book party for Stephanie Dickinson’s Love Highway hosted by Spuyten Duyvil
February 24, 2015
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
On July 26, 2006, Jennifer Moore, age 18, was abducted after a night of underage drinking and taken by small-time pimp, Draymond Coleman, to a seedy Weehawken hotel room that he shared with his prostitute/girlfriend, 20-year-old Krystal Riordan. During the early morning hours, Jennifer was raped and strangled by Coleman, while Riordan looked on. The entire evening had been one of poor judgment that began when Jennifer’s friend drove them in her mother’s car to Manhattan from New Jersey, to go clubbing. The girls parked in a No Standing Zone and when they returned, discovered the car had been towed. Jennifer walked off into the night and ended up on the West Side Highway with Coleman stalking her. The tabloids had a field day with the story—the underage girl/victim, a hooker, rape and murder. Fox News blamed the victim, pointing out Jennifer’s scanty attire as if a halter top had made the teen deserving of her rape. What should have been a teenage misadventure, an impulsive flirtation with the forbidden, led to ultimate consequences. Dickinson’s latest novel fictionalizes the heartbreaking account of this evening.
Readers will Include:
STEPHANIE DICKINSON raised on an Iowa farm now lives in New York City. Her novel Half Girl and novella Lust Series are published by Spuyten Duyvil. Her work appears in Hotel Amerika, Mudfish, Weber Studies, PMS, Nimrod, South Loop Review, Rhino, and Fjords, among others, and her stories have been reprinted in Best American Nonrequired Reading and New Stories from the South. Road of Five Churches and Port Authority Orchids are available from Rain Mountain Press. Heat: An Interview with Jean Seberg was released in October 2013 by New Michigan Press. She is an assistant editor at Mudfish and along with Rob Cook edits Skidrow Penthouse.
NAVA RENEK is a writer, editor, and educator. Her published works include two novels, Spiritland and No Perfect Words, as well as a collection of short stories Mating In Captivity. In 2009 she conceived and edited the first volume of Wreckage of Reason: An Anthology of XXperimental Prose by Contemporary Women Writers and in 2014 came out with a second volume: Wreckage of Reason 2: Back to the Drawing Board. She works as program coordinator at the Women’s Center at Brooklyn College/CUNY.
KAREN LILLIS writes fiction, poetry, memoir, and genres inbetween. She is the author of four short novels, most recently Watch the Doors as They Close (Spuyten Duyvil, 2012). Her writing has appeared in Boog City, Evergreen Review, Everyday Genius, Free State Review, New York Nights, nthposition, Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology, Sensitive Skin Magazine, Trip City, and many more. Her 2014 publications include a poetry chapbook, The Paul Simon Project (Night Ballet Press) and a selection in Wreckage of Reason Two: An Anthology of Contemporary Xxperimental Women Writers (Spuyten Duyvil). Currently based in Pittsburgh, she blogs at Karen the Small Press Librarian and runs Small Press Pittsburgh (a pop up bookstand) and Small Press Roulette (an indie press bookselling service). Lillis recently received an Acker Award for Avant Garde Excellence in Fiction.
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