Thursday, January 22nd saw the Twin Cities area host their fourth Noir at the Bar event. For those not familiar, Noir at the Bar is an event that allows area crime/mystery authors to read their works in pub settings. There are now Noir at the Bar events happening fairly regularly on both coasts, as well as the St. Louis are. All it takes is a group of writers willing to shake off a fear of public speaking, and a local bar willing to share their space. The result? Well, that’s where the magic is.
This year’s readers were:
Kristi Belcamino from Minneapolis
Kent Gowran from Chicago
Dan O’Shea from Chicago
Jeff Shelby from Minneapolis
Frank Wheeler, Jr from Milwaukee
Each reader read for about 10-15 minutes from their own works. After their reading, they were given the opportunity to explain more about their works, giving the audience a fantastic insight into the creative process. Afterwards, the audience was able to purchase books and have them signed.
Continuing their ongoing partnership, the local Noir at the Bar group once again was joined by Paul von Stoetzel of Killing Joke Films and Bridget Cronin of Pounding Heart Multimedia. For this year’s event, they offered a very well received preview of their short film YOUR BLIND SPOT. Written by Wheeler, directed by von Stoetzel and produced by Cronin, YOUR BLIND SPOT was a razor sharp slice of a crime drama that had the approximately 70 people in attendance white-knuckling their drinks.
Special thank-you’s to Bent Brewstillery, who offered their taproom for the event, and kept everyone’s glasses filled with craft beer. And to SubText Books, who was gracious enough to come out and sell the author’s books at this very successful event. Local artist Brent Schoonover once again provided exceptional design work for the publicity poster.
Dan Malmon
