Paper trail

These are the traces you leave behind, your prescriptions, applications for reimbursement, outdated resumes, shopping lists. You imagine that, after you're gone, someone will follow one to another and try to reconstruct you. A biographer, a grandchild not yet even thought of. A scrap of a to-do list posted on Facebook like Woody Guthrie's "Wash teeth, if any." Your sixth grade essay on your mother's face will be found an early classic, a sign of greatness.

The greatness that for now, eludes you. Every day more paper slips in through the letter slot in your door, every day the pile on your desk grows deeper, and you remember when people talked about a paperless society, and all you can do is laugh. Buried somewhere under those receipts and bills is the kernel of your bright and innocent heart.

Start clean with Portuguese Artists Colony on May 5th at our fresh new venue, The Make-Out Room.

Featuring an all-Los Angeles roster of guest readers:

David Rocklin is the author of the 2011 novel The Luminist. He is also the founder of Roar Shack reading series in Los Angeles. He is currently at work on his new novel, The Daylight Language.

Zoë Ruiz is the Saturday Editor for The Rumpus and staff member of FOUND magazine. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Two Serious Ladies, and Fine Print. Currently she’s working on her interview project “Learn People Better” and curates READINGS, a Los Angeles based reading series.

Aisha Sloan's work has been published in Ninth Letter, Identity Theory, Michigan Quarterly Review and The Southern Review. Her first book of essays, The Fluency of Light: Coming of Age in a Theater of Black and White was published by the University of Iowa Press in 2013.

Fun fact: both Aisha and Zoë teach yoga.

PLUS! Live writing winner Silvi Alcivar will be back with her finished piece, and new work from Colonist Peter Orner.

Fabulous music from Jethro Jeremiah. 

Live writing:
Vote on a prompt as you enter the show, and four writers will write on the winning topic while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired. Each writer will read what he/she wrote, and you get to vote on which piece you'd like to see developed into a finished story/poem/rant to be read at the next PAC performance.

This month's live writing matchup is an epic throwdown between Portuguese Artists Colony and our Los-Angeles-based sister series, Roar Shack. Place your bets now!

Tim Bauer

Julia Ingalls

Daniel Heath

Zoë Ruiz

Sunday, May 5
The Make-Out Room - New Venue!
3225 22nd Street
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm
Sliding scale $5-10

Road trip

The blue ice in the cooler isn't cold anymore and you can smell sandwiches, the kids will not settle down for one minute, Leticia keeps kicking the back of your seat, and you're not even out of Nebraska yet. You watch those rich families cruising by with glowing screens in the backs of the seats and you think, It's never going to end. Someday, sure, the kids will grow up and maybe maybe they'll get out on their own, but who's kidding who about retirement, nobody gives out gold watches and a bucket of money to last until you die, that was your dad's generation, you'll get too old for your job and keel over behind the counter of a Del Taco, that dumb paper hat still hugging your sad old head.

It's just you and the kids since their father walked out so why spend another vacation with family? Take the next exit and see where it goes, remember that feeling when you were in college, a full tank of gas and cash in your pocket, anything could happen.

Join Portuguese Artists Colony on Sunday, March 24th, to see where the road takes you.

Featuring guest readers:
Patricia Ann McNair’s short story collection, The Temple of Air, was awarded Book of the Year by the Chicago Writers Association, Southern Illinois University’s Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award, and a finalist award by the Society of Midland Authors. She is an associate professor of Fiction Writing at Columbia College Chicago.

Siamak Vossoughi was born in Tehran, Iran and lived in London, Orange County, and Seattle growing up. He moved to San Francisco eighteen years ago, in part because he loved William Saroyan. He writes short stories, and some of his work has appeared in Fourteen Hills, Prick of the Spindle, the Massachusetts Review, and forthcoming in Glimmer Train.

We'll hear from our last show's live writing winner, Colonist Shanthi Sekaran, as well as work from Colonist Tim Bauer.

Great tunes from the fabulous Brooke D.

Live writing:
Vote on a prompt as you enter the show, and four writers will write on the winning topic while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired. Each writer will read what he/she wrote, and you get to vote on which piece you'd like to see developed into a finished story/poem/rant to be read at the next PAC performance.

Silvi Alcivar
Sona Avakian
Patricia Ann McNair
Amol Ray

Sunday, March 24
Hotel Rex
562 Sutter Street
In the Salon, just behind the Library Bar
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm
Sliding scale $5-10

Everything new

It's your first date, she's wearing a dress and you shaved just before going out the door. She finds your jokes funny, and you aren't thinking about the moment when she won't anymore, when she'll give you that weary face instead of tonight's full-out laugh. You order a bottle of wine, and you don't know that soon you'll notice the hairs that sprout from her enchanting mole, you wouldn't believe it if your future self came back in time to tell you that the pitch her voice gets when she asks, again, if you've taken out the garbage will make you want to cover her face with your hands.

Join Portuguese Artists Colony in that tender moment of freshness, let's live here forever.

Kim Addonizio’s verse novel, Jimmy & Rita, was reissued by Stephen F. Austin State University Press. Her other recent books are Lucifer at the Starlite and Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within, both from W.W. Norton. She teaches poetry workshops in Oakland, CA and online at www.kimaddonizio.com.

Glen David Gold is the author of the novels Sunnyside and Carter Beats the Devil. He has written essays, memoir and fiction for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, McSweeney's, Playboy and Tin House, and comic books for DC and Dark Horse. His episode of Hey Arnold is streaming on Netflix.

Katie Wheeler-Dubin and Joe Loya tied to win in December's live writing. In a brilliant move, they have collaborated on a finished piece!

The first ever public performance from the band Nonstop Beautiful Ladies, featuring Peter Kline and Kim Addonizio.

PLUS! Readings from our newest Colonist, Roxane Beth Johnson and Founding Colonist Daniel Heath.

Live writing:
Vote on a prompt as you enter the show, and four writers will write on the winning topic while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired. Each writer will read what he/she wrote, and you get to vote on which piece you'd like to see developed into a finished story/poem/rant to be read at the next PAC performance.

This month it's an epic showdown, featuring all writers from The San Francisco Writers' Grotto!

Elizabeth Bernstein
Zahra Noorbakhsh
Glen David Gold
Shanthi Sekaran

Sunday, January 27
Hotel Rex
562 Sutter Street
In the Salon, just behind the Library Bar
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm
Sliding scale $5-10

People are good

The number isn't one you recognize, but you answer anyway. It's a voice you almost know, you knew once, and as he talks, the memories bloom in your head, his voice was once all you heard, you woke and fell asleep to his voice, to the words he aimed at you like blows. The time between then and now zeroes down and you're twenty again, you're the girl who learned to doubt everything, who paused before each step for the blame, the fault, the roaring gap he never failed to see between what was right and your own sorry attempt.

I was wrong, he says now on the phone, You deserved none of that, and you feel it like a sword in your heart, that bright moment of liberation, finally free. I'm sorry, he says, and with those words he redeems you both.

Let Portuguese Artists Colony show the good in all of us, we will dig down through all the layers of violence and spite and find that shining light.

Alix Lambert has written for magazines including: Stop Smiling, ArtForum, and Filmmake. She is an editor at large for the literary journal Open City. She wrote Episode 6, season 3 of Deadwood: “A Rich Find” (for which she won a WGA award) and was a staff writer and associate producer on John From Cincinnati. She is the author of four books: Mastering The Melon, The Silencing, Russian Prison Tattoos, and Crime.

Joe Loya is author of the memoir, The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber. His TV commentary ranges from crime to politics and religion. That's why his prison zombie apocalypse ebook, The Red Mile, was no real literary stretch. (Although the pseudonym The Zombie Whisperer definitely was.)

Sarah Karlinksy returns with her winning piece from last month's live writing!

Sweet tunes from Jeremy Hatch.

Live writing:
Vote on a prompt as you enter the show, and four writers will write on the winning topic while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired. Each writer will read what he/she wrote, and you get to vote on which piece you'd like to see developed into a finished story/poem/rant to be read at the next PAC performance. It's always a thrill.

Alix Lambert
Joe Loya
Katie Wheeler-Dubin
Monica Zarazua


Sunday, December 2
Hotel Rex
562 Sutter Street
In the Salon, just behind the Library Bar
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm
Sliding scale: $5-10

Welcome new Colonists

Portuguese Artists Colony has expanded by two. Soon, we'll be an empire. Please welcome:

Roxane Beth Johnson’s first book of poetry is Jubilee (Anhinga, 2006). Her second book, Black Crow Dress, is forthcoming from Alice James Books. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, 2007, and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Cave Canem and The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from: The Pushcart Prize Anthology Harvard Review, The Georgia Review, Image, Callaloo, Beloit Poetry Journal, Chelsea and elsewhere.

Peter Orner is the author of three books of fiction, including Esther Stories, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, and the recently published novel, Love and Shame and Love, a New York Times Editor's Choice book, just out in paperback. He lives in Bernal Heights and is generally against colonization, except in circumstances such as these.

Outliers

You know who you are. You're the kid who's always on the far left of the back row, the one who's  taller than the teacher, they make you stand on the floor rather than the bleachers, and still you're in the back row. You're the one who knows who the bad guy is in the first fifteen minutes of the movie, but you've learned to keep your mouth shut, your friends don't appreciate your wisdom. You can drink all night and never get drunk, all while looking tiny and delicate, you watch your date try to keep up until he's barely able to walk. You're like us.

We're outliers. Join Portuguese Artists Colony in our special, all-Colonist Litquake show, as part of the beautiful, wordy chaos of the Lit Crawl.

Featuring:
Tim Bauer
Leslie Ingham
Shanthi Sekaran
Cary Tennis

Hosted by Caitlin Myer

Saturday,  October 13
Phase 3, 8:30-9:30
Revolution Cafe
3248 22nd St., San Francisco

Permanent Fatal Error

The light changes and you step out into the street, you're late for work and you're thinking about a cup of coffee, already, you should cut down, but not this week, the project is due and it'll take a fucking miracle, Brandon is useless since his girlfriend left him, he can't focus for two minutes and everyone else is taking up the slack, and you don't, you really don't want to work late tonight, you have a real date and you want time to get home and change, that sweet dress you bought last week, and you've already decorated the little one-bedroom you'll rent together, you and your date, between the light changing and that first step into the street, and a hand grabs at you, pulls you short, you feel a mass shove through the air a cracked inch from your nose, a city bus running the light.

How long does it last, that pulse-pumping realization, I could have died? Long enough to thank the stranger who saved you by the breadth of his hand, long enough to shake and laugh and maybe tell your co-workers when you sit, alive, at your desk, but you can't really feel it, you can't begin to believe you're only a wrong step from oblivion.

Portuguese Artists Colony will take you over the edge, bring that bus all the way to its destined catastrophe. Take your last wrong turn with us Sunday, September 23.

Chiwan Choi is the author of two poetry collections, The Flood and his new book, Abductions. He is now trying to finish Exit to Hope Street, a collection of short stories. Chiwan also runs Writ Large Press with his wife and partner, Judeth Oden, and is spearheading an effort to establish a badass lit/music/art crawl in downtown Los Angeles, using tactics learned from watching The Wire.

Doug Cordell is an Emmy-nominated television writer, essayist and radio storyteller whose pieces have been broadcast on, among others, National Public Radio’s Snap Judgment and American Public Media’s Marketplace. A former host of the Brooklyn Rail magazine’s Rant/Rhapsody reading series in New York City, he has also performed at HERE Arts Center in NYC, LA’s Tongue & Groove and Vermin on the Mount, and the Bay Area’s Quiet Lightning and Lip Service West. 

Sarah Ladipo Manyika was raised in Nigeria and has lived in Kenya, France, and England.  She is the author of In Dependence (Legend Press, 2008) and Editor of Pulsations, The Journal of New African Writing. She currently lives in California where she teaches at San Francisco State University.  She is a Hedgebrook alum and serves on the Board of the Museum of the African Diaspora.

The victorious Jeremy Ravdin returns with his completed piece from our last show!

Crazy great music from Jhene Canody.

Live writing:
Vote on a prompt as you enter the show, and four writers will write on the winning topic while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired. Each writer will read what he/she wrote, and you get to vote on which piece you'd like to see developed into a finished story/poem/rant to be read at the next PAC performance. It's always a thrill.

Jenny Bitner
Kristin FitzPatrick
Sarah Karlinsky
Sean Owens

Sunday, September 23
Hotel Rex
562 Sutter Street
In the Salon, just behind the Library Bar
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm