Boston, Ep. 15

April 22, 2015 — After more than a year away from Beantown (we missed you!), Literary Death Match returned in a blaze of lit and comedic glory for a night of every which awesome imaginable that ended with Javed Jahangir outlasting Stacey Resnikoff in a wild game of Literary Charades, winning Jahangir the LDM Boston, Ep. 15 crown. 

But well before the finale was even a consideration, the night kicked off with Theodora Goss, award-winning poet/author of The Thorn and the Blossom and Songs for Ophelia, who read a pair of gob-smacking "feminist poems" that ranged from planting lovers to being a swan girl. Next up, Javed Jahangir, author of Ghost Alley and founding member of Beyond the Margins, who dazzled with a story about floods that had everyone on the edge of their seats. 

Then the mic was handed over to the night's trio of all-star judges: William Giraldi, book critic, and author of Hold the Dark and Busy Monsters; Al Park, winner of the 2014 Boston and Cleveland Comedy Festivals; and Erin Judge, LA-based comedian, appeared on NBC's Last Comic Standing in 2014. They lit the stage aflame with kind, insightful, off-the-wall, hilarious commentary before huddling up and making the night's first impossible decision: naming Jahangir the night's first finalist. 

Then Round 2 commenced with Stacey Resnikoff, award-winning freelance writer and senior fellow at the Paris Writing Workshop, who told the fantastic tale of a break-up between an agent/client. Finally, it was the staggeringly wonderful David Valdes Greenwood, playwright and author of The Rhinestone Sisterhood and Homo-Domesticus, who read an all-new story "We Keep Our Dead" riddled with genius lines like "Nothing kills a picnic like cremains." 

The mic again was handed to the judges, with praise abound for Resnikoff and Valdes Greenwood's choice in jackets, and their storytelling, before making the night's second impossible choice: advancing Resnikoff to the finals. 

Then up stepped LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga, who announced the night's finale: Literary Charades. With a trio of volunteer "actors" on the stage, Zuniga delivered titles of famous books adapted into TV shows or film that the actors had to play out while Resnikoff and Jahangir guessed the titles. After Jahangir rocketed to a commanding lead, Resnikoff stormed back. Then, with everything to play for it was Jahangir who shouted out the final answer, winning him the Literary Death Match Boston, Ep. 15 crown and literary immortality to go with it.