&Now Conference

Dirk talked me into flying to Cincinnati to drive with him to South Bend, Indiana to attend &Now: a Festival of Writing as a Contemporary Conceptual Art and do another reading with The Unknown, and I couldn't be more excited about it. It looks to be the sleeper hit academic conference of the year — a mix of avant-garde writers, art book authors, and e-writers. More writers than critics — always a good sign. The featured writers include Lydia Davis, Joe Amato, Debra Di Blasi, and Stacey Levine, whose book My Horse and Other Stories is one of my all-time favorites. A Michael Joyce/Unknown Reunion. The whole FC2 crowd. Larry McCaffery the sole critic in attendance. The Unknown and Rob Wittig sharing either one big hotel room or two small ones on our best behavior at a very catholic very football oriented very irish university. Implementation stickers on the golden dome. The whole shebang hosted by Steve Tomasula, the author of the amazing novel Vas: an Opera in Flatland. April 4-5, 2004.