SAMANTHA CLAIRE UPDEGRAVE
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Samantha Claire Updegrave (she/her/hers)
Writer. Teacher. Record store nerd turned
urban planner. List maker. Scorpio.
 

Notes on mamahood, music, and the writing life. 

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Looseleaf No. 3 -- Meet the Readers & Musician (Part 2 of 3)

8/8/2016

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The Looseleaf Reading Series is a new Seattle-based reading series co-founded by Spark A'wesome, Shelley Casey, Dawn Quinn (emeritus), Samantha Updegrave, and Suzanne Warren to create a space for woman-identified and non-binary emerging and established writers to step out of their binders and share the stage. Combining storytelling and music, the series is held at The Den in Chop Suey.  

The next reading is coming up on Tuesday, August 16, 2016. Doors at 7 pm, and it's gonna rule. The line up is stellar! In the second of the three part of these "Meet Readers" we have Ramona Shore (Seattle) and Stephanie Barbé Hammer (LA / Coupeville). Check back for more from Max Oliver Delsohn & Natasha Marin in the coming days. If you missed the first installment from Yi Shun Lai and Suzanne Bottelli, you can read it here. 


Fine print: The Den is a bar, so event is 21+. No cover. 

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RAMONA SHORE is a local musician seemingly dedicated to being someone who recreates that feeling when you’ve just met and had a real conversation a little too soon for comfort but aren't sorry you did.

Meet Ramona Shore.....

What are you playing at Loose Leaf on 8/16?
I will be playing a few original songs for you. 
 
Who’s a writer you’re stoked on right now? What’s exiting about their work?
Right now I am pretty excited about Hannu Rajaniemi who wrote the Quantum Thief series. His writing style is very immersive and a little difficult for what is essentially a fun sci-fi mystery series and it took me a while to realize that, in the vein of snowcrash, he's one of those writers that is re-mapping the way we conceptualize and talk about our possible future with tech.
 
Is there a quote / soundtrack for how your week is going?
"The days are long but the years are short." With a bit of a running remix of 'I'm Your Man' by Leonard Cohen/'Harder Faster' the Kanye remix and Aerodynamic -- I guess it's a Daft Punk kind of week 
 
Anything coming up for you in the near future?
Nope.
 
Where can we find online?
My music can be found at: https://soundcloud.com/standardheart


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Stephanie Barbé Hammer is a 4-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her work has appeared in Pearl, Hayden’s Ferry, the Bellevue Literary Review and S/tick among other places. She was a comp lit scholar for many years, but then decided she wanted to make creative work, rather than just talk about it. Born in New York City she now lives on Whidbey Island where she writes flash fiction, poetry, and occasional essays and teaches creative writing at community colleges and non-profits. She is the author of a novel The Puppet Turners of Narrow Interior (Urban Farmhouse Press in 2015), a poetry collection How Formal? (Spout Hill Press, 2014), and a chapbook, Sex with Buildings (Dancing Girl Press, 2012). She’s working on a new novel about a repentant drug dealer and a new poetry collection about being a city dweller attempting to deal with nature.
Meet Stephanie Barbé Hammer....

What are you reading at Loose Leaf on 8/16?
I'm reading a bit of a new flash fiction piece that is appearing in the James Franco Review 2 days after the reading! 
 
Who’s a writer you’re stoked on right now? What’s exiting about their work?
I'm a huge fan of the writing by Ryka Aoki. Ryka is a poet, novelist, essayist, and LGBTQ activist. I love how she is continually gesturing towards the utopian and towards abundance. That seems really politically important and exciting to me right now.
 
Is there a quote / soundtrack for how your week is going?
I keep on hearing an old Le Tigre track for a kohls commercial and it reminds me what a wonderful band they were. It's called HOT TOPIC and it's great. 
 
Anything coming up for you in the near future?
Poem about mental illness coming out in INCANDESCENT MIND and working on my next novel. Stay tuned for the James Franco Review piece and hope you'll submit something to them!
 
 
Where can we find online?
I've got stories and poems and nonfiction all over the place. But here's one of my favorite stories -- published originally in Square Lake.
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Looseleaf No. 3 -- Meet the Readers (Part 1 of 3)

8/2/2016

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The Looseleaf Reading Series is a new Seattle-based reading series co-founded by Spark A'wesome, Shelley Casey, Dawn Quinn (emeritus), Samantha Updegrave, and Suzanne Warren to create a space for woman-identified and non-binary emerging and established writers to step out of their binders and share the stage. Combining storytelling and music, the series is held at The Den in Chop Suey.  

The next reading is coming up on Tuesday, August 16, 2016. Doors at 7 pm, and it's gonna rule. The line up is stellar! In the first of the three part of these "Meet Readers" we have Yi Shun Lai (LA) and Suzanne Bottelli (Seattle). Check back for more from Stephanie Barbé Hammer & Ramona Shore, and Max Oliver Delsohn & Natasha Marin in the coming days. 


Fine print: The Den is a bar, so event is 21+. No cover. 

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YI SHUN LAI is a writer and editor living in southern California. She is the nonfiction editor for the Tahoma Literary Review. Her debut novel, Not a Self-Help Book: The Misadventures of Marty Wu, is out now from Shade Mountain Press.



Meet Yi Shun Lai....

​What are you reading at Loose Leaf on 8/16?

I'll be reading from my novel, Not a Self-Help Book: The Misadventures of Marty Wu. It's a story about an alternate American experience, and folks seem to think it's easily relatable. (Live readings are great. They give you a really accurate idea of what resonates and what doesn't!)
 
Who’s a writer you’re stoked on right now? What’s exciting about their work?
Although I read her book Wives of Los Alamos months ago, I'm still noodling over it in my head: Tara Shea Nesbit did something amazing in this book, and I'm still picking apart just how she did it. 
 
Is there a quote / soundtrack for how your week is going?
While I was at a coffee shop in New York the manager insisted on playing the entire soundtrack to "Cats." I left after "Jellicoe songs to Jellicoe cats," but I still have the overture stuck in my craw. So yeah.  
 
Anything coming up for you in the near future?
We're still reading submissions for Tahoma Literary Review until August 31, so I'm looking forward to seeing more wonderful essays come across my desk. And my work-in-progress is burning a hole in my brain, so I need to start drafting some more scenes, stat! 
 
Where can we find you online?
Find me and my earworms on Twitter @gooddirt. 
And I'm trying desperately to keep up with my web site/blog: http://www.thegoooddirt.org. 

I'm a ShelterBox Response Team member. Learn more about what I do at
http://www.shelterboxusa.org

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​Suzanne Bottelli’s poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, The Literary Review, Prairie Schooner, West Branch and Fine Madness, among others. Her chapbook, The Feltville Formation (Finishing Line Press), was published in 2015. She has been awarded grants from Artist Trust and the Seattle Arts Commission, and has been a Jack Straw writer and a resident at Can Serrat, the Helen R. Whiteley Center, and the Icicle Creek Center for the Arts. She teaches Humanities and Writing and coordinates an Environment program at The Northwest School in Seattle, WA.


Meet Suzanne Bottelli....

What are you reading at Loose Leaf ‪on 8/16?
I'm going to read a few poems from my chapbook and a few new poems as well. 
 
Who’s a writer you’re stoked on right now? What’s exiting about their work?
I have been (re)reading the amazing and now suddenly gone C.D. Wright. I've also been learning a lot from Roger Reeves and Robin Coste Lewis and Don Mee Choi. Choi's Hardly War takes a fascinating approach to blending historical artifact and personal history. She challenges me to think a lot more deeply about the language embedded in the "noise" of our upbringing. 
 
Is there a quote / soundtrack for how your week is going?

A few weeks ago I saw Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing and then Straight Outta Compton, back to back. I'm still thinking about them and about how little has changed in the realities those films depict. 
 
Anything coming up for you in the near future?
I've been traveling a lot this year, on a long awaited sabbatical from my teaching. I'm excited to be home now to carry forward some of what I've been writing and thinking about. 
 
Where can we find online?
Here's a podcast about my chapbook from Jenn Fitzgerald's Chapbookapalooza series for New Books in Poetry. 

 
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Want to stay up-to-date on The Looseleaf Reading Series and our kick ass alums? Sing up for our (occasional) newsletter! You can also visit on Facebook and Twitter @looseleafseries.  

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Looseleaf Reading -- Meet the Readers (Part #2)

1/21/2016

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Next up in the "Meet Readers" are the extraordinary poets Casandra Lopez and our featured reader, Michelle Peñaloza. (In case you missed the first installment, you can read it here.)

Looseleaf is a new Seattle-based reading series co-founded by Spark A'wesome, Shelley Casey, Dawn Quinn, Samantha Updegrave, and Suzanne Warren to create a space for woman-identified emerging and established writers to step out of their binders and share the stage. Combining storytelling and music, the series is held at The Den in Chop Suey.  

Our next reading is coming up on Tuesday, January 26, 2016. Doors at 7 pm, and it's gonna rule. Over the next few days, I'll feature a couple of the readers (and the musician) with a quick Q+A.


CASANDRA LOPEZ
What are you reading at Looseleaf on 1/26?
I am planning to read some poems. At the last Looseleaf reading, Suzanne Warren and I were discussing her reading selections. She mentioned that she thought the best fit for a bar reading was work that dealt either with sex or humor. I think I am going to take her advise.

Who’s a writer you’re stoked on right now? What’s exiting about their work? 
Writers that excite me right now are Wendy Ortiz and Kiese Laymon. They both write in a way that speaks to me in a visceral way. I'm also a huge fan of Nayyirah Waheed's poetry so much that I have both ebook and physical copies of her books because I want to be able to easily access her words. I read a bit of it almost everyday.
 
Why are you out of your binder? Or, advice for stepping out of binders if you still feel stuck in one? 
Haha. I don't know if I'm completely looseleaf. It feels like this stepping out of a binder or binders is a continual process that one needs to be conscious of.

Is there a quote / soundtrack for how your week is going?  
the wounds have changed me.
i am so soft with scars
my skin breathes and beats stars.
Nayyirah Waheed

Why are you out of your binder? Or, advice for stepping out of binders if you still feel stuck in one?
Anything coming up for you in the near future?

I will be reading for Margin Shift on February 19 at  CAM in  Belltown

Where can we find online?
twitter: @casandramlopez
http://asusjournal.org/
https://casandramlopez.wordpress.com/

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MICHELLE PEÑALOZA
What are you reading at Looseleaf on 1/26? 
I'll be reading a poem or two from each of my chapbooks and then several new and not-in-chapbooks poems.  

Who’s a writer you’re stoked on right now? What’s exiting about their work?
I've read Cathy Linh Che's Split, but then I heard her read at Margin Shift last week, which made me return to it; that book is just incredible. So unflinching. So moving. So good. I also have been doing a sort of slow-burn read of Aracelis Girmay's Kingdom Animalia. I admire her control and her trust in her poems' syntax. 

Why are you out of your binder?
Or, advice for stepping out of binders if you still feel stuck in one?

via GIPHY


​Is there a quote / soundtrack for how your week is going?

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

Anything coming up for you in the near future? 
In March and April I'll be doing some traveling (I think? Offers have been made but contracts have not been signed so...). 

Where can we find online? 
michellepenaloza.com
On the Twitter: 
@pennyzola

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                 Casandra Lopez                                              Event Page!                                                      Michelle Peñaloza

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    Notes on music, mamahood, and the writing life from a part-time blog keeper. 

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