Littoral Reading Series at Issue Project Room

WHY ESSENTIAL:
Once housed in a silo-like structure on the Gowanus Canal and currently located in Brooklyn’s historic Can Factory (with another, more permanent location on the way), the stunning Issue Project Room makes your average reading space look like a set for The 700 Club. The Littoral series ups the ante with performances by such innovators as Gary Lutz, Amy Hempel, Jim Shepard and Shelley Jackson.

The secret:
Littoral cofounders Suzanne Fiol and Anthony Antoniadis say their grandest ideas start on a rather shabby circa-1930s couch, snatched up from a Park Slope stoop sale. When conjuring concepts, Fiol and Antoniadis take turns lying on it, staring at the ceiling and dreaming of potential speakers. But the couch’s purpose is part inspirational, part functional: Sound artists Phill Niblock and Maryanne Amacher have crashed on it; writers Ben Marcus and Sam Lipsyte have plumbed one another’s writerly minds on its cushions; and Joe Wenderoth and Gibby Haynes drank beer on it on the Fourth of July. Explains Antoniadis, “This thing has 75 years of Brooklyn people on it—some of them the most visionary artists and writers working today.” 232 3rd St at Third Ave, third floor, Gowanus, Brooklyn (718-330-0313)

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