Before the filled-to-the-brim Comedy Studio audience, wit and whimsy were on recurrent display, with Grub Street instructor and short-story master Chip Cheek outdueling PEN New England Award for Fiction winner Anne Sanow in an Author Jumble finale that won Cheek the LDM Boston, Ep. 8 crown. See a recap of the event.

This rollicking lineup will include an all-star trio of judges: the as-seen-on-Comedy-Central and one-act playwriting wizard Sean Sullivan, notorious illustrator and commentator of fancy Jen Hill (author of Percy & Tum-Tum), and Speakeasy Storytelling Festival performer/Ding Ho founding member/author DJ Hazard (author of The Grumpy But Lovable New Yorker Guide To Enjoying Life Even Though You are Broke… And Grumpy).

They’ll witness four stellar scribes battling for literary immortality: Boston Globe “Love Letters” columnist Meredith Goldstein, Grub Street instructor and short-story master Chip Cheek, PEN New England Award for Fiction winner Anne Sanow (author of Triple Time), and flash fiction/poetic mastermind Timothy Gager (author of Treating a Sick Animal)!

Hosted by LDM creator Todd Zuniga. Produced by Kirsten Sims.

Where: The Comedy Studio, 1238 Massachusetts Avenue (above the Hong Kong Restaurant), Cambridge (map)
When: Doors at 7:30, Show at 8:00 (sharp); afterdrinks after.
Cost: $12 preorder and at the door

Follow LDM on Twitter and/or Facebook.

AML broke records last week by becoming not just the contestant of Literary Death Match with the longest name ever, according to LDM creator Todd Zuniga, but the champion with the longest name ever.

Now celebrating its sixth birthday this year, LDM will return to Boston on Thursday, June 7.

Read more for a synopsis and gallery of 45 photos.

LiteraryDeathMatch.com has a great write-up on the bloody match.

All photos copyright Stanley Dankoski.

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Literary Death Match came to Club Oberon and pit four readers — Sarah Braunstein, Courtney Maum, William Giraldi and Matthew Salesses — against each other. Judging them were Liz Prince, Cynthia von Buhler and Ron Currie Jr. Hosted by Kirsten Sims and LDM founder Todd Zuniga, Maum battled Giraldi and snapped up the medal.

Photography by Stanley Dankoski.

Head on over to Literary Death Match for a blow-by-blow recap of the event.

Eugenio Volpe reads at Literary Death Match.

Literary Death Match kicked off its 2011 season here in Boston, well, Cambridge, at the Enormous Room in Central Square. The crowd in attendance was easily double that of last time, when Literary Death Match was in Boston in October 2010. The energy was high was the four writers battled for the LDM medal in front of three judges.

The writers — Heidi Pitlor, series editor for Best American Short Stories; PEN Discovery Award-winner Eugenio Volpe; 2010 Flatmancrooked Fiction Prize winner Myfanwy Collins; and humor mastermind Christopher Monks (of The Ultimate Game Guide to Your Life) — had seven minutes or less to read from one of their own works.

Judging them were Grub Street Artistic Director Chris Castellani; singer of The Broken Singles, Sarah Borges; and comedian Mehran Khaghani. They ultimately chose Eugenio Volpe and Heidi Pitlor as the winners, and they had to see who got the most points in a crowd-participating Memory Game with photos of Massachusetts authors. Eugenio Volpe and his partner from the audience blazed away with the most points.

View the slideshow of about 20 photos below. More photos will be added later.

Update, Thursday, Jan. 27: View the slideshow of 85 photos of the event below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stanleydankoski/sets/72157625910112952/show/

(To view captions: After clicking to play, click the Full Screen button at bottom right. Then click on Show Info at top right.)

Update, Tuesday, Feb. 1: LDM has uploaded a video of Eugenio Volpe on Vimeo. See it below.

En route to LDM victory, Eugenio Volpe stormed the Enormous Room stage at LDM Boston’s fifth-ever episode with a high-energy, genius-paced story about his sloppily intimate encounter with his older-than-he babysitter.

(The audio isn’t perfect in the video; you can read how Mr. Mouth caught a Wade Boggs dribbler at Volpe’s blog.)

Literary Death Match kicked off its 2011 season here in Boston (well, Cambridge), at the Enormous Room in Central Square. The crowd in attendance was easily double that of last time, when Literary Death Match was in Boston in October 2010. The energy was high was the four writers battled for the LDM medal in front of three judges.

I

Literary Death Match returns to Boston tomorrow, Tuesday, Jan. 25, at the Enormous Room in Central Square, Cambridge, MA. [Update: My photos are now online.]

The event will bring literary names such as Heidi Pitlor, the series editor of Best American Short Stories; 2010 Flatmancrooked Fiction Prize winner Myfanwy Collins; and humorist Christopher Monks (of The Ultimate Game Guide to Your Life).

Judging will be Boston Phoenix’s comedian of the year Mehran Khaghani, Broken Singles rock singer/guitarist Sarah Borges, and Grub Street‘s brilliant artistic director Chris Castellani (author of the award-winning The Saint of Lost Things).

I’m happy to report I’ve been chosen as the event’s official photographer. I happened to bring a camera to the LDM event there in October and was able to get great shots, such as this one:

Elizabeth Searle reads at the LDM event in October 2010.

For more information, including price to enter, check out the Boston/Cambridge page over at Literary Death Match.

Elizabeth Searle reading at the Literary Death Match in Cambridge, MA, on Oct. 19, 2010, by stanleydankoski.

Little did I know that bringing my and my wife’s Nikon D90 to the Literary Death Match at the Enormous Room in Cambridge, MA, would lead my photos to be showcased on the LDM website a week later.

Soon after I walked in and played around with the settings of my camera, co-host Kirsten Sims spotted me and we agreed that I would send them a couple of photos if I found any of good quality. I doubted much would come out because of the poorly lit room. Poorly lit from a photographer’s point of view, anyway; from a spectator in this literary combat zone, it was quite comfy.

Brief synopsis of what the heck LDM is:

LDM is just a really fun social event that pits four writers to combat. Their weapons are a selected piece of their own writing, which they must read and/or perform. There are three other writers who judge them in two rounds, followed by one crazy finale round.

So on this night we had writer Kelly Link and writer/poet Charles Coe in one round, and Elizabeth Searle and Tim Horvath (who I’ve twice had as a Grub Street instructor) in another. Link and Searle won their rounds, and Searle went on to win the LDM medal.

They were judged by writers Jennifer Haigh and Steve Almond, and writer/comedian Steve Macone.

There were many cool people there; I talked with only a couple. As soon as I knew LDM was possibly interested in seeing my photos, I went into photojournalist mode.

As it turns out, my constant fiddling with the controls of the camera gave me a sizable number of great pics. I shot like a madman — more than 700 shots! — and the following weekend on my PC, I deleted all the blurry shots. From the 200 or so questionably good ones, I whittled it down to 90, yes 90, that were of somewhat amazing quality.

I uploaded all 90 to Flickr to my LDM Flickr set, and from there LDM founder Todd Zuniga asked for 10. And now eight of those 10 are up on the LDM website, at the LDM100/Boston’s Partying Shots page. And for a while, the above photo (my favorite) was shown as part of the LDM homepage slideshow.

For an aspiring writer, this unexpected turn of events with photography made for an exciting week. I was riding on a high.

Now, for your enjoyment, is a Flickr slideshow of all 90 photos. You can click on the bottom right icon to view it full screen, which I highly recommend.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stanleydankoski/sets/72157625100906823/show/