Attention, Austin Literati: Benjamin Reed and Billy Cope at Cafe Mundi

Confession: I was going to start out this post by saying something to the effect of, "I'm kind of a nerd and love books...." or, "sorry to indulge my dorky side...." but forget all the self-deprecating qualifiers about being a book dork. I admire reading material of all kinds. And I think that those of us who like to read are a rather cool crowd, actually. At one point, I even desired nothing more than to teach the masses Victorian literature...realize now it's kind of strange!....and that's when I wholly embraced the loud-and-proud book thing. The written word is just awesome, or else why would you be sitting here reading this very post?

ANYWAY. It is with great pleasure that I tell you about this reading going on tomorrow night at Cafe Mundi. Ben Reed has not only been twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize - a really big deal!! - but he was the genius behind The Accidental Gentrifist at Austinist. When I asked about Billy Copa, here is what Ben told me:

"When I met Bill, he was publishing "Welfare Books"- little, matchbook-sized books with 1 short story each. He sold them for a quarter at Star Seeds."

Don't these sound like people you want to meet? You can:

If any other local writers want to publicize their readings, I'm putting the call out now to hit me up. Holler at your girl. Because I would love nothing more than for live readings to become big in this town.

...I am, after all, a book dork.