Neal Pollack is funnier than anyone. That’s right: anyone. So funny that although the original McSweeney’s Books publication of The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, in which Pollack skewers high-minded journalists and authors of all sorts, garnered a sizable readership, HarperCollins has picked it up in paperback and is also publishing a spoken word CD. Pollack will be doing his usual strange things at BookPeople on Thursday, March 14, at 7pm… All the work that Louisana native Martha Serpasput in while studying at LSU, NYU, Yale Divinity School, and the University of Houston has paid off. Her first collection of poetry, Côte Blanche, has earned her a comparison to Elizabeth Bishop and has Harold Bloom saying that “Many rereadings persuade me that a double handful of these poems may achieve permanence.” Serpas will be at Book Woman (918 W. 12th) on Wednesday, March 13 at 7pm.
This article appears in March 8 • 2002.