Leigh Stein, author of The Fallback Plan (Melville House, 2011), released her first poetry collection, Dispatch from the Future, to a receptive audience on Thursday, July 19th, at the Melville House gallery in DUMBO. The event was highly anticipated, as Stein is a lovely social figure, entertaining and engaging reader, and was excitedly tweeting about the attendance of her parents prior to the evening. BOMB prepared attendees by offering four selected poems on their BOMBlog last week. Book Stalker demonstrated their anticipation by posting about the event here.

Stein read pieces from the collection including a take on the video game The Oregon Trail titled “June 14, 1848;” a poem titled “Based on a Book of the Same Title,” which Stein said always receives the same praise, “men come to me after and say they loved it and women come to me after and say, I loved that poem based on The Notebook;” and “The Forbidden Chamber,” which “includes a lot of” Risky Business. The event concluded with audience members having the opportunity to sign up to receive a “dispatch from the future” from Stein at any date of their choosing within the next year.

-Abby Koski