Last night, we celebrated the launch of our most recent baby, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, at Parlor New York in SoHo. In case you’re unaware, Recommended Reading is free, digital content that will come to subscribers weekly. For each week of the month, a new story is selected: the first, by our staff (the first issue features a new story by Ben Marcus); the second, by an indie press like Akashic or New Directions; the third, by an established writer such as Jim Shepard; and the fourth, will come from a literary magazine’s — such as One Story or Tin House – archives.
Parlor New York is a chic, black-walled, members-only nightclub and was a great venue for the evening. As one party attendee told me, “It reminds me of my mother’s place.” I asked him what his mother did for a living, thinking he’d say she was an art curator or psychologist or something else that made her ‘edgy’ and maybe a little ‘neurotic.’ But no– “She’s a middle school lunch lady,” he replied. When I arrived a little after 8, the room with the bar was already packed, and the DJ was spinning ’70s era sexy disco. The crowd was swilling whiskey, because we at EL are very pro-whiskey, and also because the party was sponsored by Tullamore Dew (coincidence? I think not!).
