Martin Schneider writes:

Get on over to Brooklyn's Greenlight Bookstore at 686 Fulton Street (at S. Portland, in Fort Greene) this coming Monday, June 21, at 7:30 pm, when Ben Greenman will read from his new epistolatory story collection What He's Poised To Do, published by Harper Perennial. It's a Facebook event, too, which makes it even easier to remember to move it to the top of your queue. We're just about to launch a fun giveaway for Greenman's book later this afternoon, so watch for that!

From the Facebook description:

The author Ben Greenman celebrates the publication of his new collection of stories, "What He's Poised To Do" (Harper Perennial) and its sister blog, Letters With Character. There will also be brief readings by Jonny Diamond (of The L Magazine); the actress and performance artist Okwui Okpokwasili (representing Significant Objects); Nicki Pombier Berger (representing Underwater New York); and Todd Zuniga (representing Opium Magazine, and appearing via Transatlantic technology).

I don't know the witty New Yorker writer and editor personally, but I've had the pleasure of attending a few New Yorker Festival events that he moderated (one was with Ian Hunter and Graham Parker, another was with Yo La Tengo; there were others), and he always made an extremely positive impression on me—intelligent, funny, generous, self-deprecating, all the good things. Emily tells me that based on her having gotten to meet him in person at a recent Happy Ending event, my impressions are rock-solid.

I'm in the wrong city (Cleveland) at the moment to attend this event, but New Yorkers should get right on this.

Martin Schneider writes:

A couple of weeks ago Emily, Jonathan, and I attended an event at the New York Public Library with David Remnick and Ta-Nehisi Coates. I wrote about it here. The New York Public Library has posted a video of the event here.

That event was pegged to the publication of Remnick's new book about Barack Obama, The Bridge. In line with that fact, Remnick has recently appeared on The Daily Show and Real Time with Bill Maher. The Daily Show's website has

Emily Gordon writes:

The Steam-Powered Hour is one of the best variety shows going in New York. The combination of high-quality bluegrass, New Yorker cartoonists like Drew Dernavich, Carolita Johnson (who drew the merrily sciurine poster above) and Emily Flake drawing live on stage, comedy, storytelling, and spontaneous mass acoustic jams make it a hootenanny-salon you have to experience, trust me.

It’s a monthly party, but it’s taking a break for the summer, so make sure to come to the next two! Especially this one, because Citigrass are some of the rousingest, rollickingest pickers I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing.

From the Steamers’ latest email:

In April, The Steam Powered Hour welcomes back Citigrass, winners of this year’s Battle of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Bands. Also, more bluegrass goodness with Thomas Bailey and the Aristocrats, a story by The New Yorker staff writer Mark Singer and cartoonist Zachary Kanin. Plus, plenty more surprises. Hosted as usual by New Yorker cartoonist Matt Diffee.

April 11th, 8pm
Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe
236 East 3rd Street Between Ave B & C
New York City

Tickets are $15 at the door. Get ‘em for $10 in advance at http://www.nuyorican.org.

You can follow The Steam Powered Hour on Twitter and on Facebook.

Martin Schneider writes:

On Tuesday, April 6, I joined my Emdashes colleagues Emily Gordon and Jonathan Taylor at the New York Public Library for the publication day event for The Bridge, David Remnick's eagerly awaited book about Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of the United States. It was an hour of spirited discussion about Obama, moderated by Atlantic Monthly blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates, who has written two articles for The New Yorker and also appeared as a panelist at the 2008 New Yorker Festival.

In the summer of 2008, Remnick and New Yorker executive editor Dorothy Wickenden entered into a wager about the election's outcome—Remnick's full explanation of his pessimism was a slow repetition of Obama's full name. Today, as

Martin Schneider writes:

Last night I was lucky to see a unique literary event: New Yorker book critic James Wood speaking for an hour or so about David Foster Wallace's second short story collection, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, at the 92nd Street Y.

An a Wallace enthusiast, I was a bit worried about where Wood would come down on BIWHM. Wood's tastes can be a bit arid—at one point during the address, he cited Henry James as a model Wallace might have profited from emulating—and it was all too easy to imagine Wood not cottoning to Wallace's verbal, stylistic, and formal excesses.

I need not have worried. Wood was generous in his praise of Wallace, albeit (quite properly) not unreservedly so.

I have seen Wood speak once before, at the 2008 New Yorker Festival, but it was on this