Akashic Books Publisher Johnny Temple Celebrates Ten Years in Publishing with Two Book Parties!

In October 1997, Girls Against Boys bass player Johnny Temple burst onto the New York indie-press scene with no publishing background and an unknown, irreverent author, Arthur Nersesian, boasting a debut novel with a daring title: The Fuck-Up. Though the book has come to define the no-nonsense, independent spirit of Temple's publishing house (and has subsequently sold over 100,000 copies in its MTV/Simon & Schuster edition), the book's title falls far short of describing the man.

Combining a passion for identifying authors too often ignored by corporate houses with a common sense, grassroots approach to marketing and touring, Temple has published over 150 books in just ten years--and has helped establish the careers of some of the hottest, and most diverse, voices in contemporary fiction: Nersesian, Joe Meno, Chris Abani, Marlon James, T Cooper, Felicia Luna Lemus, and Colin Channer among them.

Perhaps no book has epitomized the Akashic Books slogan--Reverse-gentrification of the literary world--more than the January 2007 release of Tales of the Out & the Gone, a retrospective of collected short stories by literary giant Amiri Baraka. Mr. Baraka's renaissance and Mr. Temple's rising star merged with this work, culminating in a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice review: "In his prose as in his poetry, Baraka is at his best a lyrical prophet of despair who transfigures his contentious racial and political views into a transcendent clarity."

Now, the Akashic Books catalogue--ranging from the innovative, award-winning, city-specific Noir Series to Dennis Cooper's Little House on the Bowery Series; from best-selling imprint Punk Planet Books to authors discovered at Jamaica's Calabash International Literary Festival; from hard-hitting political nonfiction to edgy dowtown urban fiction--returns to where it all began: Arthur Nersesian, and his first book of fiction in three years: The Swing Voter of Staten Island, launching at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Meet our first author along with our newest, Preston L. Allen:

--Wednesday, October 17, 7pm, Tenement Museum, 108 Orchard St.
*Complimentary beer, wine, and hors d'oeuvres.

One night later, the celebration continues with the Akashic Books Ten-Year Anniversary Party at the Brooklyn Public Library. Featuring short readings by Amiri Baraka, Arthur Nersesian, T Cooper, Preston L. Allen, Felicia Luna Lemus, and Noir Series cocreator Tim McLoughlin:

--Thursday, October 18, 7 PM, Brooklyn Public Library, Central Branch at Grand Army Plaza (S. Steven Dweck Center for Contemporary Culture)
*Complimentary beer, wine, and Trinidadian cuisine.

See you there!