First Floor Walk Up Reading at One and One LES - Monday Jan 12th

Andrea is reading this Monday, January 12th at 7pm at the First Floor Walk Up event.

Andrea: I hope to read a scary story or two (as if we don’t have enough of those these days). One of the pieces More that I hope to read was submitted to the first NYC Midnight Scary Story Contest and I made it past the first round. I’ve submitted to these contests before but never made it past the first round. They supply great feedback and inspiration so it’s worth checking out. Wish me luck for the next rounds.

Details below:

First Floor Walk Up Presents Bi-Weekly Readings of

Poetry and Prose at

One and One

76 E. 1st St. @ 1st Ave

F Train to 2nd Ave Station

FREE

Monday, January 12th, 7 PM

DIDI CHAMPAGNE

Didi Champagne has performed on NYC stages for close to 40 years, playing with her band at CBGB’s, The Bitter End and many more downtown legendary clubs. She also has a few albums of original music. She has read poetry with JD Rage at ABC No Rio, Cornelia Street Café, Gargoyle Mechanique and countless other venues  She has found inspiration from attending art exhibitions and is planning a show of her artwork soon. Her new book of poetry and art, Life of a Kalamata, is available upon request. Her work is a reflection of her past, present and future. It is fresh and modern and hopes to inspire those around her. Peace, love and music. 

RON KOLM 

Ron Kolm is a contributing editor of Sensitive Skin. His books include A Change in the Weather, Divine Comedy, Suburban Ambush, Swimming in the Shallow End, Welcome to the Barbecue, The Bookstore Book: A Memoir and The Verities of Love. He's had work in Maintenant, The Silver-Tongued Devil anthology, Public Illumination Magazine and The Café Review. Ron’s papers are archived in the NYU Library.

JONATHAN BERGER 

Wayne Kral has been doing readings in the East Village for hundreds of years. Jonathan Berger has not been reciting as long as all that, but still, this is not his first rodeo. Watch Jonathan Berger bust the metaphorical bronco with literal words! jonberger.com

ANDREA DEANGELIS 

Andrea DeAngelis is at times a poet, writer, shutterbug and musician living in New York City. Her writing has recently appeared in Rawhead Journal, Molotov Cocktail and Carmina Magazine. Andrea also sings and plays guitar in the indie rock band MAKAR (www.makarmusic.com)  who are currently recording their fourth album, Exit Earth. She tries not to disturb her neighbors by putting her guitar amp in the closet. 

JENNIFER BLOWDRYER 

Jennifer Megan Baring-Gould Waters became Jennifer Blowdryer after her first punk band, the Blowdryers (1978, SF) was a good handle to use for her first book Modern English: A Photo-Illustrated Trendy Slang Dictionary, and later for readers of her New York Press column (1988 – 2010). She’s authored books including a novel called The Laziest Secretary in the World White Trash Debutante, and has been too widely anthologyized to mention. Her most recent book is True Blue: Essays on NYC and her last album is She’s Got The Weirdness (2021).  Her EP Sometimes I Travel Just to Get Away is on I Tunes, and her new book is Music A - Z

Hope to see you there! Will record and get it up on the site eventually if you can’t make it.

Andrea’s story Eye Maggot made it into Molotov Cocktail’s Flash Monster 2025 Contest Top 10!

November 13, 2025

Andrea: On Halloween I found out that my story Eye Maggot made it into Molotov Cocktail’s Flash Monster 2025 Contest Top 10! At No. 8.

The submission trenches are a strange and unpredictable place. I just wrote this story and was dragging heels on getting it done in time. When I pressed submit during their slacker special, I honestly had no confidence it would even make the short list never mind getting accepted. This just goes to show you that you never know. All I know is that I didn’t want to miss this contest deadline, that feeling of losing an opportunity usually eggs me on. Regardless of the outcome, I’m happy to have written a new story. So don’t let inspiration pass you by.

In conclusion, you can have a piece (like my ghost story Desmond) you’ve submitted and revised over and over again and it only gets accepted after 16 times and you can have a piece that is accepted on the first go.

Please read the entire issue. I love it you should too.

PS: It’s funny I often write about body horror but I can’t really watch it. I also can’t watch pretty mundane things like the spitting in the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s video or the gross eating in INXS’ The One Thing and especially can’t watch people gross eating in The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1 but I write about those things. Weird?

Andrea’s ghost story Desmond was published in Rawhead’s Bloody Bones Special Issue #1 on 10/22/25

Andrea’s ghost story Desmond was published last week in Rawhead’s Bloody Bones Special Issue #1.

She will be reading a portion of this tale on zoom (Sunday, November 2nd from 12 – 2 PM ET) during The Launch Party for Rawhead’s Fall 2025 releases, Issue One and Special Issue One: Bloody Bones

It will take place via Zoom on Sunday, November 2nd from 12 – 2 PM ET. You can register for the event here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/UUxsrgltTmCKMrSu_7w8tA

“alien? where did you come from?”, by gryffyn m, Unsplash, 2020

Andrea’s back story on this piece

This story started out as a poem called French House Shadows about a haunting at Oberlin back in the nineties. Or was it mass psychosis? Who knows?

I personally experienced some of the more innocuous bits of this haunting but it was the former RA of the dorm who relayed his tale to us impressionable sophomores that has remained with me after all these years.

One of the older students in the dorm was friends with him. She started to tell him about all the weird occurrences happening over winter term. He immediately demanded to speak to us all. He wanted to know who told us about the ghost and Desmond. But honestly no one did. (Or no one did to me). He had just returned to campus from taking off a year for his health. He rationalized that the dorm experienced mass psychosis and it wasn’t a haunting at all. He had also been very sick during the first haunting with pneumonia. But it wasn’t all explainable.

I first completed the fiction version of this story in June 2021 submitting it to The Molotov Cocktail’s Flash Vision Contest. Contests often inspire me to finish a story and even write a new one. If you’re ever uninspired, submit to a contest.

This story of madness and/or ghosts took submitting to 19 places and many revisions to get accepted. It was rejected 16 times (withdrawn twice).

It has been almost 2 years since I’ve gotten a piece accepted. To be fair, I wasn’t submitting enough but this year I set a goal of submitting to 100 places. I’ve made it to 59. In 2024, I only submitted to 22 places and 2023 (when I was last published) to 56.

My point is don’t give up, keep working, revising, reading and submitting. The very process of submitting makes one a better writer.

I wanted to post about this sooner but I’ve been recovering from surgery and contracted food poisoning. Desmond’s revenge, maybe?

Please check out the two first issues from Rawhead.

Videos of past readings

Finally got to videoing (is that a word?) again and here are readings that both Mark and I gave in the recent years. Spoken Word if you’re fancy and we know you’re fancy.

We are also reading again at First Floor Walk Up Reading Series on Monday, April 21st at 7pm at One and One LES (76 E 1st Street, New York, NY 10009). It’s free. FB event link

Videos of us speaking in public below

First Floor Walk Up Reading Series - Monday, April 21st

Mark and I will be reading fiction at the First Floor Walk Up Reading Series on Monday, April 21st at 7pm at One and One LES (76 E 1st Street, New York, NY 10009)

All the deets below:

First Floor Walk Up Presents Bi-Weekly Readings of
Poetry and Prose at

One and One
76 E. 1st St. @ 1st Ave
F Train to 2nd Ave Station

FREE 

Monday, April 21st, 7 PM
FB event link

Featured writers/poets/creatives’ bios below: 

MEGHAN GRUPPOSO

Originally from the gorgeous woods of southern New Hampshire, Meghan Grupposo holds a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School. She is a co-founder, former COO and co-editor of NeuroNautic Institute Presents and Press. Meghan’s work can be found in her handbound chapbook, Bouquet (NeuroNautic Press), & in various anthologies, including NYC From the Inside (Blue Light Press), arriving at a shoreline and Escape Wheel (great weather for MEDIA), the Dada Journal Maintenant, Issues 14-17 (Three Rooms Press), Love Love Magazine, Polarity, & Rucksack a Global Poetry Patchwork’s multimedia project, Hair in the Wind. She’s a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee. Meghan happily resides in New York City with her two cats.

ANDREA DeANGELIS

Andrea DeAngelis is at times a poet, writer, shutterbug and musician living in New York City. Her writing has recently appeared in Carmina Magazine, Corvus Review, HauntedMTL and Bowery Gothic. Andrea also sings and plays guitar in the indie rock band MAKAR (www.makarmusic.com)  who are currently recording their fourth album, Exit Earth. She tries not to disturb her neighbors by putting her guitar amp in the closet.

MARK PURNELL

Mark Purnell is a writer, investor and musician living in New York City. His writing has recently appeared in The Molotov Cocktail and he is currently working on his debut novel. Mark sings, writes and plays piano in the indie rock band MAKAR (www.makarmusic.com).


JEFFERY BERG

Jeffery Berg is a writer who lives in Jersey City. He received an MFA from NYU. His poetry has appeared in various journals, including most recently in Pine Hills Review. His film criticism can be found at Film-Forward. His debut poetry collection, RE-ANIMATOR, is forthcoming in 2026 from Indolent Books.


VIRGINIA RANDALL

Virginia Randall grew up on the Lower East Side and her work has appeared in Narratively, Italian-Americana, Straus Newspapers and various blogs. She is a freelance culture writer and former UPI reporter.  This reading takes place where she bought her comics as a kid.

Please note that we’re not necessarily reading in the above order and that the event starts promptly at 7pm and ends around 8pm.

I’m also going to be uploading the past reading we did to YouTube here in the next week or so.

Hope to see you there!

First Floor Walk Up Presents Bi-Weekly Readings of Poetry and Prose

Both Mark and Andrea are very excited to be reading at First Floor Walk Up Presents Bi-Weekly Readings of Poetry and Prose at One and One, 76 E. 1st St. at 1st Ave on Monday, February 26th.

The event starts at 7:00 pm and goes to 8pm – See the line-up below – more info on our fellow writers and poets closer to the event as well as the Facebook event link

First Floor Walk Up Presents Bi-Weekly Readings of

Poetry and Prose at

One and One

76 E. 1st St. @ 1st Ave

F Train to 2nd Ave Station

FREE

Monday, February 26th, 7 PM

WAH MOHN

ANDREA DeANGELIS

Andrea DeAngelis is at times a poet, writer, shutterbug and musician living in New York City. Her writing has recently appeared in Carmina Magazine, Corvus Review, HauntedMTL and Bowery Gothic. Andrea also sings and plays guitar in the indie rock band MAKAR (www.makarmusic.com) who recently released their third album, Fancy Hercules. She tries not to disturb her neighbors by putting her guitar amp in the closet.

MARK PURNELL

Mark Purnell is a writer, investor and musician living in New York City. His writing has recently appeared in The Molotov Cocktail and he is currently working on his debut novel. Mark sings, writes and plays piano in the indie rock band MAKAR (www.makarmusic.com).

ALLAN  GRAUBARD

Allan Graubard -- poet, writer and critic -- (just published!): SUN STEP BLACK LAKE (Broken Sleep Books, Wales, UK). In 2022, he appeared as editor and contributor to the international anthology Nigredo. 2020/2019 saw the publication of three books: Western Terrace (Exstasis Editions, Victoria, BC), Language of Birds (Anon Editions, NY/LA), and Into the Mylar Chamber: Ira Cohen (Fulgur, UK).

Andrea still has to make a decision on what to read…muahahaha. She will make it weird because she’s a weirdo lol (Andrea wrote this btw)

Halloween Reading at Von Bar - Sunday, October 30th (for Bowery Gothic)

Calling all Creepy Literati!
A Hallow’s Eve reading!

Andrea will be reading her short story Mara along with the other Bowery Gothic contributors on Sunday, October 30th at Von Bar located at 3 Bleecker in NYC. The event starts at 6pm.

Andrea's short story Mara published in Bowery Gothic

Andrea’s piece Mara was published in Bowery Gothic on September 1st in their Summer Ghosts Edition VII.

Andrea: This story was inspired by the original nightmare known as Mara and other names in Time Life’s The Enchanted World’s Night Creatures fable. These were books I inherited from my Welsh grandfather. He had such a wonderful odd library, inspiration galore.

Here is a recent article from Atlas Obscura:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/original-nightmare-demon-suffocation-night-terror

I enjoy telling stories from the perspective of the monsters and having the monsters win.

The Nightmare, Henry Fuseli, 1781. JOHN HENRY FUSELI

Please check out the entire issue!

Archived Copy

A little about Bowery Gothic

Inspired by a reading series at a haunted bar on the Bowery, Bowery Gothic is a literary journal seeking to publish the highest quality literature and art. We look for stories—both real and imagined—that exist in that liminal space: between the seen and unseen; between entertainment and fear. We are excited by work that stands at the threshold and looks into the unknown. We are excited by the sublimity of terror.

We are not interested in gore, violence, or perversion. Instead, send us literary work that transcends genre, that scares us and makes us think: Damn, that was fresh. We are drawn to literature that conjures up tales told by our favorite writers—from Henry James to Kelly Link; Shirley Jackson to Octavia E. Butler—stories that entice, amaze, terrify.