Post Gets Lit

We’re so proud to see Post contributors reading their fantastic fictions all over town lately. Last weekend, Buffalo Street Books hosted witty writer and Felicia’s co-owner Amelia Sauter, who was joined by Sara Rauch in narrating their contributions to the anthology Dear John, I Love Jane. Recently published by Seal Press, an imprint of Perseus, this collection explores the stories and relationships of women who summoned the fortitude to leave heterosexual relationships in pursuit of lesbian partners and same-sex love affairs. Sauter’s story explored the earliest days of her relationship with her partner, Leah; the women are well-known in Ithaca not just as co-owners of the popular lounge, but also as creative and innovative collaborators in music, film, and catering projects. Sauter, who writes a humor column entitled “Drink My Words” that runs regularly in the Post, warned the crowd that she might cry, but she held it together to deliver a playful and humorous reading of a poignant and touching love story.

Meanwhile, the Tammany Café at Cornell’s Risley Hall hosted local DJ favorite and literary instigator Bob Proehl to read from his short story and current novel-in-progress on Thursday. The working title of the novel, Proehl said, is DIS, an acronym for Death Information Services, and the story profiles a character who develops an Internet system for notifying members of online groups, such as gaming peers, when one of their fellow avatars has passed away; the timely excerpt seemed to splice the kind of techno-wunderkind story told in The Social Network with the paranoid cyber punk of William Gibson. A Buffalo native, Proehl’s first book, The Gilded Palace of Sin, recounts the brief career of the Flying Burrito Brothers in the late 1960s and was published in 2008 by Continuum Press; his stories appeared in 400 Words, Essays & Fictions and Stone Canoe. At the reading, Proehl misplaced his last page, but entertained audience members with a delightfully improvised summary of the excerpt’s conclusion.

Tagged as: Amelia Sauter, Bob Proehl, Buffalo Street Books, Dear John I Love Jane, Essays & Fictions, fiction, Literature, Perseus, Seal Press, Tammany Cafe