The F-Bomb returns to The Mercury Cafe again on Tuesday March 21, starting at 7:30 PM. Open mic sign-up starts around 7:00. Since we’re not having a feature this month, open mic readers will get a 6-7 minute spot, instead of our typical 4-5 minute spots. Admission is free, but we encourage you to contribute when we pass a hat for The Merc.
Lynn Brewer will host, and our theme for this month is Spring Break. Please join us if you can!
HostLynn Brewer is a writer living near Denver. Her first novel was so blasphemous she had to self-publish “She Bears a King,” the story of one ordinary woman who gets impregnated by Jesus Christ—only this Christ is a gay celebrity living the elite life in Hollywood. In 2006, Lynn founded Cliterature Journal and went on to edit and publish more than fifty issues over 14 years. The bastard literary child of Sylvia Plath and Jack Kerouac, her writing oscillates from the hilarious to the tragic, often in the same sentence.
FEATURED READER ELAN BARNEHAMA’s new novel, Escape Route (Running Wild Press, May 2022), is set in New York City during the tumultuous late 1960s and told by the first-generation son of Holocaust survivors, and NY Mets fan, who becomes obsessed with the Vietnam War and with finding an escape route for his family for when he believes the US will round up and incarcerate its Jews. Barnehama’s words have appeared in 10 x10 Flash Fiction, Boog City, Jewish Fiction, Drunk Monkeys, Entropy, Rough Cut Press, Boston Accent, Jewish Writing Project, RedFez, HuffPost, Public Radio, and elsewhere. Elan was the flash fiction editor for Forth Magazine LA, has taught college writing, worked with at-risk youth, had a gig as a radio news guy, and did a mediocre job as a short-order cook. He splits time between Pasadena and Boston.
HOST NICK MORRIS is the curator of the F-Bomb Reading Series, as well as a professor of humanities at Community College of Denver, a musician, the author of the short story collections Tapeworm and The Boy in the Well, the Dungeon Master for the D&D real-play podcast We Slay Things, an expatriate of the Deep South, a graduate of Arkansas Tech University and Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, a former editor of the literary journals Nebo and Bombay Gin, a resident of Denver, and a mostly-capable moderator of F-bomb Zoom Rooms.
F-bomb returns for the last reading of 2022, hosted by Krystal Summers and featuring Nancy Stohlman and Serena Chopra. Plus, 4-5 minute open mic slots available to all who want to share their work.
The theme for November F-Bomb is: Flash Nano! Read a piece that you wrote during Flash Nano, past or present, or even a piece that has nothing to do with Flash or Nano at all. It all goes down 11/16 at 7:30 PM Mountain Time on Zoom. Please join us!
If you can, take a few minutes to fill out our survey. We want your feedback to make 2023 the best F-bomb year yet!
HOST KRYSTAL SUMMERS is a fiction writer and nanny (it’s been said that she’s more magical than Mary Poppins) from Colorado. When she isn’t taking children through chalk paintings, she’s outside somewhere with her dog, relaxing at her home in Denver with her husband, or starting more stories than she finishes.
FEATURED READER NANCY STOHLMAN’s flash novel, After the Rapture, is forthcoming from Mason Jar Press in 2023. She is a fan of the short and the strange, and she has been a leader in the flash fiction literary movement for more than a decade. Her book Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction won a Reader Views Gold Award and was recently re-released as an audiobook. Her other books include The Vixen Scream and Other Bible Stories, Madam Velvet’s Cabaret of Oddities (finalist for a 2018 Colorado Book Award), and her avant garde operetta The Monster Opera. Her work has been included in the Norton anthology New Micro, The Best Small Fictions, and adapted for both stage and screen. She teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder and runs creative workshops and retreats around the world.
FEATURED READER SERENA CHOPRA (Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, Seattle University) is a teacher, writer, dancer, filmmaker and a visual and performance artist. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Denver and is a MacDowell Fellow, a Kundiman Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar. She has two books, This Human (Coconut Books 2013) and Ic (Horse Less Press 2017), as well as two films, Dogana/Chapti (Official Selection at Frameline43, Oregon Documentary Film Festival, QueerX and Seattle Queer Film Festival) and Mother Ghosting (2018). She was a featured artist in Harper’s Bazaar (India), Revry, as well as in the Denver Westword’s “100 Colorado Creatives” and has recent creative publications in Sink, Foglifter as well as in the anthology Alone Together: Love, Grief and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19 (Central Avenue Publishing, 2020). She also has critical essays in Matters of Feminist Practice (Belladonna Collective),Rehearsing Racial Equity: A Critical Anthology on Anti-Racism and Repair in the Arts (forthcoming 2023) and in the republication of Judy Grahn’s The Highest Apple: Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition (Sinister Wisdom, forthcoming fall 2022). In October 2020, Serena co-directed No Place to Go, an immersive, artist-made queer haunted house with Kate Speer and Frankie Toan. Serena is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Seattle University. You can find out more at SerenaChopra.com
Hello, F-bomb community! As I’m trying to prepare for the 2023 F-bomb season, I wanted to hear from as many members of our community as possible so that I can best curate your literary experience. Please take just a few minutes to fill out this survey so that I can get as much feedback as possible. Feel free to forward this to as many people as you can, especially to anyone who has been to an F-bomb in the past. As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
OCTOBER FBOMB! Friday, 10/21 at The Roxy. 7pm. Featureless Reading. Open mic spots galore. You all get an extra minute to read creepy headless horseman stories or whatever. Host: Leah Rogin. Bring some candy!
Leah Rogin was raised on sugary cereal and Saturday morning cartoons. She believes in ghosts and thinks Marilyn Monroe was an intellectual. Her work has been recently published in 3cents Magazine and Rumpus. Her prize-winning chapbook Two Truths and a Lie was published by Horseless Press in 2016. She recently joined the Great Resignation and is exploring the World Beyond Teaching.
September FBomb! Special event: new venue concept, same beautiful people (and always, new beautiful people), and same sicktastic f*cking flash!
When: Friday, September 23rd @ 7pm Where: Friend of FBomb Jomil Ebro’s crib in Golden, CO (676 Kendrick Street Golden 80401) Theme: Saturday Morning Cartoons (you do not have to write to the theme to read)
Hosted by: Jamey Trotter Featured Reader: Leah Rogin-Roper Open Mic Slots @ 4-5 min per: Aplenty Important Note: BYOB (snacks will be served)
Jamey Trotter, who has survived the FBomb from its inception, hosts the one and only Leah Rogin-Roper.
There was a time not too long ago when children had to wait for Saturday morning to watch some of their favorite cartoons. Saturdays MEANT something, by god. Was the 24/7 access to any damned cartoon we want (not to mention the fanporn) the beginning of the end of western civilization? Let’s use the magic of flash fiction to find out! (You do not have to write to the theme to read.)
To those special Saturdays: that’s the theme. Cartoons need not be involved, but they can be. And any interpretation or twist you want to bring to it, step right up.
Leah Rogin was raised on sugary cereal and Saturday morning cartoons. She believes in ghosts and thinks Marilyn Monroe was an intellectual. Her work has been recently published in 3cents Magazine and Rumpus. Her prize-winning chapbook Two Truths and a Lie was published by Horseless Press in 2016. She recently joined the Great Resignation and is exploring the World Beyond Teaching.
Her newest novel, Burying Norma Jeane, explores the various names, fantasies, and projections of Marilyn Monroe and hopes to spark the Free Marilyn Movement to extract Marilyn’s corpse from the lecherous grasp of Hugh Hefner.
Jamey Trotter watched his Saturday morning cartoons in the family home deep in the woods in Gatlinburg TN, yet Trotter cannot bring himself to click on the ad depicting Bugs Bunny boning Daisy Duck—that shit is just too sacred.
Venue Note: We’re trying something new, a first in Fbomb history: the reading at a private residence. Parking is limited-street parking, and you may have to walk a block or two—please respect private driveways and the like on the narrow streets of this tucked away OG Golden neighborhood near Colorado Mills Mall. Light hors d’oeuvres will be served—BYOB (!).
The home (a duplex) is accessed by crossing a small bridge over a small creek. It’s tucked away a bit—we’ll put out some balloons on the mailbox or some shit. We’ve had open mics here before—always a glorious time.
Many thanks to Jomil for allowing us to stage our reading at his home!
The FBomb is Fproud to present our August featured reader: Poet/Professor/Bluebird Reality Traveler Jonathon Montgomery. Hosted by Rob Geisen. 3-4 minute open mic slots available until they’re no long available. Show up a little early and sign up at the Roxy (down in the Speakeasy Basement) before showtime (6 PM). This month’s theme will be THE FUTURE!
“Greetings, my friends! We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friends; future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable; that is why you are here. And now for the first time we are bringing to you the full story of what happened on that faithful day. We are giving you all the evidence, based only on the secret testimonies of the miserable souls who survived this terrifying ordeal.” –Criswell
FEATURED READER Jonathan “Bluebot”Montgomery is a robot which will be manufactured in New New Akron, New New Ohio on Earth 3 in 2980. It will be programmed for creative writing at Naropa Laboratories and will serve New New New Boulder on Earth 4 until it breaks down or is decommissioned. Works will include Spacepizza and Spacemermaid, The Reality Time Traveler, and Nine Binary Codes at Once! As a day job the Robot will download English software into other newer Robots at Front Asteroid Community Star Station. Its hobby will be droning, and it will observe 237 different types of drones in New New New Boulder County.
HOST Rob Geisen is the author of Beautiful Graveyards, Paper Thin, Avenge Me, The Aftermatch etc, and The Night We Called Dennis. He plays guitar and broken-romantic for the pop-poetry band Girls Just Wanna Have Us. Once upon a time he was the co-host of a weekly open mic series that took place at Album’s Bistro, The Burnt Toast, and The No Name Bar in Boulder, Colorado on The Hill. Currently, he’s focused on writing science fiction novels and learning everything there is to learn about the 1979 Disney classic The Black Hole.
Join us for our next live F-bomb on Friday July 15 at 6:00 PM in the Roxy on Broadway (downstairs in the speakeasy space). Our host and featured reader will be K.B. Jensen, celebrating the release of her latest book, Love and Other Monsters in the Dark. Plus 5-minute open mic spots. Please join us if you can!
A long-time fan of the F-Bomb, Award-winning Author K.B. Jensen’s new cross-genre collection of short stories, Love and Other Monsters in the Dark, is out. She has two novels, Painting With Fire, an artistic murder mystery, and A Storm of Stories, which veers literary and handles love, craziness and impossibility. Painting With Fire has been downloaded over 75,000 times. K.B. lives in Littleton, CO., with her family. She teaches skiing and writes poetry. A former journalist, K.B. is a senior publishing consultant and writing camp director for My Word Publishing. Her work has appeared in Cherry Magazine, Progenitor and other publications. For more, visit www.kbjensenauthor.com.
Calling all Artistic Alices, all White Rabbit writers, calling all Cheshire Cat scribes, all March Hare bards, calling all Doormouse wordsmiths, all Mad Hatter authors, all Smoking Caterpillar poets!
This June 21st at 7 PM, the Fbomb Flash Fiction Reading Series is gathering to cheer everyone’s UNbirthday at a virtual UNbirthday party in Wonderland! Join host Lynn Brewer and feature readers Kit Tara Eret and Yrik-Max Valentonis for a Zoom reading on the summer solstice and spend the longest day of the year celebrating all our unbirthdays with a trip to the Wonderland of our writing.
Tell us the story about your first trip to Wonderland. Share the memoir chapter of your favorite encounter with Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Write a poem about the time you hung out at a sushi bar with the Walrus and the Carpenter, or a flash fiction story that settles the ultimate question – who stole the Queen of Heart’s tarts?
The open mic awaits you in 3-4 minutes spots with signups available beginning at 6:45pm.
Featured Reader Kit Tara Eret writes fiction and poetry of the fantastic and sensual imagination. She caught the writing bug after reading Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series when she was 12. Since then, she’s been published in several magazines including The Quantum Muse, Aoife’s Kiss, Drabbler, Scifiakuest, Circlet Press, and Cliterature Journal. She even has self-published erotica. To improve her craft, Kit has graduated from the writing workshops Taos Toolbox and Paradise Lost. When not writing, Kit binges on sci-fi shows she swore she’d hate, reads not enough sci-fi novels, and gets fur on her dresses when she cuddles with her two cats.
Yrik-Max Valentonis wanders through the urban landscape seeking out fairy circles. He makes puppets so other people can see his imaginary friends. He steals apples to justify his philosophy. He is Baba Yaga’s favorite grandson. His works appeared frequently in Cliterature. Through editorial correspondences Max and Lynn discovered that not only were they both Naropa Alum, they were also twins. He is the author of 120 Days of Gomorrah and Cranium Theatre and the chapbooks, iDEAL and this is visual poetry. He earned a BA in English & American Literature from the University of South Florida and a MFA in Poetry & Prose from Naropa University.
The F-Bomb returns to a live venue for the first time in 2022! Join us at The Roxy on Broadway on Friday April 22 from 6-9 PM. Our host will be Meg Tuite, with featured readers Nancy Stohlman, Kona Morris, and Robert Vaughan. 4-minute open mic spots will also be available for others to share their flash fiction with the crowd. Join us in the Speakeasy space, downstairs at The Roxy!
HOST MEG TUITE’s latest collection is ‘WHITE VAN”. She is author of five story collections and five chapbooks. She won the Twin Antlers Poetry award for her poetry collection, Bare Bulbs Swinging and is included in Best of Small Press 2021. She teaches writing retreats and online classes hosted by Bending Genres. She is also the fiction editor of Bending Genres and associate editor at Narrative Magazine.
FEATURED WRITER KONA MORRIS received her moral guidance from Kermit the Frog. She is from the foggy redwood hub of Humboldt County, Northern California, and she has since lived everywhere from Boston to a remote village in northern Alaska. She was co-founder and editor of Fast Forward Press, as well as the founder and writer of a satirical comic book company called Godless Comics. She has been featured as a writer and editor at literary events and conferences across the country, and her stories, prose poems, and essays have appeared in a variety of publications. Kona teaches letter regurgitation to college students in Denver.
fbombdenver.com 