Underwater New York

Join us Monday 6/21 to celebrate What He’s Poised to Do

Come out with us to celebrate the release of UNY contributor Ben Greenman’s newest collection, What He’s Poised to Do.

Monday, June 21, 7:30 pm

Greenlight Books – 686 Fulton Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn

We’ll share the stage briefly with Ben and others, including Jonny Diamond, of The L Magazine; the actress and performance artist Okwui Okpokwasili, reading for Significant Objects; and Todd Zuniga of Opium Magazine, beamed in via transatlantic technology.  For our part, we’ll announce this fun new story prompt:

Missive in a Bottle

To celebrate the release of the newest collection of stories from UNY contributor Ben Greenman, we invite you to write a letter about an underwater object. What He’s Poised to Do uses letters and letter-writing to investigate human connection and disconnection. Underwater New York uses found objects as points of entry to stories that do the same. Now you can do both – here’s how:

-       Choose an underwater object from our list

-       Imagine a story behind your object, and use a letter or postcard to tell it. It can be visual art – create a postcard inspired by your object, for example – and/or written – epistolary, expository, accusatory, any-story.

-       Email your letters to underwaternewyork (at) gmail (dot) com or actually mail them to 342 2^nd Street, #4F, Brooklyn, NY, 11215

-       We’ll post letters here, and may share some at future events

What He’s Poised to Do

Okay, so we’re already fans of Ben Greenman’s inimitable work. How could we not be, with the stories he conjured about mysterious Gowanus goo, and bodies in the Hudson? And his new collection doesn’t disappoint. UNY Editor Nicki Pombier Berger reviews What He’s Poised to Do in a guest post on UNY Editor Nicole Haroutunian’s blog, Our Books Are Better Than We Are.

What He’s Poised to Do, Ben Greenman’s fifth collection of short fiction, grew out of Correspondences, a limited-edition art book of stories on the subject of the title, printed postcard-sized, unfolded like letters to read. Greenman’s earlier collections also had an architectural self-awareness, but What He’s Poised to Do sheds this concern with construction. Postmarks for each chapter give a playful nod to the book’s trope, but the connections explored are those between people: how we try or hope or fail to reach one another, and how our attempts reverberate or linger.

Read the full review here.

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