Portuguese Artists Colony

I can't hear you

2012-02-03T09:29:00.000-08:00

Baby, I can't hear you, she says. You try again, but your words get mangled along the way. There's too much interference, too many years, betrayals, the gap between your pickup basketball game in Chicago and her Kyoto classroom unbridgeable. You open your mouth and all she hears is static, sirens, the thwack of knuckle on cheek. You want to say love, Baby, love, but it turns to roadkill in her ear.

Join Portuguese Artists Colony at our new location, the Hotel Rex, on February 26 to get the message straight.

Featuring guest readers:
Kelly Luce's story collection received the San Francisco Foundation’s Jackson Award and was a finalist for the 2010 Bakeless Prize. Her fiction has recently appeared in The Southern Review, Crazyhorse, and Kenyon Review. This summer she’ll be a resident at Fogo Island Arts Corporation in Newfoundland.

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. He lives in Bernal Heights and is generally against colonization, except in circumstances such as these.

PLUS! Geetha Reddy's winning play from last month's live writing, inspired by the prompt: The restaurant served only meat.

Live music from The Barbary Ghosts.

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. The live writing gets more exciting with every show. Place your bets!

Ira Marlowe
TBD

Sunday, February 26
NEW LOCATION!
Hotel Rex
562 Sutter Street
In the Salon, just behind the Library Bar
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm

Not loaded

2012-01-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

She says it isn't loaded as she passes it to you, but it feels heavy, the metal still warm from her hand. You could open the chamber and check, but that would violate some rule of trust between you. You have to believe her, it isn't loaded. The neighbor kid thought the gun wasn't loaded when he took it out to show his friend, just that little thing, and the shot was heard for years after, the story whispered from kid to kid through two generations. Your uncle must have thought the shotgun wasn't loaded when he leaned it against the fence before climbing over, but we'll never know, his mouth is closed forever.

So it isn't loaded. So you trust her, and put your finger on the trigger. Join Portuguese Artists Colony on January 22 to see what happens next.

Featuring guest readers:
Seth Harwood received an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and went on to build a large fan base for his first novel, Jack Wakes Up, by first serializing it as a free audiobook. Across iTunes and sethharwood.com, his work has been downloaded over one million times. His second novel, Young Junius, is billed as "The Wire meets Cambridge, MA in 1987″ and was picked by George Pelecanos as one of his best books of 2010. Seth currently lives in San Francisco where he teaches English and creative writing at Stanford and the City College of San Francisco.

Brittany Perham is the author of The Curiosities (Parlor Press 2012). Her recent work may be found in Southern Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, Lo-Ball, Linebreak, and elsewhere. She is a Jones Lecturer in poetry at Stanford University, where she held the Wallace Stegner Fellowship from 2009-2011. She is a member of the word/music project Nonstop Beautiful Ladies and she lives in San Francisco.

Steven Paul Lansky will return with a long-distance reading of his winning piece from December's live writing, inspired by the prompt, "She saw Jesus."

Live music from "Oakland's sweet little secret," Ira Marlowe.

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. The live writing gets more exciting with every show. Place your bets!

MaryBeth Lorence
Geetha Reddy
Duo Von Dagrate
Cary Tennis

Sunday, January 22
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm

StretchyHead on KALW

2011-12-21T17:45:00.000-08:00

Lovely words from Kevin Hunsanger of Green Apple Books on KALW about Ian Tuttle's book StretchyHead. Kevin calls this sweet collection of stories "...a cross between Richard Brautigan and Raymond Carver."

Listen to the whole show (StretchyHead is mentioned in the last ten minutes):
Today on Your Call: What are your favorite books of the year?

StretchyHead is the first release from PACBooks, a small publishing house that spun off from Portuguese Artists Colony.

Heavy

2011-12-09T19:28:00.001-08:00

It clings around your ankles, curves your back. It's bigger and badder and you squint to peer through its density. On December 18, let Portuguese Artists Colony share your burden.

We will bring you heavy metals with their mineral certainty, the massive guitar solos, the weighty thoughts to remind you of your center of gravity. Join us in the deep of December, just days before the earth shifts its weight, wobbling back toward the longer days of light.

Featuring guest readers:
The Boston Globe has called Shawna Yang Ryan “a writer to watch.” Her debut novel, Water Ghosts, was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, a Maurice Prize winner and a finalist for the Northern California Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award.

Kyle Thomas Smith is the author of the novel, 85A (Bascom Hill, 2010), which has received seven awards, including one from the American Library Association's Over the Rainbow Committee, which named it one of the best books of 2010. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband Julius and his cats Marquez and Giuseppe.

Suzanne Kleid returns to read the conclusion to her hilarious live writing piece inspired by the prompt, "He wore red shoes."

Live music from the unmatched Dawn Oberg.

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. The live writing gets more exciting with every show. Place your bets!

Steven Paul Lansky
Kyle Thomas Smith

Eric Aragon
Janey Smith

Sunday, December 18
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm

Now with more

2011-11-20T17:00:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, November 20, Portuguese Artists Colony now offers more. More live nude girls, more cleaning power, more skinned frogs and dancing soldiers, more conjugal visits, more all-night, twenty-four-hour protests, more tear gas, more than you ordered, more than you can choke down, more than any of us could have dreamed.

We're Americans, baby, we want more, and Portuguese Artists Colony is here to give it to you.

Featuring guest readers:
Ethel Rohan is the author of Hard to Say, PANK, 2011 and Cut Through the Bone, Dark Sky Books, 2010, the latter named a 2010 Notable Story Collection by The Story Prize. Her work has or will appear in BULL Fiction, The Good Men Project, The Chattahoochee Review, Los Angeles Review, and Potomac Review, among many others. She earned her MFA in fiction from Mills College, California. Raised in Dublin, Ireland, Ethel Rohan is now a resident of San Francisco, California.

Kelly Cressio-Moeller’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in the following poetry journals: Rattle, Southern Humanities Review, Pearl, Melusine, the Aurorean, Switched-on Gutenberg, Pirene’s Fountain, and The Newport Review among others. She shares her deeply caffeinated life with her German husband, increasingly taller sons, and their opinionated basset hound. She has a weakness for fountain pens & purple ink. And like everyone else on the planet, she is working on a book.

Nora Boxer returns after her thrilling victory in September's live writing with her finished piece, inspired by the prompt, "His hands were in the sink."

Live music from Passenger & Pilot!

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. The live writing gets more exciting with every show. Place your bets!

Pam Benjamin
Amy Cruz
Charlie Getter
Suzanne Kleid

Sunday, November 20
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm

Damage and Book Launch!

2011-10-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, October 15, Portuguese Artists Colony will bring damage to Litquake's infamous Lit Crawl.

We are thrilled to be part of Litquake for the second year running, and our gratitude hurts. We say thank you with scars and breakage; it's not a party without torn dresses and mascara-streaked faces.

Featuring guest readers:
Sally Ashton is a poet and Editor-in-Chief of the DMQReview. She teaches creative writing and is the current Poet Laureate of Santa Clara County, blogging at poetlaureateblog .org

Louise Nayer, San Francisco author and educator, has written poetry, non-fiction and recently, Burned: A Memoir, about a tragic Cape Cod accident and family resilience.

Plus! Readings from colonists Daniel Heath, Leslie Ingham, Caitlin Myer, and Cary Tennis.

Saturday, October 15
8:30 - 9:30 pm
Heart
1270 Valencia St.
San Francisco

_____________________________________________

And that's not all.

Portuguese Artists Colony is absolutely beside itself to announce the birth of its small press, Portuguese Artists Colony Books, with the launch of its very first book:

StretchyHead
fictional stories in real places
by Ian Tuttle

Will the cocktails break your heart?
Will the ice cream make you call your mother?
Reviews are plentiful. Menus can be found online. But there is more to dining than what arrives on the plate.
Somewhere between making eye contact with the server and figuring out the tip
       we fall in love
                make plans to escape
                       dream of other worlds.

StretchyHead brings you exquisite moments from fictional lives, inspired by the real places in which they are set.

Join us for a good old fashioned book launch party with music and more!

Friday, October 21
8:00 pm
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco

Antagonist

2011-09-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

There would be no story without us. No passions aroused, no chant for victory, no angry red welt to show Mom as evidence.

On Sunday, September 25, Portuguese Artists Colony will be the reason superheroes exist, dressed in cape and boots solely to undo our careful planning.

We'll move on anyway, nobody can stop us, we're the pretty blonde who sleeps her way onto the Dean's List, the bully who buries your lunch box, the one who watches - smiling - while you eat the cyanide-and-ground-glass pie we baked fresh, just for you.

Featuring guest readers:

Will Boast’s story collection, Power Ballads, won the 2011 Iowa Short Fiction Award. He’s had work in Best New American Voices 2009, Narrative, Glimmer Train, The Southern Review, The American Scholar, and Salon. A former Stegner Fellow, he’ll be travelling to the UK this fall as a Charles Pick Fellow at the University of East Anglia. When in San Francisco, he moonlights as a performing musician.

Isaac Fitzgerald has been a firefighter, worked on a boat, and been given a sword by a king, thereby accomplishing three out of five of his childhood goals by the age of 25. He has also written for AlterNet, The Bold Italic, McSweeney's, and Mother Jones. He is the managing editor of The Rumpus.

Tim Bauer returns to read his winning piece from last month's amazing live writing, inspired by the prompt: "She had his head."

Live music from our friends Pocket Full of Rye.

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. The live writing is always a treat and a surprise. Place your bets!

Nora Boxer (2010 Keene Prize for Literature)

Cynthia Cady (Pints & Prose)
Janine Kovac (Writing Mamas)
M. da Silveira Serpa (Presence/Presença)

Sunday, August 25
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm

Toothless

2011-08-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

You wonder if it's a sign of age, that sense of powerlessness, sitting on the edge of the bed, your hands dangling between your knees. You used to believe you could take anyone on, fast and vicious, they wouldn't know what hit them. Not like everything came down to a fistfight, we aren't savages, but it showed when you did your PowerPoint presentation for the board, when you strutted down the street in your new heels.

You were a mean and ruthless god.

But now, your shoulder hurts when you lift your arm to point, and you know in your bones that when it came to a barfight, your teeth would be the ones decorating the floor.

On Sunday, August 28, Portuguese Artists Colony will guide you to the hidden power in your obsolescence.

Featuring guest readers Jonathan Hirsch and Olga Zilberbourg

nic alea returns with nic's winning piece from last month's live writing - Portuguese Artists Colony's first ever tie, won in a sudden death round!

Live music with Brooke D.

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. The live writing is always a treat and a surprise. Place your bets!

Tim Bauer
Hunter Gatewood
Matthew Siegel
Alia Volz

Sunday, August 28
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Doors open at 4:30 pm
Show at 5:00 pm

Distant Relations

2011-07-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

Your great-uncle was known for tiny sculptures made with solder. He populated whole villages with shining, globular cowboys, barbers, farmer's wives. Your second cousin is serving time for what she calls a "misunderstanding" with a gentleman who will be able to wear pants after another surgery, we hope. You moved to another state to escape the smell that hangs around your mother's dresser, but it seems to have followed you.

You don't know what's encoded in your genes, what rubs off in email and phone calls. You can divorce and skip the country, but your in-laws stick inside your mouth, you can hear them when you open it to eat.

On Sunday, July 24th, join Portuguese Artists Colony in our search for escape from relations that cling across miles and years.

Featuring guest readers:
Jack Boulware is an author and journalist, and co-founder of San Francisco’s Litquake Literary Festival. He has written or co-written three books, most recently Gimme Something Better: The Profound, Progressive, and Occasionally Pointless History of Bay Area Punk From Dead Kennedys to Green Day. He was founding editor of the satirical investigative Nose magazine, and as a freelance journalist has covered stories throughout the U.S. and over 20 countries.

Chiwan Choi was born in Seoul, spent his early childhood in Paraguay, and has been in Los Angeles ever since. His first poetry collection, The Flood, was published in 2010 by Tía Chucha Press. He also runs Writ Large Press, a micro publisher featuring some of the best Los Angeles writers.

Charles Kruger, the "Storming Bohemian", splashed into the SF literary pool almost two years ago when he lost a teaching job and sought to reinvent himself in Bohemia. Since then, he has written for Litseen.com, The Rumpus and Examiner.com, and read his work aloud in a variety of low places to a variety of high people.

Charles will be reading his winning piece from last month's show, inspired by the prompt She presses the button.

Musical guest: CJ Alegre

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. The live writing is always a treat and a surprise. Place your bets!

Four writers compete, and one will emerge victorious.
Nic Alea (New Poetry Mission)
Connie Baechler (Halley's Confidence)
Paul Corman-Roberts (Bitchez Brew)
Meghan Thornton (The Sword in the Cellar)

Sunday, July 24
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Doors open at 4:30 pm
Show at 5:00 pm

Mastermind

2011-06-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

You've known for some time that someone was pulling the strings. What you didn't know is that it was always us. We slipped your keys between the couch cushions, we pointed Seal Team Six to Osama's compound in Pakistan; we're the ones who told your wife about the girl at the coffeeshop.

On Sunday, June 26, watch Portuguese Artists Colony wind the crank that makes the world turn on its axis.

Colonist Cary Tennis will be hosting this month!

Featuring guest readers:
Jason Flores-Williams is a novelist and civil rights attorney who has been featured on CNN, NPR, Air America and in the New York Times. He has been arrested for protest against the US government and organized creative resistance against the corporatization of American culture. He has written three novels that are published in four countries and is a frequent contributor to the Brooklyn Rail. His new novel, Character and Fitness, is about an unemployed social justice lawyer and his nurse girlfriend living in a shitty apartment complex behind a strip mall in the suburbs of Philadelphia—a story of people being hit from all sides while trying not to lose who they are. The novel is currently being serialized by the Brooklyn Rail.

With six world premieres, four of them full-length plays, William Bivins was the most produced playwright of the 2009/2010 Bay Area season. His Biblical comedy "Pulp Scripture" (Original Sin/PianoFight) won the 2009 Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Original Script, and grabbed eight SF Fringe Awards, including Best New Comedy. William is currently at work on “Remaking Pussycat,” a psychotronic farce commissioned by the SF Playhouse. He was one of twelve Bay Area playwrights chosen in 2008 for Theatre Bay Area/TheatreWorks Playwrights Showcase and has been a finalist for the Heideman Award in the National Ten-minute Play Contest.

James Warner humbled the opposition with his winning piece in last month's live writing. He returns this month to read his finished piece, inspired by the prompt Did you feel that?

Musical guests: The Northerlies

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. The live writing is always a treat and a surprise. Place your bets!

Four writers compete, and one will emerge victorious.
Lauren Becker (Editor, Corium Magazine)

Patrick Kitchen
Charles Kruger (Storming Bohemian)
Roberta D’Alois (Jump! Theatre Company)

Join us Sunday, June 26
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Doors open at 4:30 pm
Show at 5:00 pm

Will you be in Lisbon on Monday, June 27?
Caitlin Myer will host live writing and an open mic for participants in the DISQUIET International Literary Program (ILP), as a co-production with Portuguese Artists Colony.

Monday, June 27
6:00 pm
Grémio Literário
Rua Ivens, 37

Vertigo

2011-05-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

We love high places. We like to climb to the very top of the tower, that little winding staircase after the elevator creaks to a stop. We hike to the precipice, place our toes at the edge, and feel the earth begin to shift beneath our feet, the world around us lift free of its foundations and spin.

On Sunday, May 22nd, come to Fivepoints Arthouse and see if we finally give in to the urge to jump.

Featuring guest readers:
Sherril Jaffe’s latest novel, Expiration Date, was recently released from The Permanent Press. “Written with warmth, humor, wisdom, and sublime control,” (Kirkus), “this rare conceptual book containing characters that readers will root for,” (Publisher’s Weekly), is “a delightful reminder of the unexpected lives that await us,” (Booklist). Jaffe is the author of eight other books: Scars Make Your Body More Interesting, This Flower Only Blooms Every Hundred Years, The Unexamined Wife, The Faces Reappear, House Tours, Interior Designs, Ground Rules, and, in collaboration with her late husband, Alan Lew, the PEN Award-winning One God Clapping. Her stories appear regularly in journals such as Epoch, Alaska Quarterly, and Superstition Review. She is a 2010 MacDowell Fellow and Professor of Creative Writing at Sonoma State University.

Anna Pulley is the social media sassmaster for Mother Jones. She also writes a social media etiquette column for SF Weekly, a relationship column for teh gays at After Ellen, and writes about things like pegging and orgies for AlterNet. One time, Amanda Palmer asked her out on Twitter. Buy her a drink and she'll probably write you a haiku.

Maisha Z. Johnson studied Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, where she learned to blaspheme through writing with style. Her poetry has appeared in sPARKLE & bLINK, and her fiction in Transfer magazine, where she was awarded the Leo Litwak Award in Fiction. Maisha has read her work at events throughout the Bay Area, including Quiet Lightning, Bitchez Brew and New Poetry Mission. She also blogs regularly about the relationship between writing and social change. On her blog, she once called out Oprah for neglecting women writers, and she's been fearing for her life ever since. If she survives Oprah's wrath, Maisha will begin an MFA Program in Poetry at Pacific University this summer.

Maisha kicked ass with a story about partying nuns in April's live writing throwdown, inspired by the prompt: She listened for breath. She returns this month to read the finished piece.

Musical guest: Quinn Deveaux

Four writers compete, and one will emerge victorious.
Matthew James DeCoster (Fourteen Hills staff)

Lauren Eggert-Crowe (2010 Best Poet of Santa Cruz)
James Warner (author of All Her Father's Guns)
Lady Monster (Queen of the Fire Tassels)

Plus! Colonist Daniel Heath will return with the thrilling conclusion of his live writing championship piece inspired by the prompt: That's why I wasn't wearing any underwear. Heath won the championship despite the handicap presented by his participation via Skype from the tropics. Maybe some future championship will have to take place at a beach.

Join us Sunday, May 22
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Doors open at 4:30 pm
Show at 5:00 pm

Guilty Parties

2011-04-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

We are guilty. We admit it, we were the ones that balled up the piece of bread and stuffed it behind the piano until it grew mold and started attracting rats. The key marks on your new car? That was us. The body on the side of the mountain, only identifiable by dental records. Blame us. Graffiti in the bathroom, millions of dollars "lost" in Iraq, bad daughters who don't call their mothers. Guilty as charged.

We are accountable for all sins, small and large. Join us Sunday, April 24th to gawk at our burdened consciences.

Featuring guest readers:
Matthew Siegel is a poet, essay writer and educator from New York. He has poems are forthcoming in Gigantic Sequins, Indiana Review, The Lumberyard, Lo-Ball, and Saw Mill Online. He is a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and lives in San Francisco.

Shideh Etaat is a writer from Los Angeles who likes words, but likes the people who read her words even more. Her articles have been published in The Santa Barbara Independent, Javanan Magazine, and her poetry can be found in Flatmancrooked’s Slim Book of Poetry, the Atlanta Review Iran Issue, as well as the forthcoming anthology Love and Pomegranates. She is the 2010 Glimmer Train Fiction Open Finalist as well as the 2010 Semifinalist for the Nimrod Literary Awards- Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction. She is hard at work on her first novel- The Book of Dastans. She deserves a glass of wine.

Musical guest: Erma Kyriakos

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. We have a hell of a lineup this month - place your bets now!

Four writers compete, and one will emerge victorious.
David Corbett (Edgar-nominated author of Do They Know I'm Running?)

Maisha Z Johnson (winner of the Leo Litwak Award for Fiction)
Jesus Angel Garcia (author of badbadbad)
Evelyn Pine (winner of two PlayGround Emerging Playwright Awards)

Plus! Readings from Colonists Leslie Ingham, Daniel Heath, and Benjamin Wachs

Join us Sunday, April 24
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Doors open at 4:30 pm
Show at 5:00 pm

Portuguese Artists Colony wants your work

2011-04-14T17:06:00.000-07:00

Portuguese Artists Colony is now accepting submissions! Send us your work, and have your chance at a spot behind our legendary lectern.

I live here

2011-03-27T17:00:00.000-07:00

One year ago, Portuguese Artists Colony staged an intervention at Fivepoints Arthouse. We have been corrupting the youth, lowering the tone and rousing the rabble on a monthly basis ever since. And we're just getting started.

Come on over to our place on the 27th. There will be cake.

Featuring:
Beth Lisick is the author of four books, including the New York Times bestseller Everybody Into the Pool and the national bestseller Helping Me Help Myself. Her work as been published in the Christian Science Monitor, Best American Poetry and heard on the NPR program This American Life. She is also the founder and curator of Porchlight, a monthly show for amateur storytellers in San Francisco. She’s currently working on a monologue about appearing in a series of Midwestern bank commercials.

Tim Bauer is a playwright. He’s been a three-time finalist for the Heideman Award, a PlayGround fellow, a Lark Playwright’s Week finalist, a STAGE International finalist, and is the San Francisco Bay Area regional rep of the Dramatists Guild. Tim is hilarious.

Musical guest: Brad A

Champions of live writing
The winners from previous shows will meet for an epic re-match!

Four quick-witted authors will write on a prompt they hear for the first time onstage while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired. Each writer will read what he/she wrote, and you get to vote on the winning piece.

This edition may be the first-ever Skype-enabled live writing. Daniel Heath will be kicking back in the tropics, but is willing to Skype in for the big rematch. Cross your fingers that his grass hut has decent internet connectivity!

Andrew O. Dugas won November's zipper malfunction with God must love me tonight.
Daniel Heath is the most recent victor from February's awesome, star-shod heat.
Caitlin Myer won September's show with a cautionary tale about mixing sex with business. And guns.
Matt Stewart kept January's winning story all in the twisted, drug-addled family with a raucous ride to prison.

PLUS! Readings from the Colonists who make it all happen every month: Leslie Ingham, Caitlin Myer, Cary Tennis and Benjamin Wachs.

Join us Sunday, March 27
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Doors open at 4:30 pm
Show at 5:00 pm

Grownup Shoes

2011-02-27T17:00:00.000-08:00

You're only pretending, and one of these days, you'll be found out. You wear lipstick and carry a purse. You go to work in an office and your life insurance payout might cover a modest funeral. Your kid asks Why and you make something up, hoping his science class tomorrow doesn't expose you for what you are. The truth is, it's all a sham, you never made it past six years old and you're dressing up in Mom's clothes, pretending you have all the answers.

In your grownup office, you keep a window open to #JustinBieber, your hand jumping to close it when a co-worker drops in, and at night you wish you could clutch your stuffed panda with the chewed ear close to your chest, and whisper all your fears and dreams into his polyfill heart.

Portuguese Artists Colony understands the peculiar genius of your inner child, and is polishing up wonders just for her.

Featuring guest readers:
Tim Bauer is a playwright. He’s been a three-time finalist for the Heideman Award, a PlayGround fellow, a Lark Playwright’s Week finalist, a STAGE International finalist, and is the San Francisco Bay Area regional rep of the Dramatists Guild. He has rollicked the PAC lectern before, and we're thrilled to have him back.

Scott Landers' debut novel, Coswell's Guide to Tambralinga, was described by David Kipen on NBC's Today as "funny, sad, and just really perverse," and by the San Francisco Chronicle as painting a "diabolically conceived dreamscape, part utopia, part hell." According to U.S. News and World Report, the novel " shows a sharp eye for the details, expectations, disappointments and encounters that shape international travel" and Publisher's Weekly compared it to Alex Garland's The Beach "only more grown-up and better written." No doubt critical acclaim accounted for initial sales of well over 30 copies. His short fiction has appeared in West Branch, Other Voices, Cimarron Review, Beloit Fiction Journal and other literary journals. A graduate of the MFA program in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, he currently works as a technical writer and instructional designer. He lives and pays taxes in Sonoma County.

Matt Stewart's debut novel, The French Revolution, has been called “wildly imaginative,” “brilliant,” and “an excellent achievement,” and was named a Best Book of 2010 by the San Francisco Chronicole. He's mildly infamous for releasing the novel on Twitter first. His stories have been published in Instant City, The Millions, McSweeney's, Opium Magazine, and more, and he blogs for The Huffington Post and The Nervous Breakdown.
More importantly, Matt trounced the opposition in January's bloody live writing event, and will be reading his finished piece, inspired by the prompt: My mom is driving me to prison. What more could you ask?

Musical guests: Fox and Woman, singing in Portuguese for the first time ever in public!

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. We have some heavy hitters this month - it will be a clash to remember!

Four writers compete, and one will emerge victorious.
Tanya Egan Gibson (author of How to Buy a Love of Reading)

Rajshree Chauhan (co-founder of Quiet Lightning)
Jeremy Hatch (writer for The Rumpus)
Daniel Heath (playwright and Colonist)

Plus! Readings from Colonists Leslie Ingham, Cary Tennis, and Benjamin Wachs

Join us Sunday, February 27
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Doors open at 4:30 pm
Show at 5:00 pm

We blushed

2011-02-06T18:29:00.000-08:00

Litseen touts our last show, courtesy of Maureen Blennerhassett:

THE PORTUGUESE ARTISTS COLONY: penile sentencing

Don't miss our next show. We're bursting our seams with guest writers in their very best grownup shoes.

Watch this space for more info!

Blush

2011-01-14T18:37:00.000-08:00

You go to the restroom in the back of the cafe, pushing in the little thumb lock on the handle, feeling it click. You're on the toilet, all the coffee you've been drinking during your meeting doing its work, and the handle moves, the door is opening, and now you see large letters over the bolt that say USE THIS LOCK and you're lunging for the door and someone is coming in, your pants around your knees, you're standing naked and it's worse than you thought, the person covering his/her face and turning away is your co-worker, the person you have to pass on your way to your desk every day, every day you re-live this moment, you are forever the person with your pants around your knees, you are a full, pulsing embodiment of humiliation.

Let Portuguese Artists Colony take the edge off, or sharpen that edge until it shines with fever and glory. Your blush glows and is beautiful to see.

Featuring guest readers:
Alia Volz is a San Francisco daughter, perpetually abandoning this city and circling back. She favors southern latitudes, and one irrational socialist isle in particular. Her writings and translations have recently popped up on Nerve.com and numerous literary journals, such as ZYZZYVA and Instant City. She has been teased with a Pushcart Prize nomination, among other close-calls. Stalk her at aliavolz.com

Alia is Producer and Host of the Literary Death Match in San Francisco–a raucous and delightful competitive reading series. She spit blood twice last year.

Andrew Dugas's fiction and poetry have most recently appeared in
Instant City, Flatmancrooked, SoMa Literary Review, and elsewhere. A
regular reader at local literary events, he's currently shopping
around SLEEPWALKING IN PARADISE - A San Francisco Novel about Old
Money, the New Economy, and the Second Coming.

Andrew's piece written during November's live writing was chosen to be developed for this month's show. Don't miss the result!

Live music from Rachel Fanning (ex Sleepy Sun)

Plus! Readings from Colonists Benjamin Wachs and Cary Tennis

Live writing is back!
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.

Four writers compete, and one will emerge victorious.
Matt Stewart (author of The French Revolution)
Julia Penrose (poet)
Colonists Daniel Heath and Caitlin Myer

Join us Sunday, January 23
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Specialty cocktails starting at 4:30 pm
Show at 5:00 pm

Boxing Day Pajama Party Storytelling Extravaganza for (Grownup) Holiday Orphans

2010-12-14T17:34:00.000-08:00

Walk through downtown San Francisco on Christmas day, and you can begin to believe you are the last person on earth. Everyone else has fled to the family bosom, retreating to childhood rituals, faces aglow from twinkling Christmas tree lights, sledding down pristine, snow-covered hills.

But not you. You're a holiday orphan, left alone in the big city.
...
Or, not quite alone. Portuguese Artists Colony will turn on the light, just for you. On December 26, we are your family, minus the years of disappointment, the festering resentments. Join us to hear twisted tales, drink something to warm you, and sing anything but Christmas carols.

You may belong nowhere else, but you will always belong with us.

Featured guest reader JOSHUA MOHR is the author of the novels "Termite Parade," which was an Editors’ Choice on The New York Times Best Seller List, and “Some Things that Meant the World to Me," one of O Magazine's Top 10 reads of 2009 and a SF Chronicle best-seller. He has an MFA from the University of San Francisco and has published numerous short stories and essays in publications such as The New York Times Book Review, 7×7, the Bay Guardian, ZYZZYVA, The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, among many others. He lives in San Francisco and teaches fiction writing. Please visit him at joshuamohr.net.

Image courtesy of Winston Smith

ALSO:

Sing-along!
Specialty cocktails
Readings by Colonists

Sunday, December 26

Doors at 4:30 pm
Readings at 5:00 pm

$5 suggested donation

Fivepoints Arthouse

72 Tehama

One block south of Howard, off 2nd Street

Suggested donation is waived for those wearing pajamas.

Revenant

2010-11-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

We're haunted by you. You've invaded our dreams, you drag behind us like the chains of our sins. You sit beside us at dinner and ruin our appetite. You overturn the dishes and leave clumps of earth in the sheets.

And we want more.

Featuring guest readers:
Tamim Ansary is a writer, lecturer, editor, and teacher based in San Francisco. Ansary directs the San Francisco Writer’s Workshop, teaches sporadically through the Osher Institute, and writes fiction and nonfiction about Afghanistan, Islam-and-the-West, democracy, education, history, current events, social issues, his cat, and other topics as they come up.

Clint Talbert is adept at doing things he never intends to do. He's completed four novels, three of which were intended to be short stories. He spends most daylight hours at Mozilla doing programming, which is a profession he never intended to pursue. If he could stop intending to publish one of these novels, he's sure he could land a deal.

Live music from Dawn Oberg.

Live writing is back!
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 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.

Four writers compete, and one will emerge victorious.
W. Ross Ayers

Andrew O. Dugas
Daniel Heath
Cary Tennis

Plus, readings from Colonists:
Leslie Ingham
Caitlin Myer (reading her story developed from September's live writing)
Benjamin Wachs

Join us Sunday, November 28
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Specialty cocktails starting at 4:30 pm
Show at 5:00 pm

Fake ID

2010-10-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

What did you want so badly you were willing to be someone else to get it? Portuguese Artists Colony has been there, too, and we're willing to spill.

Colonists Daniel Heath, Leslie Ingham, Caitlin Myer, Cary Tennis, and Benjamin Wachs will violate the rules and risk trouble with the bouncers. Just for you.

For October's show, Portuguese Artists Colony is on the move and appearing in the fabled Lit Crawl, part of Litquake, the West Coast's largest literary festival.

Saturday, October 9, at 8:30 pm
Laszlo Bar
2526 Mission St., San Francisco

The Crawl starts at 6, so you can get all warmed up, but when 8:30 comes, you know where you want to be.

Omphaloskepsis

2010-09-08T22:27:00.000-07:00

om·pha·lo·skep·sis (noun): the contemplation of one's navel as an aid to meditation.

Join Portuguese Artists Colony on a journey to the center of your self and all the monsters who reside in the alien landscape of your bellybutton.

Special guest reader:
Peg Alford Pursell's fiction received the (S.C.) State Fiction Award and was a short-list finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Award. Stories have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Staccato Fiction, Emprise Review, Precipitate Journal, The Fabulist, Pure Francis, Burrow Press, and The Big Ugly Review. She teaches at the College of Marin and Book Passage, and in private workshops, and curates the Why There Are Words Literary Reading Series in Sausalito.

Live music from The Alegre Sisters.

Introducing a new feature: Live writing
Ever wondered how writers write? Now you can see it as it happens. 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 s/he 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.

Four writers compete, and one will emerge victorious.
Daniel Heath
Evan Karp

Caitlin Myer
Ian Tuttle

Plus, work from Colonists:
Megan Enright
Cary Tennis
Benjamin Wachs
Leslie Ingham

Sunday, September 26th, at 5:00 pm at Fivepoints Arthouse.

Drinking starts at 4:30, with specialty cocktails mixed by Daniel Heath!

72 Tehama
San Francisco
One block south of Howard @ 2nd St.

Scintillating literary entertainment

2010-09-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

PAC is getting noticed, and in a good way. Read the latest review from Charles Kruger and just try to stay away:

http://www.examiner.com/sf-in-san-francisco/portuguese-artists-colony-extreme-unction

We're cooking up something new and kind of kinky for our reading on September 26: Live writing. Stay tuned to learn more about it.

Xtreme! Unction

2010-08-08T18:34:00.000-07:00

An ordinary-sized healing just won’t do, not for you. Your sickness goes way too deep. Your pathology is mountain biking down a snow-covered peak in the Rockies; your sin is bungee jumping off a bridge in New York; your depravity is shredding a broken asphalt path in a park for senior citizens.

You are in need of Xtreme! Unction, and Portuguese Artists Colony has a jumbo vat of consecrated oil with your name on it.

Special guest readers:
Robin Ekiss is the author of The Mansion of Happiness, winner of the 2010 Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize and a finalist for both the 2010 Northern California and California Book Awards.She lives in San Francisco with her husband, also a poet, their son, and their cats, Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein.

Tim Bauer is a Bay Area playwright, and his plays have been produced and developed around the country. He has received full-length play commissions from Magic Theatre and PlayGround, and he has been a two-time finalist for the Humana Festival’s Heideman Award, a finalist for the Lark Playwright’s Festival, a semifinalist for PlayLabs, a semifinalist for the Nicholl Fellowship, and a winner of three PlayGround Emerging Playwright Awards.

Live music from Scott Sier.

Plus, work from Colonists:
Leslie Ingham
Daniel Heath
Cary Tennis
Caitlin Myer
Benjamin Wachs

Receive your blessing on Sunday, August 22nd, at 5:00 pm at Fivepoints Arthouse.

Doors open at 4:30. Come early to get a seat, have a drink, settle into your Sunday afternoon.

72 Tehama
San Francisco
One block south of Howard @ 2nd St.

Sin

2010-07-09T16:22:00.000-07:00

UPDATE

Featuring a short play by Ken Slattery, fiction by Syda Day, and live music from Pocket Full of Rye. Not to be missed.

One performance is not enough to plumb the depths of sin, to revel in moral turpitude, to drive out to the far edge of consequences and peer into the abyss.

One performance isn't enough, but it's a place to start.

Join us in Sin. Appropriately enough on Sunday, July 25th, at 5:00 pm. Come early and drink.

For one evening, all is permitted, but little will be forgiven.

Morally suspect work from Colonists Daniel Heath, Leslie Ingham, Benjamin Wachs and Caitlin Myer.

Performance at Fivepoints Arthouse, 72 Tehama St., San Francisco. One block south of Howard at 2nd St.

Late Spring of Discontent

2010-05-30T13:38:00.000-07:00

The sun is shining, birds are singing, and beautiful girls saunter by in short dresses. We should be content, but it's not enough for us.

Make the late spring of our discontent a glorious summer. Hear us demand more on Sunday, June 27 at 5 pm.

Featuring:
Poetry from Joel Landfield
A short play from Tim Bauer
Music from The Backyard Tarzans

Readings from Colonists:
Leslie Ingham
Daniel Heath
Caitlin Myer
Benjamin Wachs

The Standard is Raised

2010-05-08T18:33:00.000-07:00

Do you measure up? Do any of us?

On Sunday, May 23 at 5 pm, follow us to Fivepoints Arthouse and through the jungle of our invention. We will guide you through crises of conscience, broken hearts and broken rules. We have musical hooks to lift you off your feet and metrics to keep you on your toes.

Just keep your eye on the standard. You won’t get lost…much.

Featuring special guest Shanthi Sekaran, author of The Prayer Room (MacAdam/Cage).

Fiction, plays and more from Colonists Daniel Heath, Leslie Ingham, Caitlin Myer, Cary Tennis and Benjamin Wachs.

Live music from Martin Finke, in his farewell North American performance before returning to Ireland.

Immediately after the performance, rub elbows with the literati at Litquake Epicenter, Litquake’s first-ever lit schmooze, co-hosted by Portuguese Artists Colony. If you’re already there for the show, you don’t have to do a thing – the party will come to you!

$5 suggested donation
5-7 pm

Litquake Epicenter
7-9 pm
Free

Easter Bunny, Bad Indians, Impertinent Bubblebaths exhort you to Love!

2010-04-26T23:17:00.000-07:00

Portuguese Artists Colony had an Identity Crisis.

In a single evening: we lived in God time, loved those who piss on our doorstep, sued our teachers for mercy, went on an Indian raid, threatened the Easter Bunny, and stood by each other as we fell in love.

Pocket Full of Rye got up inside us and moved us to stamp our feet and clap our hands. Damion Searls, Benjamin Wachs, Leslie Ingham and Caitlin Myer took us out of ourselves and into places we never imagined. And Cary Tennis played his guitar while we sang about the Big Wheel we all ride.

We all ride the big wheel, man. And it will turn around to bring us back for another performance on Sunday, May 23.

We're shining it up, just for you.

Indentity Crisis, Sunday, April 25th

2010-04-18T22:17:00.000-07:00

Who do you think you are, anyway?

Portuguese Artists Colony is here to tell you you're wrong.

You're not the good little boy the teacher calls on first. You're not the saintly wife or the self-sacrificing mother.

You're not the class wit. You're not America's sweetheart.

You're confused. But you're not alone. Find the answers you're looking for when Portuguese Artists Colony presents: Identity Crisis.

On Sunday, April 25, your true face will be revealed. Come as you are to Fivepoints Arthouse at 5 p.m. for an evening of words and music that are like looking in the mirror.

Featuring fiction by:
Leslie Ingham
Caitlin Myer
Damion Searls
Benjamin Wachs

Live music from: Pocket Full of Rye

Damion Searls will be reading "Bubblebath Teapot," written for the Significant Objects project.

$5 suggested donation
5-7 pm

Thank you, Evan Karp

2010-04-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

Evan came to our last reading, and rewarded us with his own words, plus video of the performances.

http://www.examiner.com/x-24149-SF-Literary-Culture-Examiner~y2010m3d25-The-Portugese-Artists-Colony-Intervention

Intervention Sunday, March 21, 2010

2010-03-10T22:20:00.000-08:00

Portuguese Artists Colony is now in residence at Fivepoints Arthouse.

Portuguese Artists Colony is staging an intervention on Sunday, March 21, from 5-7 pm.

Music by Martin Finke.

A short play written by Daniel Heath. With actors.

Fiction by Leslie Ingham, Benjamin Wachs, and Caitlin Myer.

Miscreant, Sunday, January 31, 2010

2010-03-10T22:09:00.000-08:00

Music by The Invisible Cities.

Poetry by Miriam Bird Greenberg.

Short play by Daniel Heath.

Fiction by Leslie Ingham, Benjamin Wachs, and Caitlin Myer.