I fully realize is anything but. I continually checked Hastreiter’s list of stockists on her Instagram, seeing which stores were nearby and open and supposed to have The New Now. Hastreiter refers to these as “likeminded businesses,” so the list also became a guide of sorts to the life Hastreiter leads, she who in the last 35+ years has become an arbiter of a very New York sensibility.

I perused Dashwood Books, at which I arrived by descending a staircase on the chic, cobblestoned Bond Street, a place I had never been. I marveled at its art books, its collaboration tote bag with photographer Ari Marcopoulous, its smartly designed zines, and in the back, Permanent Paper, another pandemic project, by stylist Masayo Kishi. The large-sized, elegantly designed biannual print magazine is filled with photos by Arthur Elgort, Luis Sanchis, Martyn Thompson, and more that could all be unfolded from the magazine's delicate pages and hung as art work on their own. I had been teased by the images for weeks online and immediately surrendered my credit card after turning its pages. But Dashwood didn’t have the newsletter I originally sought, so I moved on to another bookstore.

Karma Bookstore on East 3rd Street looks almost like an art gallery, unusual to anyone used to braving the stacks. A man with long dark hair in a long camel coat, fancy sweatpants and sneakers assists a customer. I wonder again about what “cool” is. Maybe it’s better to be cool without the quotes around it, to be a more subjective, mutable version of it, than to aspire to a life inside quotation marks. The thing I’ve liked about being a journalist is that I get to be in several worlds but not of them. I’ve never had to commit to a lifestyle because my life is constantly changing, perhaps not unlike New York itself. But I’m still excited about finding the newsletter, and Karma has what I’m looking for on more than one front: both the newsletter and Chantal Regnault’s photography book Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of New York, 1989-92, which I need as research for my book. These are things I think are cool, no quotation marks. I think that’s how I prefer it.

It also dawned on me, certainly later than it should have, that I was on a scavenger hunt. But in the process I’m tasting bites of New York I hadn’t known before and supporting local businesses. It’s a relief to know that even after a decade there’s still more to learn, that even amidst its constant, and at this point uncertain, changes, New York is not dead. I don’t even know that it’s sleeping. It’s maybe just on a longer coffee break, smoking a cigarette outside, burning down to filter after filter after deep, extended inhales, waiting until it’s safe to come back inside.

32

The day I turn 32, I take a self-portrait then weave my arms through my t-shirt of David Bowie’s mugshot and into a jacket that looks like I skinned Elmo. It is a Tuesday, Election Day, and I have resolved to spend the day as I wish, which thus far includes bundling myself up tight and heading downtown on the ferry. On the top deck, I tie my hair up so it doesn’t become one giant knot and the wind courses over my ears. I should probably have a hat, but I don’t. Exiting at Stuyvesant Cove, I trot in my black leather boots over to B&H for a grilled cheese and tomato soup and coffee. I know I’m one year older; it's nice it's not something that makes this day any different for any strangers walking past me.

I sit and read Charlie LeDuff’s Work and Other Sins, his collection of writing from The New York Times, in Washington Square Park. Youths skateboard and an old man sits on the bench next to me reading the newspaper. My hands and my nose protest that it’s slightly too cold for this, but I persist as I read a story about a pimp trying to make it in New York City after great success in Boston. When my hands and nose give up, I amble over to Mercer Street Books to buy myself a birthday present. Despite over 10 years in the city at this point, I hadn’t been there before Steven Jude took me there on a warm day this past summer. I had already bought too many books that day, and in trying to decide between Anais Nin and Sherrill Tippins and Frank O’Hara, I ultimately decided to leave them all on the shelf. But today, peering amongst the stacks while fielding birthday messages, my birthday present takes the shape of David Rakoff’s essay collection Half Empty, and I look forward to consuming his intellectual snark after I finish...yet another book I probably didn’t need to buy.

As the clock ticks ever nearer to 4pm, I make my way to Cafe Reggio to meet Meena, a new friend I met at an art gallery a few weeks ago. It is nice to know that even after a decade, there are still more good, interesting humans to include in my life, that I haven’t a threshold of friendships, even though it’s something DJ Khaled might prefer. Meena wants to take me for birthday “tea and cakes,” she says because she is British. We sit in the nearly 100-year-old cafe on MacDougal Street that’s normally crawling with tourists but today is merely a venue for working or meeting New Yorkers. There is an eclair and a croissant and blackberry tea and talk of politics, music, food before we cross over to Thompson Street.

“Do you want to play chess?” Meena says, and what a question! I don’t think it’s something someone’s asked me since middle school and, delighted by the novelty, I say yes. We go to Ches Forum. I have not played in years and my minimal skill is evident. As I remember the game minimal confidence erringly grows to hubris that correctly shrinks down again in fits of laughter. The music in the background is classical and “very chess-y,” Meena says, sort of intellectually crowded and complex in ways that make us laugh at both it and ourselves.

Walking down Bleecker Street later, bars with outdoor seating have propped up flat screen TVs so people can sit and watch the election results come in. It’s still early, a bit past 8pm, but my home county of Broward in South Florida, so far appears blue, which is a welcome change from years past. But of course I have already voted and it is my birthday, so I prefer to think about that instead.

I take myself to dinner at my new favorite spot, Kimika, on Kenmare Street. My plan is to indulge as much as I did for my birthday in Hawaii last year, to take care of myself and not worry about anyone else, a luxury I don't normally I afford myself. I remember the freedom in that, in just making myself happy, and that translates to dinner this evening. I don’t have to share, I don’t have to order anything I don’t want to order, I can eat as much of every dish as I want, and I don’t have to make clever conversation. All I have to do is enjoy the food, and I do indeed: their spicy shishito pepper margarita, olives in chili oil, figs with shiso and prosciutto, their signature rice cake lasagna with kimchi, various broccolis cooked in beef fat (!!!), apple crostata with melt-in-my-mouth pastry, and those miraculous, sinful, fabulously unholy mochi bomboloncini with warm nutella centers. Chef Christine Lau comes out and we do a birthday shot of tequila together because hers was the week before.

I leave with a feeling of having taken care of myself. This was a day I asked myself what I wanted to and my goodness did I answer with aplomb.

Good Dates, Part I

I've said it before and I'll say it again: sometimes the best dates you'll ever go on are the ones you go on with your friends.

RD
RD and meet in Chelsea at around 4pm. We drink tea and talk about boys who kiss us, who don't kiss us, and who kiss us strangely. He slices an edge off of his almond croissant for me because I tell him I'm not eating dessert again until the holidays but he wants me to try it anyway. It's delicious, and I wish I could eat the whole thing.

We make our way to New York Live Arts, where one of my favorite modern choreographers, Sonya Tayeh, is exhibiting the piece she's been working on as a part of a residency at the space. The dancers wear black and the space is almost grey with low light. They flick their legs and arch their backs in time to interviews set to music, where Sonya talks about the aftermath of coming out to her mother, who has barely spoken to her since. Afterward, Sonya sits quietly for a talkback with the audience, musicians Jo Lampert and duo The Bergsons, and Janet Eilber, Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Dance Company. Sonya's hair is long and thick, shaved on the sides of her head. She wears pieces in long, draping black. RD notices how her gestures when she speaks are a dance on their own, long, lithe fingers moving perfectly in time to the music of her speech. I always like seeing dance with people who aren't dancers because they notice things like that.

After Sonya, we head to dinner at Mizu, one of the spots RD usually goes for lunch. We eat soup and sushi and talk about gender inequality in the workplace. I nibble at his black cod sushi in miso dressing and wish I had ordered it myself. He tries to get me to order dessert again, cocking his eyebrow at me mischievously. I want the green tea mochi, but I drink water instead. Somehow he forgives me, and we bundle ourselves into our coats for a brief stop at Flying Tiger. The store is originally Danish, and is kind of the Ikea of home decor--tea towels for $3, funny cocktail napkins for $1, a set of magnets for $2, and so on--where it might fall apart but at least it looks cute for a while first. It turns out we've arrived 10 minutes to closing, but the store's bright lights still welcome us and nobody shoos us away.  The store has a path you have to follow to go through it, so you end up seeing everything and snatching up what you like along the way. I end up with some kitchen cloths patterned with hearts and red lip magnets that I will immediately come home later and neatly place on my fridge.

We part ways soon after, each of us heading uptown on different sides of the island. "This has been such a nice evening!" he says. "I thought I was just going to do the requisite, 'Hi, I miss you, your hair is gorgeous' and then leave, but this is so much better."

HanOre
HanOre and I always have a fantastic evening, but this evening was made even better by an adventure to a hole-in-the-wall joint for one of the best meals I've had since moving to New York. I had taken my Sunday slow, spending most of my time in my neighborhood, and wanted to explore. Someplace new, someplace unusual! Casa Adela, a Puerto Rican restaurant in Alphabet City, had been on my radar for a long time, but probably out of sheer laziness I never made the trek to 5th Street and Avenue C to actually try it. Sunday night, though, seemed like the perfect opportunity, so I asked Han if she wanted to try it and she agreed. What better way to spend the first night of Hanukkah, we reasoned. The restaurant is almost literally a hole in the wall, with only five or six tables and bright fluorescent lights. Signs behind the counter are all written in Spanish, and stacks of Goya juices still in their bulk cardboard containers sit right in front of it. We wait for a table, but as we'll learn it was well worth the wait.

The waitress asks us for our order in Spanish, so I respond in kind. We both order Pernil Asado--roast pork--yellow rice and cual tipo de frijoles, what type of beans? Frijoles negros, por favor. Black beans, please. Y a beber? Solo agua, por favor. Muchas gracias. My Spanish comes back to me in waves, often very rocky at the start then much smoother at the end. By the time the food arrives we are ravenous, and dig in almost immediately. We are each given a giant plate of yellow rice and a teacup of black beans to pour onto it first. Then shortly after arrive two small plates of roast pork. It has that gorgeous reddened exterior flecked with seasoning and I can tell just by looking at it that's juicy. I'm able to slice into it smoothly and when I pop it into my mouth, I realize part of my food life has thus far been missing. We both MMMMM audibly while we eat and just stop talking because it's taking away from the eating experience. It is, in fact, juicy--bursts of salt pop in my mouth and combine with the juices and I think this is the right time to use the expression "I literally cannot even"? We sit in stunned silence, continuing to eat, and then soon, sadly, it's over. At least for me. I haven't eaten since the early morning and have destroyed the plate of pork. I am envious of Han, who will have her leftovers for lunch tomorrow. But I will have my memories! *swoons, faints, dies, is reborn again as a plate of Pernil Asado*

Mouths still watering, we pop into Lois at Han's recommendation. It's a wine bar just a block away, on C between 6th and 7th. All of the wine is on tap--but don't worry, the taps have been engineered to prevent oxidation and maintain the wine's original tastes--and you can order in a variety of sizes: glass, carafe, and so on. What's interesting about Lois, named for its Avenue C (Loisaida Ave) location, is that it's also a no-tipping bar; the price of gratuity and tax are both included in whatever you get. The very friendly bartender allows us to taste a few varietals before we settle on our choices, too. We both choose something light, dry and fruity then sidle up to a corner booth and talk about the book Han is writing, the books other people are writing, and the couple next to us who we think are on a first date.

Pork and wine? Sounds like a good way to spend Hanukkah to me.

St. Marks is Dead

Whenever I would come to visit New York as a teenager or college student, a visit to St. Marks Place was always on my list. I had no good reason why, usually; no specific place I wanted to go or thing I wanted to see, but I knew the street was important. I've written before about my longstanding love affair with punk, and I knew St. Marks was one of the streets the punks frequented--I think part of me just always wanted to tread the same ground as they did, to feel the pulse of creative dissonance running under my feet as they had felt it.

To the uninitiated, St. Marks Place is in the East Village, between 3rd Avenue and Avenue A, in Manhattan; it is technically "8th Street" but nobody in their right mind calls it that (unless you are my friend Dan who is visiting from Boston and when he said it I think I visibly winced in pain). It has, as author Ada Calhoun points out in her new book St. Marks is Dead which comes out November 2 from W. W. Norton, often been a cultural hub of the neighborhood if not also lower Manhattan and even Manhattan in general. In this cultural history, Calhoun shows us the constantly changing lives of the street, the births and deaths of each experience of living there even before the street itself existed. St. Marks, one sees after reading her book, is always dying because it is always being born again.

People who lived on the street know the magic of it, too. In fact, one time I was reading the book on the train a woman peered over my shoulder. She had a grey pixie cut, gold glasses, a brown trench coat, skinny jeans and ballet flats and said to me in a German accent, "St. Marks! You know I used to live there! I should read that book." Calhoun writes in the book that for some people St. Marks is a place you live at a certain time in your life, either your best or your worst, and once you leave you don't return for fear of either not living up to those memories or having to relive them. This woman's experience seemed to be positive, though, and I of course recommended the book to her.

The book is one close to Calhoun's heart, one imagines, because she herself is from the street. She was raised there in the 1970s, often considered one of the most dangerous times to be living in the city in the last 50 years. While she shares some of her experiences of these moments in the book, she is still an appreciative narrator, one who inspires further adoration of St. Marks and its history in the reader, especially this reader, who is a raging postmodern history nerd at her core.

Calhoun narrates the history of the street through vignette-like stories she's uncovered, almost like buried treasure or precious jewels, from what is undoubtedly years of intense (and probably fascinating to conduct! I was jealous of all of the documents she was likely able to read and people she was able to talk to to tell each story) research. Through the tales she shares of everything from German boating tragedies to anarchist crust-punks, she reveals the ever-evolving lives of the street she calls America's Hippest. She writes in such an engaging manner that every era of history she covers, from the disrupted lives of the Native American Lenape tribe who populated the area in the 1600s to the bustling "Little Tokyo" as the street is now known, is equally enchanting. While I don't consider myself a revolutionary history buff, I was on the edge of my seat, nose buried in the middle of the book on the 6 train downtown, as Calhoun narrated to me the growth and decline of Peter Stuyvesant's empire.

What's also wonderful about St. Marks is Dead is that the snippets of history Calhoun chooses to share connect to a person's general knowledge of American culture or history, almost filling in the gaps and allowing one to experience "a-ha!" or "lightbulb" moments while one is on public transit, smiling and nodding to oneself, "I see what you did there! Look at you!" One moment in particular for me was when she writes about the Beastie Boys hanging out on St. Marks at Tish and Snooky's Manic Panic, one of the original punk stores on the street. Like, oh, casual, this group of kids idolizing these punk chicks on the street before they became a legendary punk/rap crew. The book is full of moments like these, of the famous and infamous casually spending their time on St. Marks simply because that's where the cool people were and that's why they wanted to be there.

Something else I loved was seeing some of the places or figures from the latter end of the century are still around, like "Mosaic Man" Jim Power whose mosaics still line the streets in the East Village and have for decades, or Gem Spa, the ages-old bodega/egg creamery which Calhoun notes was actually the background of photo on a New York Dolls album (I'm ashamed I didn't know that myself!). And then there are those I got to see before they closed/were removed/became something else, like the black cube sculpture Alamo at the corner of 4th Avenue, Kim's Video, Yaffa Cafe.

Even in the short time I've lived here in New York I've seen St. Marks change. I've seen noodle houses exchanged for new, trendy bars and my favorite, independently-owned frozen yogurt shop go the way of the wind; I signed the petition for St. Marks Bookshop to keep its lease, though it eventually moved instead of just closing; I've eaten at Korean dessert shops that just opened new locations and drunk half-price cocktails at a Thai restaurant that has since closed due to health violations. Like every New Yorker, I have a vision of the street in my head as I walk down it; I can picture where so many of the places Calhoun mentions are or once were. It's difficult to feel like you're a part of New York's history--the city is so big, filled with so many people who are doing amazing and interesting things--but then you see in histories like Ada Calhoun's St. Marks is Dead things that you too have experienced along with so many others, and it makes you feel like you matter, like you're not just another notch on New York's proverbial bedpost.

If you want to learn more about New York and about American culture, then this book is definitely for you. But then, of course, so is a walk down St. Marks.

You can also come see Ada Calhoun read at the December Miss Manhattan Non-Fiction Reading on Monday, December 7! Stay tuned for more information.

Awkwafina's NYC and Me

It was a late March afternoon in 2013, and SC had come to visit me from Boston. We were sitting at my dining room table scrolling through Facebook and watching YouTube videos. A Facebook friend, the wonderful Oriana Leckert of the blog Brooklyn Spaces, posted the video "NYC Bitche$," featuring a hilariously loudmouth girl with long dark hair and giant glasses bitching about New York City transplants. We thought it was hilarious and I needed to know more about her. Who was she? A short rabbit hole into the internet later, we figured out she was Awkwafina, a rapper based in Brooklyn. She also had another hilarious video called "My Vag," a parody (though much better) of Mickey Avalon's "My Dick." Apparently she had already been written up in The Hairpin, Bust, and a few other lady-centric websites for "My Vag," a song she would later call simply "a crass celebration of having a vagina," with no feminist agenda. I liked her. She was not afraid to make fun of herself, and I couldn't remember the last time I saw a rapper reading a Joan Didion book in a music video. I knew I had to write about her. I pitched New York Magazine's The Cut and my pitch was accepted. I had been wanting to write for the vertical for years, and after many rejected or unnoticed pitches, it was my first big story there.

I met Awkwafina, whose name I would learn was Nora, at a coffee shop in the East Village. She had a deep, throaty voice and red lipstick and lots of take-no-shit native New Yorker attitude. She was more badass than I could really ever hope to be, and I instantly liked her and admired her. After the interview, we took some pictures outside, which I hoped the site would publish with my piece. I was overjoyed to find out later that they would. The piece came out and became one of the most-read articles on the site that week. My editors were happy with it, Nora was happy with it, and that's really all that mattered to me.

After that, Nora was kind enough to invite me to her birthday and to be in a music video she recorded that summer. And then, a few months later, she emailed me to tell me she had a project for me if I was interested, and to call her. Intrigued, I picked up the phone. She had a book deal, she said, to write an anti-tour guide to New York, and she wanted me to take the pictures. Yes, I said, my brain flying through space, wondering how this was possible. We would be working on a book together.

The next few months were a whirlwind of things like early morning trips to the Staten Island Ferry; accidentally walking down the Brighton Beach boardwalk with a woman who wanted to show us her home, though by home it turned out she meant a suitcase on the beach; trying not to get caught taking pictures with giant bags of durian in a mall in Flushing; and taking pictures of Nora taking selfies on top of the Empire State building. From the heat of August to the wild, frosty winds of December, we threw ourselves into the five boroughs. And I loved absolutely every second of it. I would not trade one alarm clock buzz for any day we spent laughing and taking pictures with a variety of hosts all across the city. Not only that, but I got to see parts of the city I maybe still would never have gotten around to seeing otherwise.

And now, there's a book to show for all of it, Awkwafina's NYC. The ever-hilarious Nora wrote a phenomenal guide to New York City that can show even native New Yorkers what's rad about their hometown but literally makes my laugh echo through my apartment and has me clutching my sides in agony from laughing so hard. I am so proud to have my pictures in her clever, thoughtful book. Awkwafina's NYC is available on Amazon, in Barnes & Noble, at The Strand Bookstore, and everywhere else books are sold, pretty much. It was a crazy experience to walk into the Barnes & Noble in Union Square and find a book with my name in it on sale; also McNally Jackson, one of my favorite independent bookstores in the city. 

The book cover and the inside title page

Finding it at McNally was especially funny because the clerk at the information desk said of Nora, "Oh yeah, she went to high school with my friend." I love that Nora's gotten to this point where people are saying their friends sort of, by extension, maybe kind of know her. And why wouldn't they? She's part of the cast of MTV's Girl Code; whenever her videos come out they're on the likes of Jezebel and BUST; she's on the radio; and I've even overheard "My Vag" (perhaps appropriately?) at a burlesque show. Whenever someone (wrongly) names Taylor Swift's "Welcome to New York" the song of the city, someone somewhere on the internet (rightly) points them to Nora's "NYC Bitche$." AND she's a verified account on Twitter and Facebook. If that isn't making it in our digital age, I don't know what is. I'm just happy I could even remotely be a part of the journey.

This Thursday, come on down to the official Awkwafina's NYC release party at Baby's All Right in Williamsburg. Tickets are $15, and they're available online here. Festivities start at 7pm and end at 9:30. Nora will be signing books, there will be DJs, videos, hilarity and, to use Nora's phrasing, general ratchetry. So stop on by and say hello! And buy the book, dammit :)

SNEAK PEEK: Women of Letters!

If you haven't already heard of Women of Letters, you're missing out. Founded in Australia by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire in 2010, Women of Letters is a live storytelling event in which distinguished women artists, writers, and entertainers come together to share personal, intimate stories in the form of a letter, to, as the founders say, "revive the lost art of letter writing." Before the event each of the participants--which, in the past have included the likes of actress Edie Falco, musician Martha Wainwright, fashion designer Rachel Antonoff, and author Meg Wolitzer, among many renowned others--writes a letter along the lines of the night's theme and reads it aloud. Past themes include "To The Person I Misjudged," "A letter to the night I'd rather forget," and more. It provides a forum for creatively minded women to share their work and continue their evolution as artists in their fields while bonding with other women in a truly unique setting. Since it began, Women of Letters has gained a following that stretches from Los Angeles to Indonesia and back, and has spawned five books. All the proceeds from the shows go to charity, as well.

Tomorrow night, Women of Letters will be live in Manhattan, at Joe's Pub at The Public Theatre in the East Village, with readers Melissa Auf Der Maur (musician, singer/songwriter and former bassist for band Hole), Rayya Elias (filmmaker, musician, hairdresser, author of Harley Loco), Janelle James (writer, director, standup comedian), Maggie Ryan Sandford (scientist, researcher, writer for Smithsonian, Slate.com, The Onion and A.V. Club), Deborra-Lee Furness (actress, producer, director) and Megan Amram (screenwriter for Parks and Recreation, author of Science...For Her!). It will be hosted by writer Sofija Stefanovic. Tickets are $20 and the evening begins at 7pm.

Event founders Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire, who are both writers in their own right, were kind enough to answer a few questions for me about the event. Take a look below to learn more, and be sure to attend tomorrow night!  

 

Miss M: How did you come up with the premise of Women of Letters? How did it gain such a following? What was your goal when you started the event?

Women of Letters: We were inspired to start an event that would regularly showcase the work of brilliant women in some way, but it took a little while until we came up with the letter-writing concept. We’re both writers ourselves, and thought it was a nice device that other people might get excited about. Our goal was just to have more than 20 of our friends show up to the first event! From that first sold-out show we’ve gained a very loyal following, who love the event enough to keep telling their friends to buy tickets.

What made you decide to bring the event not just to New York, but to LA, Austin and Indonesia? How did you choose those locations?

In a way, they chose us - we got put on the SXSW bill in 2013 thanks to our dear friend Glenn Dickie, and then figured since we were flying so far we should do shows in other major cities in the US. Indonesia as a result of the wonderful Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. We love traveling the show.

Why do you think women need an event like this? 

As artists, women need more events where they can showcase their work to new audiences. The shows themselves are about a lot more than that though, and to be given an opportunity to openly share or bear witness to personal, intimate experiences, is incredibly powerful and unifying.

What effect do you hope it will have on your audiences?

Overwhelmingly Women of Letters events create a very tangible, human connection between reader and audience.  To be a part of something that exists only in that moment is a privilege, and we hope that the honesty inspires people to go home and write letters of their own!

How do you choose who will read at each event? 

We program women who are intelligent, interesting, hilarious and wise, in a manner that isn’t too dissimilar to formulating our dream dinner party guest list. We’ve got a long series of wishlists, starting with the most outlandish lineups to the more realistic. We’re constantly surprised by who agrees to take part in our shows, and that inspires us to keep asking because we can never predict who might say yes.

How long does it take you to assemble each reading? 

Anywhere between six to eight weeks in advance we start putting out invitations for a show.  Sometimes it gets right down to the wire, trying to lock in our final reader but we get there eventually!

What is one/ are some of your favorite moments from past Women of Letters events? 

Oh gosh, there’ve been so many shows, let alone so many favourite moments… Our first NYC show last year was extraordinary. 400 New Yorkers had lined up in the snow, on a Tuesday night in Gowanus, and those were the only people in the world who will ever hear Edie Falco talk about ‘The night I’d rather forget.’ The room was so quiet while she read, and I think everyone realised instantly that what she’d spoken about was never going to leave that room.  

What can audiences expect to experience at Joe's Pub on the 14th?

We're careful about how we curate every show - there's always a mix of comedians, writers, actors, and musicians.  The readings will range, as they always do, from heartfelt to hilarious to emotionally raw.

What is the most rewarding aspect of putting on this event? What about the most challenging?

Getting to meet the most extraordinary women, many of whom are our personal heroes, is endlessly rewarding. The charitable aspect of our shows is also obviously incredible rewarding. We’ve raised over $600,000 in Australia for an animal rescue shelter, and hope to turn a similar profit in NYC for the New York Women's Foundation. The most challenging aspect these days is dealing with the heartbreak of not being able to commute from Melbourne to New York for each show!

How has the event changed since you first started doing it?

Very little!  Since March 2010 Women of Letters has been a safe space for storytellers and a forum to share and listen.  With sold-out events across the world and five published books, we're not going to fiddle with a successful formula!