Gavin Doyle Zac Posen and Susan Kirshbaum

Tonight at 6 p.m. at the Bowery Poetry Club, Susan Kirschbaum will read from her debut novel, “Who Town.” The book is drawn from Ms. Kirschbaum’s experiences over the past 15 or so years in New York: after moving from a middle-class Philadelphia suburb, she covered the downtown scene for The Times, The New York Observer, The Huffington Post and others. Now in her late 30s, Ms. Kirschbaum is the rare reporter who became part of her stories, dating band members and artists and hanging out with the crowd she was supposed to cover. She told The Local about her downtown-centric writing life, and how Candace Bushnell, the author of “Sex and the City,” started it all.

When you came to New York, what was the Lower East Side and East Village scene like?

I got to New York in the late ’90s, when the Beahver parties were raging at Don Hills and junkies still roamed Alphabet City. A lot of young artists still lived in the East Village and bars like 7A and 2A raged late at night. I also remember going to poetry slams in Tompkins Square Park. Read more…