Are you in Zurich & love talking books? Join the TBR Book Club and meet our awesome community. We meet Wednesdays at 7pm in Wiedikon at either Mikkeller (back room) or Pile of Books (see below schedule for location!). It’s a relaxed book club as we let you read whatever you wish. Our only rules are: (1) Finish a book, any book, finished at any time (that morning or a year ago!); (2) Be ready to talk about it.

Location – OCTOBER:

14 Oct. – Pile of Books

21 Oct. – Pile of Books

28. Oct. – Mikkeller

Location – NOVEMBER:

04 Nov. – Pile of Books

11 Nov. – Mikkeller

18 Nov. – Pile of Books

25 Nov. – Mikkeller

You’re also welcome to come & hang out without bringing a book, just be prepared to grow your TBR list exponentially. Do we ever really finish those anyways?

Please email me at silkwood.jj@gmail.com to join our WhatsApp Group chat!

PAST:

In January, I co-wrote, alongside the talented thriller writer Bryanna Harbeke, an original murder mystery for Pile of Books’ Charles Dickens themed weekend. Bryanna and I created the entire story, all the props, and walked attendees through seven different acts over the course of two hours. Highlights included: a hilarious Victorian-style rendition of Wonderwall entitled “Ode to a Wondrous Barricade”, a drunken prophet a little too in love with profit, and a ghostly seance highly inspired by Kate Bush’s song Wuthering Heights. We all had a blast and look forward to future mysteries.

And of course, please never forget the orphan letter. I might have gotten a little carried away here, or perhaps it was the spirit of Oliver Twist speaking through me… whose to say. Here’s an excerpt from the front:

PAST:

On May 9th, I participated in another Write-Out-Loud event at Vastela, reading two micro-fiction pieces: one absurdist satire and the other literary speculative.

At Vastela’s Write-Out-Loud author reading in March, I read a shortened version of my story “Fireflies”, a lyrical, introspective exploration of the death of a small town and generational loss. Riv Begun, a fellow author, detailed in an article about the event saying: “[J.J. Silkwood]…read an evocative passage that made small-town life in America and the nature of grief come alive.”

At the Zurich Story Slam: Things I Didn’t Say on February 26th, I won second place with my story “When Pigs Fly”. In this deeply personal piece of auto-fiction, I shared the story of my first concert (where Rush threw entire rotisserie chickens to a raving, mullet-coiffed crowd) while simultaneously walking through the growing estrangement with my father.