James Greer + Maggie Estep

Once a SPIN regular and later a bassist for the band Guided by Voices, Greer is now a screenwriter and novelist. His latest, The Failure, is a verbally agile and often hilarious metafiction about a Los Angeles loser who is at once brilliant and wildly dumb. Here is a man whose delightful put-downs are as stunning as his plan to rob a check-cashing venue is terrible. Joining him is writer-performer Estep, also the author of a crime novel with a twist, the gambler-meets-murder love story Alice Fantastic. See also Wed 19, Akashic All-Stars.