"New Year Salon"

NOTE: We are close to selling out on Eventbrite. If that happens, you can email your RSVP directly to urbanebrooklyn@gmail.com. Make sure to indicate how many people are in your group. Thank you!

Please join HIP Lit and Les Bleus for our eighth annual collaborative New Year Salon on Friday, January 19th at The Urbane Arts Club. We're excited to usher in 2024 with an inspiring night of readings and music, featuring super talents—David Santos Donaldson, Monique Laban, Julian Tepper, and Jocelyn Mackenzie. All set in a sprawling Victorian mansion with mingling over drinks and dumplings to follow. Books will be available for sale from Mil Mundos.

This event is dedicated to David Burr Gerrard, who was a beloved member of the New York City literary community and is deeply missed. We invite you to contribute to this GoFundMe, which will provide some financial relief for David's wife and daughter during this very difficult time. Thank you for your kindness, and we look forward to seeing you soon.

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Doors: 7:00pm

Program: 7:30pm

Admission: Free

RSVP required

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David Santos Donaldson is the author of the novel Greenland, a finalist for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the 2023 Publishing Triangle Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. He was raised in Nassau, Bahamas, and has lived in India, Spain, and the United States. Donaldson attended Wesleyan University and the Drama Division of the Juilliard School. His plays have been commissioned by the Public Theater and he was a finalist for the Urban Stages Emerging Playwright Award. He is currently a practicing psychotherapist and divides his time between Brooklyn, New York and Seville, Spain. Donaldson’s writing has appeared in various magazines including Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, and the German literary magazine Geistesblüten.

Monique Laban's fiction and essays have appeared in The Offing, Catapult, The Florida Review, Clarkesworld, and elsewhere. She has received support from Hedgebrook, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshop, the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Viable Paradise Workshop, and VONA. She is a 2023-2024 Susan Kamil Center for Fiction Emerging Writer Fellow. She lives in the Upper East Side and is currently at work on a novel.

Julian Tepper is the author of four novels, Between the Records, Balls, Ark and Cooler Heads (forthcoming January 23, 2024). His writing has appeared in the Paris Review, Playboy, The Brooklyn Rail, Zyzzyva, The Daily Beast, Tablet Magazine and elsewhere. His essay, "Locking Down with the Family You've Just Eviscerated in a Novel" was a "Notable Essay of 2022" in Best American Essays 2022. As a member of the band, The Natural History, he co-wrote the song “Don’t You Ever,” which was later turned into a hit by the legendary band, Spoon. He was born and raised in New York City and lives there still.

Jocelyn Mackenzie is a Brooklyn-based musician, maker, and medium. She released her debut full length solo album PUSH on Ani DiFranco's label Righteous Babe Records in 2021, and in 2022, she performed in The Righteous Babes, which opened for Ani DiFranco on two nationwide tours. She now has several releases on Righteous Babe. Formerly the singing drummer from indie-pop trio Pearl and the Beard (2007-2015), Mackenzie and bandmates Emily Hope Price and Jeremy Lloyd-Styles released six studio albums in their tenure. They boasted an extensive touring history across the US, UK, and Canada with such noteworthy artists as Ani DiFranco, Neko Case, Bastille, Iron & Wine, Ingrid Michaelson, Lucius, Dar Williams, Lady Lamb, and David Wax Museum. Her music has also been heard and commissioned for movies and television.

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The Urbane Arts Club is a1920s speakeasy turned events venue and arts community, where century-old elegance meets today’s creative vibrancy in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. Conspire with us!

Closest Subway Stops: The venue is only a 5 minute walk from the Beverley Road Q stop and a 12 minute walk from the Church Avenue B stop.

You can email urbanebrooklyn@gmail.com or call 843-810-0483 with any questions.