Mississippi Noir Night in New Orleans featured in Poets & Writers

Fiction host Tom Andes writes about a recent Mississippi Noir night sponsored by Poets & Writers at Blood Jet Poetry Series:

"Blood Jet Poetry Series happens weekly in the fall and again in the spring at BJ’s Lounge, a New Orleans bar that’s as close to a Mississippi juke joint as you’re likely to find outside the Delta. Saturday nights, you can dance to Little Freddie King or any one of dozens of other local musical luminaries, but on Wednesdays the space belongs to poetry. (As with many things in New Orleans, a family connection is at work: Bar owner Teal Grue is the son of celebrated New Orleans poet and fiction writer Lee Grue.)

For the last couple years, series founder and host, poet Megan Burns has allowed me to invite readers for a monthly fiction night. Last December, I asked two of the contributors to the Mississippi Noir anthology published by Akashic Books—RaShell R. Smith-Spears and William Boyle—to travel to New Orleans to read."

Read full article here.

Feb 21st: Small Fires Press Matchbook Release Celebration!

Celebrating the release of Matchbook Volume Four from Small Fires Press

Blood Jet Spring Season of 2018 kicks off celebrating one of our own local print makers and publishers as they celebrate the release of Matchbook journal Vol 4, proving once and for all that small packages yield tremendous results!! Also, Matchbox dioramas by local poet and artist Madeleine Lavoie will be on display. We will have tiny treats for your hands and mouths and big love for all of your other senses. 

Small Fires Press celebrates the release of Matchbook Vol 4. 

Yes, it a poetry and fiction journal the size of a matchbook!

Readers: Michael Jeffrey Lee, Elizabeth Gross, Isabelle Whitman, and Andrew Nicholson.

Every issue is bound in a different vintage Matchbook Cover.

Text printed digitally with letterpress illustrations. Edition of 500.

Guest Editor: Jessica Elsaesser

Featuring artwork by Sarah McDermott, Jared Wright, Sophie Lucido Johnson, & Caesar Meadows. Poetry from Kristin Case, Patton Halliday Quinn, Stephen McClurg, Jeanne Morel, Andrew S. Nicholson, John Kane, Carol Szamatowicz, Abraham Smith, Cassondra Windwalker, Alex Patrick Dyck, Karolina Pawlik, & Miho Kinnas.

Reader Bios: 
Elizabeth Gross is a poet/translator/teacher/karaoke enthusiast from New Orleans. She co-translated and produced a new adaptation of Euripides' Bakkhai at the Marigny Opera House in 2015. Her chapbook Dear Escape Artist, a collaboration with artist Sara White, was published by Antenna in 2016. More poems have recently appeared in Okey-Panky, White Stag, TENDERLOIN, and Fairy Tale Review.

Michael Jeffrey Lee received an MFA in fiction from the University of Alabama. His book of short stories, Something in My Eye, received the Mary McCarthy Prize and was published by Sarabande. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in N+1, BOMB, and The Southern Review, among others. His album with Budokan Boys, That's How You Become a Clown, will see release this summer via Tymbal Tapes. He teaches at New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts.


Andrew S. Nicholson is the author of A Lamp Brighter than Foxfire. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including Colorado Review, Bitter Oleander, and Western Humanities Review. A former Schaeffer Fellow in Poetry, he is Assistant Editor at Interm: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics and is an Assistant Professor-in-Residence at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His poetry has been anthologized in New Poetry from the Midwest 2014, and he has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Palazzo Rinaldi in Noepoli, Italy.

Isabelle Whitman grew up in Alabama and France, and has an M.A. in English from the University of New Orleans. She has written for Bayou Magazine, published an academic paper in the Cambridge Scholars Publishing book Media, Technology, and the Imagination, and is currently an assistant editor at Negative Capability Press. She lives in New Orleans, LA, with her dogs.

Blood Jet Reading Series 2018

Blood Jet Reading Series in New Orleans
Wednesday Nights at BJs in the Bywater
4301 Burgundy (cash only bar)
8PM
Featured poets, writers and musicians followed by a limited open mic

Blood Jet runs spring seasons from post Mardi Gras up until the beginning of the New Orleans Poery Festival in mid-April and fall seasons from Sept to mid-December. During season, we are weekly unless there is a holiday.

Blood Jet runs poetry features every week with one week a month dedicated to fiction writers and one slot a season dedicated to essay or cross genre writing. We welcome musicians request to perform with our featured writers.

Featured Poets are both solicited and may also request a featured spot by emailing: mburns70124@gmail.com. Megan Burns will request links to readings or samples of work if you request a feature, so feel free to include that in your email request.

Fiction inquiries will be fielded by Tom Andes.

Blood Jet Reading Series works in conjunction with the New Orleans Poetry Fest and Dogfish Reading Series to promote community, literary events and New Orleans culture in the best city in the world.

Readings at Blood Jet have been generously supported by Poets & Writers grants for certain features.


Blood Jet Team:

Blood Jet Director and Features Host: Megan Burns

Megan Burns is the publisher at Trembling Pillow Press (tremblingpillowpress.com). She also hosts the Blood Jet Poetry Reading Series in New Orleans and is the co-founder of the New Orleans Poetry Festival (nolapoetry.com). She has been most recently published in Jacket Magazine, Callaloo, New Laurel Review, Trickhouse, and the Big Bridge New Orleans Anthology. Her poetry and prose reviews have been published in Tarpaulin Sky, Gently Read Lit, Big Bridge, and Rain Taxi. She has three books Memorial + Sight Lines (2008), Sound and Basin (2013) and Commitment (2015) published by Lavender Ink. She has two recent chapbooks: Dollbaby (Horseless Press, 2013) and i always wanted to start over (Nous-Zot Press, 2014). Horse Less Press released her Twin Peaks chap, Sleepwalk With Me, in 2016. Her fourth collection, BASIC PROGRAMMING, will be released by Lavender Ink in 2018.

Fiction Coordinator Tom Andes

Tom Andes’ writing has appeared in Witness, Great Jones Street, Natural Bridge, Blue Earth Review, Guernica, Santa Clara Review, Xavier Review, News from the Republic of Letters, the Akashic Books Mondays Are Murder Flash Fiction Blog, Best American Mystery Stories 2012, and elsewhere. His book reviews and interviews with writers and musicians have appeared in publications including the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Collagist, Mystery Tribune, and The Rumpus. He lives in New Orleans, where he works a freelance writer and editor, plays folk, country, and blues music, and teaches at the New Orleans Writers Workshop, which he co-founded. You can find more at tomandes.com.

Open Mic Host:  Todd Cirillo

Todd Cirillo is co-founder and editor of Six Ft. Swells Press. He is a poet and writer whose books include Burning the Evidence (Epic Rites Press, 2017), Sexy Devils, Sucker’s Paradise, Everybody Knows the Dice are Loaded, This Troubled Heart, ROXY among others. His poems have appeared in various national and international magazines, literary journals and cocktail napkins everywhere. Todd lives in New Orleans, Louisiana where he searches for shiny moments under the neons.
To find out more info and/or purchase Todd’s books go to www.toddcirillo.com or www.afterhourspoetry.com