It’s a bit strange meeting someone in person after you’ve read their memoir. Especially when said memoir is about being a dominatrix.

I was just nearing the end of Melissa Febos’s Whip Smart, a fascinating and relentlessly self-analytical book about her years in the New York dominatrix scene, when I came across her monthly Mixer Reading and Music Series. (Reason #44586 to love NY: coming across cool/popular events I had no idea were happening.) This month featured Karen Russell of Swamplandia fame, as well as debut novelist Nina-Marie Gardner, poet Maureen McLane and musician Motherwell Johnston. A great lineup, and I was happy to find that the lively event lived up to its mixer-y moniker.

Taking the stage, Melissa spoke of her nostalgia for NYC’s grosser aspects (abandoned diapers, people clipping nails on subway) since moving to upstate NY. She introduced Nina-Marie Gardner, who read from her debut novel Sherry and Narcotics. The book follows Mary, an American alcoholic in Manchester, who in this scene meets up with an English bloke for a strange, blurry night on the town. Karen Russell then took the stage, saying, “That was so sexy…now I’m going to write a G-rated tale about an 11-year-old boy in the Dust Bowl.”  She read from the book she’s currently working on, which one article describes as “a science-fiction story set in the Dust Bowl during a severe drought” (sweet!). Poet Maureen McLane finished the lit portion by reading several published and new poems, which included vivid lines like “Go, little mind book, and blow her head off” and “Terrible things are happening…in Russian novels.”

Finally, Melissa introduced Motherwell Johnston as an act she’s been trying to get for a long time. Also known as Chris Gibbs, he’s played with Lucinda Black Bear, Foetus and the Morning Glories. (He noted that performing under a new name “forces you to play new songs.”) The three songs he played were both lyrical and intriguing—you can check out some of his other stuff here.

Maureen mentioned her love of “literarily enabling bars,” and I have to agree—there’s really nothing better than sitting in a dark bar on a cool fall night, beer in hand, listening to stories that can take you places like Nebraska and Manchester and back again.