=”font-size: 13pt”>Hello, I am David Henry Sterry, best-selling author of Master of Ceremonies: A True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates, and Chippendales, and I am embarking on an 18 event tour, from San Francisco to Manhattan to Miami to Hollywood to New Jersey, place of my birth. The event is called Art of the Memoir, and I’m so excited to be sharing a podium with an all-star Who’s Who of memoirists and memoir experts: New York Times bestseller and TV icon Chelsea Handler, international storytelling sensation Mike Daisy, Bay Area legends Beth Lisick and Alan Black, James Beard Award winner Laura Schenone, mega-agent James Levine, Distinguished Professor Jeff Berman, and book superguru Arielle Eckstut. There will be performances. Then we’ll be talking about how the memoir has evolved as an art form, and as a cultural phenomenon. Why do so many Americans feel the need to write a memoir? Is this the new 15 minutes of fame? What makes a good memoir? What makes a bad memoir? Then we’ll have some crazy Q & A’s. So here’s the skinny on the tour and the new book. Thanks, David Henry Sterry
THE ART OF THE MEMOIR:
TELLING & SELLING YOUR LIFE STORIES
“Everybody wants to make their mark. Nowadays, that means everybody is writing a memoir.” – CNN, April 18, 2008
Find out what it takes to write and sell your life story from trained professionals who’ve actually done just that. David Henry Sterry, best-selling memoirist, book doctor, and comic, will emcee and perform from his new book Master of Ceremonies: A True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates and Chippendales*. All-star memoirists will read from their memoirs. Then they will all discuss the joys and the perils, the agony and the ecstasy of writing and selling the stories of your life. Making a narrative of events of your own life, dealing with issues of privacy and the lunacy of family, figuring out how to navigate the stormy seas of the publishing world, are all topics that will be bandied about. This will be followed by a Q&A session. All questions will be answered. And perhaps a couple of audience members will get a chance to tell their life story.
Do you want to write your life stories? Come find out how.
*anyone who buys this book will get a free consultation from a publishing expert.
Master of Ceremonies: A True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates and Chippendales, Kismet and Canongate US presents:
Art of the Memoir:
The Vodka, Richard Simmons, Scottish Balls, Dog Years, Beefcake and Murder Tour
Art of the Memoir, with Arielle Eckstut, Laura Schenone
September 8 Watchung bookstore, Montclair, NJ 7 PM
Art of the Memoir with Arielle Eckstut, Jeff Berman
September 18 Barnes & Noble Albany 7 PM
Art of the Memoir with James Levine and Mike Daisy
September 22 Strand Bookstore, NYC 7 PM
Art of the Memoir with Chelsea Handler
October 1 Book Soup, LA 7 PM
Art of the Memoir with Chelsea Handler
October 2 Barnes and Noble, Santa Monica (Third St. Promenade)7 PM
Art of the Memoir with Chelsea Handler
October 3 Vroman‘s Pasadena 7 PM
Litquake
October 9 Hemlock Tavern, San Francisco 7 PM
Art of the Memoir & Pitchapalooza, with Arielle Eckstut
October 11 St. Louis Book Festival
The Art of the Memoir with Alan Black, Beth Lisick
October 13 Book Passage, Corte Madera 7 PM
The Art of the Memoir with Alan Black, Beth Lisick
October 14 City Lights, San Francisco 7 PM
The Art of the Memoir with Alan Black, Beth Lisick
October 15 1st Congregational Church Berkeley 7:30 p.m.
The Art of the Memoir with Alan Black, Beth Lisick
October 16 B & N Walnut Creek 7 PM
The Art of the Memoir with Alan Black, Beth Lisick with California writers group
October 18 B & N Jack London Square, Oakland 10-12
Girls Just Want to Have Fun Night
October 18 Edinburgh Castle, San Francisco 8 PM
The Art of the Memoir with Alan Black, Beth Lisick
October 20 Kepler’s, Palo Alto 7 PM
The Art of the Memoir
October 23 San Francisco State University
The Art of the Memoir with Arielle Eckstut
November 6 Clinton Bookstore 6 p.m.
Format: The Art of the Memoir
November 9-16 Miami Book Festival
“When David Henry Sterry writes about sexuality, it’s like a chef writing about food.” – nerve.com
MASTER OF CEREMONIES: A True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates & Chippendales (Canongate, August 2008) ISBN: 978-1-84195-876-7
1985. Smack dab in the middle of the cash happy/coke crazy 80s, when it was raining men and girls just wanted to have fun, David Henry Sterry became the MC at Chippendales, when it was the hottest show in the city that never sleeps. Find out what it was like to be the ugliest man at Chippendale’s.
“‘Master of Ceremonies’ is a dizzying, tender story resplendent with seedy glamour, hilarious backstage madness, and unflinching honesty… There are two underlying love stories, one between Sterry and a coworker, and one between Sterry and his craft..” – Library Journal.
Find out what it was like working for Nick de Noia, the visionary genius behind Chippendales who wanted to revolutionize the world by creating the first fun, safe place where women could fondle, ogle and sexualize hot man flesh. And got assassinated for his trouble. Find out what it was like to perform in front of 600 flesh-craving, money-waving, booze-fueled ladies; soccer moms and supermodels; corn fed tourists and coke-headed porn starlets; desperate housewives behaving badly and lipstick lesbians. Decide whether Chippendale’s was the ripe fruit hanging on the tree of the Women’s Liberation Movement, or just another way for hot guys to make a fast buck. And, discover what it was like to find true love in the strangest place.
“Sterry writes with comic brio…” – NY Times “Sterry’s prose fizzes like a firework. Every page crackles… laconic as Dashiell Hammett, viscerally hallucinogenic as Hunter S Thompson.” – Irish Times “Visceral, frank and compulsive reading.’ – City Life, Manchester “Alternately sexy and terrifying, hysterical and weird, With lush prose and a flawless ear for the rhythms of the street, Sterry lays out a life lived on the edge in a coming-of-age classic that’s colorful, riveting, and strangely beautiful. David Henry Sterry is the real thing.” – Jerry Stahl
Sterry’s first memoir, Chicken, is being made into a TV series by Showtime.
JAMES LEVINE
LEVINE-GREENBERG LITERARY AGENCY
James Levine is one of America’s great superagents, and the founder of Levine-Greenberg literary agency. He has spent decades putting together ideas, people, and money; identifying, nurturing, and marketing talent; and creating projects that make a difference. He is also the author of seven books and over a hundred articles, and has appeared on Oprah. He has also helped dozens and dozens and dozens of writers become professional authors.
MIKE DAISEY
21 DOG YEARS: A CUBEDWELLERS TALE
MIKE DAISEY has been called “the master storyteller” by the New York Times for his many monologues, which include How Theater Failed America, Great Men of Genius, and 21 Dog Years, and over the past decade he has performed at venues such as the Public Theater, American Repertory Theatre, the Spoleto Festival, the Cherry Lane Theatre, Yale Repertory Theater, the Noorderzon Festival, and many more. He’s been a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman, his work has been heard on the BBC, NPR and his groundbreaking series All Stories Are Fiction is available through Audible. Currently he’s a commentator for PRI and NPR, and a contributor to Vanity Fair. His first film, Layover, is being distributed by Lars von Trier’s company Zentropa. His first book, 21 Dog Years: A Cubedweller’s Tale, was published by the Free Press. He has been the recipient of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award, two Seattle Times Footlight Awards, and a MacDowell Fellowship.
ARIELLE ECKSTUT
PUTTING YOUR PASSION INTO PRINT
Arielle Eckstut is one of America’s greatest book supergurus, and author of seven books, including Putting Your Passion Into Print (Workman, 2005), the definitive book about how to get happily published, that removes the smoke and mirrors from the book biz. It is a step-by-step, blow-by-blow description of how to take an idea you’re passionate about, make a book out of it, get it published and deliver it into the hands, heads and hearts of readers all over the world. As an agent, Arielle Eckstut has helped dozens and dozens of writers become professional authors. She has appeared everywhere from Fox Business News to NPR. Plus, she’s married to David Henry Sterry..
LAURA SCHENONE
THE LOST RAVIOLI RECIPES OF HOBOKEN
www.lauraschenone.com www.jellypress.com
Laura Schenone’s first book, A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove won the James Beard Award in 2004. It begins with Native American women cooking in earth ovens and goes to the present day and our time-pressed microwaving lives. Her next book, The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken, is a quest tale about her search for a long-lost family recipe that took her deep into pasta making country in Liguria, telling a magical story of religion, history, family and food. Laura has appeared on NPR, has written for Gourmet and Saveur magazines, and writes for jellypress.
JEFF BERMAN
DYING TO TEACH: A MEMOIR OF LOVE, LOSS, AND LEARNING
Jeff Berman is a Distinguished Teaching Professor of English at the University of Albany and author of 10 books.
BETH LISICK
HELPING ME HELP MYSELF: 1 SKEPTIC, 10 SELF-HELP GURUS, AND A YEAR ON THE BRINK OF THE COMFORT ZONE
Grappling with her lifelong phobia of anything slick, cheesy, or remotely claiming to provide self-empowerment, Beth Lisick wakes up on New Year’s Day finally able to admit to herself that she’s tired of having no savings account, feeling unorganized and chaotic, and realizing she last exercised regularly as a member of her high school track team twenty years ago. Beth decides to consult the multimillion-dollar-earning pros and national experts, not only reading their bestselling books but also attending their seminars and classes. Beth doesn’t think of herself as the typical self-help victim. But is she? “Lisick has created a hilarious, knowing tale of a year of willing ridiculousness.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Her accounts of everything…are not only hilarious but enlightening. Finding useful tips amidst the bunk, she distills the best from thousands of pages of self-help books. Readers will be inspired: If a woman in a banana suit can clean her closet and pay off her credit card debt, surely you can, too.” – People
ALAN BLACK
KICK THE BALLS: AN OFFENSIVE SUBURBAN ODYSSEY
An uproarious, fish-out-of-water account of a season in the life of a pee wee soccer team — introducing a laugh-out-loud new voice in American writing. A transplanted Scot living and working in California, Black commits to a season coaching the Dragons, a team of 8- and 9-year olds. For the parents of the players, fun is all that matters. But Black follows the words of Bill Shankly, the other legendary Scottish soccer coach, who once said, “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” It doesn’t help, of course, that the Dragons display absolutely no skill at the game. Well, it’s a recipe for disaster. In the tradition of Trainspotting and Fever Pitch, KICK THE BALLS is a side-splitting memoir of grass stains and free kicks, and of a security-obsessed, late-night America few get to see, all delivered in a prose so sharp it could cut a soccer ball in half.
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