Calling all literary lovers! The Shanty (79 Richardson Street) is hosting a monthly reading series. As the home bar for the New York Distilling Company, the makers of Dorothy Parker Gin, it’s the perfect setting for a 2020s version of the Algonquin Round Table (do we have a name for our decade yet? Let me know!)
This month’s readings will take place on May 1 at 6 p.m. Entry is free, although registration on Eventbrite gives you access to a drink special. The lineup features Chantal V. Johnson, Emily Neuberger, JT Price, Angela Qian, and Jean Miaochun Zhang.
The reading series started in April 2021, founded and hosted by Wesley Straton, formerly a bartender at the Shanty and a writer herself, who has a forthcoming book being published this June.
“I worked at The Shanty from 2017 until the end of 2020 and I always thought it would be a great place to host a literary event,” Straton writes on her website. “The reading series became real during a conversation with bar manager Marissa Mazzotta, a poet and musician herself. (As is the case with many bars, The Shanty’s staff has always been an artistic bunch.) As things slowly open up again, we wanted to create a space to share work and foster local literary community, which feels especially important after being so isolated from each other for so long.”