> by heather cook

Matt Higgins and Brian Castner started “Buffalo, Books & Beer” (B3) to provide a literary series that is unique and fun. Buffalo is too often off the beaten path for national authors, and so they wanted to give them a new reason to come this way.

The series features national and local authors, cover high- and low-brow fiction and nonfiction. The winner of the Marfield Prize and PEN America nominees, the #1 nonfiction bestselling authors of 2012, local historians and stand-up comedians have also participated throughout the years. Each event takes place in a laidback environment at Resurgence Brewing, 1250 Niagara Street, where authors and attendees sip beer over a thought-provoking reading and discussion.

Come celebrate “Warewolves and Vampyres” in honor of Halloween, on Wednesday, October 14, at 7pm. Authors Benjamin Percy and Andrew Stott will be howling spooky tales. The event is co-sponsored by Talking Leaves...Books and the event is only $5.

Ben Percy is the author of Red Moon and The Dead Lands—a post-apocalyptic reimagining of the Lewis and Clark saga. In it, the rising power of an army becomes a great threat and the stakes are high. The novel was published in April of this year and is highly praised. One example of praise for Dead Lands, from novelist Stephen King: “Benjamin Percy’s The Dead Lands is a case of wonderful writing and compulsive reading. You will not come across a finer work of sustained imagination this year. Good God, what a tale. Don’t miss it.” Percy also writes the Green Arrow comic series, and is a screenwriter for Starz.

Andrew Stott is a professor of English at UB ad author of The Poet and the Vampyre: The Curse of Byron and the Birth of Literature’s Greatest Monsters. His novel The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi: Laughter, Madness and the Story of Britain’s Greatest Comedian won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Price for nonfiction, the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography, and the George Freedly Memorial Award. Come listen to him howl!