In honor of its eight-year-anniversary, Lip Service is launching Badass, Lip Service: True Stories, the Double Album (Lominy Books, 2014) edited by Andrea Askowitz.  This anthology is a collection of some of the best of Lip Service’s first eight years. Lip Service is a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation award-winning organization and a Miami institution.

“We are a night of true stories out loud.  But we are more than a show.  Lip Service is an experience of community connecting like nothing else in South Florida. Lip Service typically features eight true stories, but as the title suggests, Badass is a double album, so you get two shows in one book, featuring 16 stories in all.  The stories are funny, poignant, inspiring, and all true.”
Andrea Askowitz

I’m proud to have a story included in this fine collection! Featuring stories by Sarah Klein, Christina Freedman, Maureen Daniel Fura, Esther Kenniff, Doug Shear, Nicholas Garnett, Aaron Curtis, Manny Martinez, Karen Sabine, David New, Inessa Freylekhman, M.J. Fievre, Cathi Hanauer, Mary Rae Smith, Brenda Mezick, and Daniel Jones (The New York Times – Modern Love)

“In a town that doesn’t get enough literary respect, the live reading event Lip Service has not only survived—it has grown into a literary happening.  Each show features eight true stories presented in front of a big, raucous audience.  On Saturday, November 8, Lip Service celebrates its 8th anniversary.  Eight years—that’s a long time for a reading series.  In fact, that’s longer than most marriages.  I’m proud and excited that I’ll be co-hosting the event with Andrea Askowitz, who married me (to my wife).”
Nicholas Garnett

“Lip Service stories—as good as a kiss.”
—Mitchell Kaplan,
Books & Books

“Delightful, touching, funny, spirited and all true, the stories in Lip Service should be sent up in a satellite or buried in a time capsule. In five hundred years, if anyone is still around to read them, these narratives will be just as entertaining and enlightening as they are now. Lip Service stories are like delicious bonbons—I want more!”
—Beverly Donofrio,
author of Riding in Cars with Boys

“Eating disorders! Feline overdoses! Star-crossed love! Fist fights! The stories in Lip Service are sharp, funny, and raw. They gave me that lovely shiver I always feel in the presence of beautiful, wrenching truths. Bravo!”
—Steve Almond,
author of Candyfreak and Against Football

Come to Lip Service and be big.  Be raucous.  Hear some great, true stories and pick up a copy of the brand-new Lip Service best-of anthology, Badass.

See you there! 8 p.m. Saturday, November 8, 2014 @ Miracle Theater, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables, FL 33134

Tickets on sale at www.lipservicestories.com
$15 general admission, $30 front rows, center

And don’t miss the official launch party of the Lip Service anthology, Badass, Lip Service: True Stories, the Double Album, at the Miami Book Fair on Wednesday, November 19 at 7 p.m., which will feature live readings by some of the storytellers in the anthology, including me! It’s all part of the Book Fair’s celebration of what’s wonderful (and weird) about Florida–THE SWAMP.  For more info, visit:http://www.miamibookfair.com/events/events/default.aspx?lg=en

Andrea tells stories about herself, which is her favorite subject. Her stories have appeared or been heard in places such as the New York Times, Salon.com, Jewcy.com, Sliver of Stone, FourTwoNine, NPR, and PBS. She’s the author of the memoir, My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy, the creator of Lip Service, and the editor of Badass. She grew up in Miami where she lives with her wife, Victoria, and children Natasha, Sebastian, and Beast.