Interview: Lisa Teasley (03/12/2008)
Date: March 12, 2008
Location: Seminar Room, Butler Building, CalArts Visiting Writers Series
Los Angeles-born and -based writer Lisa Teasley is fearless. A risk-taker, at least. Or so it would seem. She skateboards, she paints (“a physical working out of the imagination through color”), and she writes about subject matter that many might think of as taboo. An audacious spirit tempered by an amiable nature, Teasley is a profoundly engaging performer, able, almost effortlessly, to command the attention of her audience.
Keywords:
CalArts | Character | Laura Vena | Lisa Teasley | Reading | Visiting Writers Series | Wanda Coleman
Black Clock 8 Reading At The Mandrake
Black Clock 8 Reading @ The Mandrake
Sunday, March 16 2008, 4:00 PM
Join us at the launch party for Black Clock 8 at 4 p.m. on Sunday, March 16 at The Mandrake. The party will feature readings by the following BC8 contributors.
- ALEX AUSTIN is the author of several plays including Dupe, which will be staged this summer in Los Angeles. “The Dark Ride” in this issue is excerpted from The Dark Ride of Asbury Park, the sequel to his novel The Perfume Factory.
- CHRIS KRAUS is the author of the novels I Love Dick, Aliens & Anorexia, Torpor and the forthcoming Summer of Hate, and a collection of art essays.
- GEORGE MELROD, a screenwriter and art critic, used to love visiting American historical tourist sites as a kid. He currently is the editor of art ltd. magazine.
- GEOFF NICHOLSON is the author of fourteen novels as well the in-progress 14 Minutes, about an Andy Warhol look-alike, and the forthcoming non-fiction The Lost Art of Walking.
- MADY SCHUTZMAN has written for Theatre Topics, Women and Performance, The Drama Review and American Communication Journal, and is writing a play about Llano del Rio, a California utopian colony. She also is coeditor of two anthologies on the work of theatre director Augusto Boal and teaches writing and performance theory at CalArts.
- LISA TEASLEY is the author of the novels Heat Signature and Dive and the award-winning collection Glow in the Dark. She also wrote and hosted the BBC documentary High School Prom, which was short-listed for the EMMA Award.
The Mandrake serves up an ambient mix of art and social spaces: the ideal venue to showcase the cutting-edge voices of Black Clock.
The Mandrake = 2692 S La Cienega Blvd. (Between Venice Blvd. and Washington Blvd.), Los Angeles, CA 90034, (310) 837-3297
Keywords:
Alex Austin | Black Clock 8 | Chris Kraus | Geoff Nicholson | George Melrod | Lisa Teasley | Mady Schutzman | Reading | The Mandrake
Black Clock 8 Embarks On Outer And Inner Journeys
The eighth issue of Black Clock arrives on newsstands and in bookstores in early January 2008. The stories and poetry in the newest issue of California Institute of the Arts’ (CalArts) literary journal are “loosely linked by the idea of physical and emotional nomadism,” said editor Steve Erickson. “These are travels and sojourns of the outward and inward sort, guided by such writers as Geoffrey O’Brien, Susan Straight, Tom Carson, Lisa Teasley, Yxta Maya Murray, Chris Kraus, Michael Ventura and others.”
From the cover image of a tunnel leading deep into the magazine’s pages, Black Clock 8 speaks to our wanderlust even if, as in the case of Geoff Nicholson’s “A Walk Around the World,” the central character decides to walk a distance circling the globe all within his own backyard. In “The Sting of Irrelevancy” author Joanna Scott is stranded in Rome and finds herself contemplating Jorge Luis Borges’ wandering dreamers, while in Lewis Shiner’s “Wonderland” the protagonist’s journey takes him only a few blocks from where he lives and works into 1960’s Harlem–which might as well be another planet.
Published by CalArts in association with the MFA Writing Program, Black Clock features work by prominent national writers, talented regional authors and the very best emerging writers.
Black Clock’s staff includes Erikson, a novelist, critic and CalArts MFA Writing Program faculty member in addition to being the magazine’s Editor, Senior Editor and adjunct member of CalArts Writing Program faculty Bruce Bauman, Editor-at-Large Dwayne Moser, Managing Editor Michaele Simmering and Art Director Ophelia Chong.
Keywords:
Black Clock 8 | Bruce Bauman | Chris Kraus | Dwayne Moser | Geoffrey O'Brien | Joanna Scott | Lewis Shiner | Lisa Teasley | Michael Ventura | Michaele Simmering | Ophelia Chong | Steve Erickson | Susan Straight | Tom Carson | Yxta Maya Murray
Black Clock 7 Sizzles
The seventh issue of Black Clock is the most provocative issue of the journal yet. It features twenty-five stories, one essay and four poems about sex and the erotic by such writers as Samuel R. Delany, Janet Fitch, Aimee Bender, Lynne Tillman, Geoff Nicholson, Francesca Lia Block, Rachel Resnick, Brian Evenson, Lisa Teasley, Seth Greenland, Tara Ison, John Haskell and others. This current issue will begin heating up newsstands and bookstores in late June.
Published by the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in association with the MFA Writing Program, Black Clock features work by prominent national writers, talented regional authors and the very best emerging writers.
Black Clock 7 includes Yxta Maya Murray’s “Girl Called Casanova”, in which the world’s greatest lover takes female form and sets out to seduce Angelina Jolie; Wanda Coleman’s “Howlin’ With the Woofdog”, about a tryst between a well-known radio DJ and a reluctant virgin; Joy Nicholson’s “Manson Girl”, a tale at once sweet, funny and chilling about the sexual dynamics of a murderous cult; and Tom Carson’s “My Mother, Marie Christ, (b. Hope Springs, TN, 1951 d. Memphis, July 4, 1985)”, about a boy named Jesus growing up in Reagan’s America who has a thing for his Mom.
Novelist, critic and CalArts MFA Writing Program faculty member Steve Erickson is the Editor of Black Clock. Dwayne Moser, adjunct faculty and CalArts MFA Writing Program coordinator, and Bruce Bauman, also an adjunct member of the Writing Program faculty, serve as Senior Editors. Gail Swanlund, Graphic Design faculty at CalArts, is the magazine’s art director.
Keywords:
Aimee Bender | Black Clock 7 | Brian Evenson | Bruce Bauman | Dwayne Moser | Francesca Lia Block | Gail Swanlund | Geoff Nicholson | Janet Fitch | John Haskell | Joy Nicholson | Lisa Teasley | Lynne Tillman | Rachel Resnick | Samuel R. Delany | Seth Greenland | Steve Erickson | Tara Ison | Tom Carson | Wanda Coleman | Yxta Maya Murray
Black Clock Benefit At REDCAT
Black Clock Benefit @ Redcat
Thursday, February 15 2007, 7:30 PM
Please join us on the evening of 2.15.07 at REDCAT (631 West Second Street Los Angeles 90012) in celebrating Black Clock, the Los Angeles-based literary magazine. Tickets are issued on a sliding scale: $5, $25, or more if you’re feeling generous.
Appearing at REDCAT will be:
- AIMEE BENDER, author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, An Invisible Sign Of My Own and Willful Creatures
- FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK, author of Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books
- BEN EHRENREICH, author of The Suitors
- YXTA MAYA MURRAY, author of The Conquest, The Queen Jade and the forthcoming The King’s Gold
- SUSAN STRAIGHT, author of A Million Nightingales, Highwire Moon and I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen And Licked Out All the Pots
- LISA TEASLEY, author of Heat Signature, Dive and Glow In The Dark
- DAVID L. ULIN, author of The Myth of Solid Ground and editor of The Los Angeles Times Book Review
and
- STEVE ERICKSON, editor of Black Clock and author of Our Ecstatic Days and the forthcoming Zeroville, in conversation with MICHAEL SILVERBLATT, host of KCRW’s “Bookworm.”
This event is co-hosted by the CalArts MFA Writing Program and the School of Critical Studies. For ticket information please call REDCAT at (213) 237-2800 or visit www.redcat.org.
Keywords:
Aimee Bender | Ben Ehrenreich | Benefit | David L. Ulin | Francesca Lia Block | Lisa Teasley | Michael Silverblatt | Reading | REDCAT | Steve Erickson | Susan Straight | Yxta Maya Murray



