Blue Bicycle Books

Blue Bicycle Books is proud to announce Yr Lad Bob, (Persistent Editions, San Francisco, pb., $9), the first book of poetry by longtime store manager Sara Peck.

Peck will read and sign copies Fri., Oct. 18, 7 pm, at Blue Bicycle Books. This event will also celebrate the release of Think of Me and I’ll Know: Stories (Tri-Quarterly, Chicago, pb., $18) by College of Charleston professor Anthony Varallo.

Taking its title from poet Robert Creeley’s letters to Charles Olson, Yr Lad, Bob is a reading through various works of the Black Mountain School. Combining lines of text appropriated from Creeley, Denise Levertov and Robert Duncan alongside her own annotations, Peck blurs the lines between writer and reader and responder, making clear the process of building something out of stuff; the hidden parts of composition are laid bare.

Peck somewhat self-deprecatingly calls Yr Lad, Bob “literary criticism written in verse,” but this belies how personal such a venture can be. Peck draws herself literally into her mentors’ lines, diving through and out again, breaking through the like the thin skin of water.

“                      writing in the body – body with seasons, earth body-

Whitman-like but cleaner, or something, word choice skin!

It’s got to be / lighter

line break

is it / hands across this body of water

the sea has so many hands, mouths—Neruda, body parts that

hold things ascribed to water—the water is the holder rather than the held”

— from Yr Lad, Bob

Sara Peck grew up in Greenville, graduated from the College of Charleston and received an MFA at Columbia College in Chicago. She is a popular counselor and teacher at Blue Bicycle Books’ Write of Summer camp for kids and University School of the Lowcountry. She is published or forthcoming with OmniVerse, Everyday Genius, and Versal, among others.

 Anthony Varallo’s previous two books are This Day in History, winner of the John Simmons Short Fiction Award, and Out Loud, winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. He is an associate professor of English at the College of Charleston, where he is the fiction editor of Crazyhorse.

Join us Thurs., Oct. 17, 5 – 7 pm, as editor Dennis D. Moore signs copies of his new edition of the 18th century collection Letters from an American Farmer and Other Essays (Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 416 pp, hb., $35).

Written by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, and first published in London in 1782 as the concept of an “American” was just emerging, these epistolary essays introduced the English public to America’s budding cultural landscape. Dennis D. Moore’s new up-to-date reader’s edition places the 12 pieces from the 1782 Letters in the context of  several other of Crevecoeur’s essays written in English. This new edition opens up a broader perspective on this artful and ambitious writer who coined America’s most enduring metaphor: a place where “individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men.”

We are happy to welcome Suzanne Burke, author of the children’s series narrated by Logan the greyhound! The newest installment in the series is Logan and the Mystical Collar a story of courage, friendship, perseverance, and time-travel to Ancient Egypt! Suzanne will be in the store Thurs. Sept. 26 at 5pm.

Join us Thurs., Sept 19, at Blue Bicycle Books as essayist Mark Brennan Rosenberg signs copies of his newest book, Eating My Feelings: Tales of Overeating, Underperforming, and Coping with My Crazy Family (3 Rivers Press, pb., 256 pp, $16).

In the tradition of Chelsea Handler and others, Rosenberg’s hilarious and often scandalous essay collection tackles the author’s weight and body image both as a child of the 1980s and as a gay man in New York in the 2000s. This is his second book.

Blue Bicycle Books welcomes New York Times bestselling authors Mary Alice Monroe and Cassandra King, Sat., Sept. 7, 2013, 12 pm, for a special author luncheon at Hall’s Chophouse, 434 King St.

Cassandra King’s long-awaited new novel, Moonrise (Maiden Lane Press, hb., $27), is inspired by, Daphne DuMaurier’s classic Gothic romance, and tells the story of a woman living in the shadow of a beautiful and much-beloved woman. The author of The Sunday Wife, Queen of Broken Hearts and more, Cassandra lives in Beaufort with her husband, writer Pat Conroy.

Mary Alice Monroe’s latest novel The Summer Girls (Gallery Books, pb., $16) , the first in a trilogy set on Sullivan’s Island, explores the complex relationships of three half-sisters scattered across the country and a grandmother determined to help them reconnect. She’ll also be celebrating the release of A Butterfly Called Hope (Sylvan Dell, hb., $18) The author of 15 books, including The Beach House, Time is a River, and The Butterfly’s Daughter, Mary Alice lives on Isle of Palms.

Tickets are $30 and include lunch and talks.

To purchase tickets, please call Blue Bicycle Books at 843-722-2666 or click here.