Art Imitates Life Imitates Art

Art and life. At times, it is a blissful marriage. At times, a bloody hell. Yet, as with many creative pursuits, our life experiences often serve to feed the hungry muse. September’s featured readers and performers will tell stories that will explore the blurry line between what is art and what is life: whether it be literary works that have inspired their own stories or whether it is life itself that has fueled their creative works.

Kiley Edgley is a blogger and former professional quiz writer. After growing up in the lush, green Pacific Northwest, she found herself craving concrete and asphalt and is now happily living in Brooklyn. She writes about cultural observations, weird things that happen to her, and general nonsense. Read them at her blog: kwolverine.wordpress.com

Bassey Etim is a journalist and musician from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He lives in Brooklyn and runs the Community Desk at The New York Times. In 2011, Bassey released his debut novel "The God Project," along with a cinematic sound track with the bands Sleep Station and New London Fire. Bassey is currently working with The Times on the open source "Coral" Project with Mozilla and The Washington Post, along with his debut album "Perpetual Motion," which is slated for the fall of 2015.

Thomas R. Pryor’s work has appeared in The New York Times and other periodicals. His memoir, “I Hate the Dallas Cowboys – tales of scrappy New York boyhood,” was published October 2014 (YBK Publishers). His blog: “Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts,” was chosen by The New York Times for their Blog Roll. For five years, Thomas curated a monthly storytelling show, “City Stories: Stoops to Nuts” at the Cornelia Street Café that Time Out Magazine, The New York Daily News and CBS News recommended.

Marie Sabatino has been writing stories since she was a little girl. She has been telling stories all over New York City for the last ten years at venues like the Lit Crawl in Brooklyn and Manhattan, The National Arts Club, Galapagos Art Space, Cornelia Street Café, KGB Bar and the Brooklyn Book Festival. You can find her work in publications such as, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, Word Riot, Freerange Nonfiction, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, and in the Mondays are Murder series of Akashic Books, among other places. For the New York Arts and Science Salon, she will be sharing a new piece inspired by the work of Dorothy Parker.  NYASS would like to extend its thanks to Marie for producing this event.


Thank you to Malika & Margaret for the photos and to Alex for hosting us on her rooftop. Thanks to Kambiz & Eric for the wine.

Additional photos provided by Margaret Batiuchiok.