Literary Death Match

Literary Death Match, a performance that "marries the literary and performative aspects of Def Poetry Jam, rapier-witted quips of American Idol’s judging (without any meanness), and the ridiculousness and hilarity of Double Dare," turned 40 episodes old tonight, and I, along with my creative writing classmates, was there to celebrate.

The all-stars of the evening included New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones, Moth StorySlam champ Angela Lovell, along with Rick Meyerowitz, co-illustrator of the New Yorkistan New Yorker cover, Sean Kelly, former National Lampoon editor and Heavy Metal magazine founder, Danny Abelson, author of The Muppets Take Manhattan, comedian Jena Friedman, who writes for Late Show with David Letterman, Teddy Wayne, author of the novel Kapitoil — a 2011 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize runner-up, and Jillian Lauren, author of New York Times best-selling Some Girls.  Said participants read their work, recited lists, described encounters with Jesus, and ultimately competed in a Cyrillic-Off,  in which they fought to de-code the names of Pulitzer Prize-winning authors that had been phonetically "cyrillic-ized."

For a detailed account of the energetic match, visit the Literary Death Match Website.

Photo c/o Literarydeathmatch.com

Stay classy in Orlando, LDM. Until then, we'll be keeping Drom warm for you here in NYC.