PAHR-TEE! For four years, WTAW has been doing what you love while we have been doing what we love: gathering writers extraordinaire to read their works to listeners extraordinaire. Join us on January 9, 2014, to celebrate the beginning of our quinquennium and to hear the top six writers you selected from the last four extraordinary years to read at Studio 333 in Sausalito. Doors will open at 7 pm and readings start at 7:15. Bring extra cash for books and booze.
Tom Barbash is the author of a novel, The Last Good Chance, the nonfiction book, On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11, and most recently the acclaimed collection of stories, Stay Up with Me. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s, The Believer, and The New York Times. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow, he currently teaches at California College of the Arts.
Lynn Freed’s books include six novels, a collection of stories, and a collection of essays. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Narrative Magazine, Southwest Review, The Georgia Review, among others. She is the recipient of the inaugural Katherine Anne Porter Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a PEN/O. Henry Award, fellowships, grants and support from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Guggenheim Foundation, among others. Born in South Africa, she now lives in northern California.
Molly Giles has published three award winning collections of stories, Rough Translations, which won The Flannery O’Connor Prize, the Boston Globe Award, and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; Creekwalk, which won the Small Press Award for Short Fiction and the California Commonwealth Silver Medal for Fiction; and Bothered, which won a flash fiction prize from Split Oak Press. Her novel, Iron Shoes, has won no prizes at all. She has an ebook of stories coming out from shebooks titled Three For the Road, and new stories in The Fairy Tale Review and Black Heart. Her latest story collection, All the Wrong Places, just won the Spokane Prize for Fiction and will be forthcoming from Willow Springs Press later this year. She taught fiction writing for many years at San Francisco State University and the University of Arkansas, has edited many published writers, and mentors through the Path to Publishing program at Book Passage. She is currently working on another non-prize winning novel.
Glen David Gold is the author of the novels Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside. His short stories and essays have appeared in McSweeney’s, Playboy, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, the LA Review of Books, Tin House, and Black Clock. He has written comic books for DC and Dark Horse. Lately he’s been writing scripts for The Thrilling Adventure Hour and Welcome to Night Vale, and the first chapter of his memoir is forthcoming in Zyzzyva. In 2014, the Circle Theater in Hollywood will launch his multi-part adaptation of Otto Friedrich’s City of Nets.
Daniel Handler is the author of the novels The Basic Eight, Watch Your Mouth, Adverbs, and Why We Broke Up, recently awarded a Michael L. Printz Honor. As Lemony Snicket, he is the author of far too many books for children, including the internationally bestselling A Series Of Unfortunate Events and his new series, All The Wrong Questions. He is adjunct accordionist for the pop group The Magnetic Fields.
Melissa Pritchard is the author of four short story collections: The Odditorium, Disappearing Ingenue, The Instinct for Bliss, and Spirit Seizures; and four novels: Phoenix, Selene of the Spirits, Late Bloomer, and the brand new Palmerino. She is also the author of Devotedly, Virginia, a biography of Arizona philanthropist Virginia Galvin Piper. Her short stories are frequently anthologized and cited in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories, the Prentice Hall Anthology of Women’s Literature, and numerous other anthologies and textbooks. Her fiction has appeared in over sixty renowned literary journals, including The Paris Review, A Public Space, Agni, The Southern Review, Gulf Coast, Gettysburg Review and others. A recipient of numerous awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Howard Foundation at Brown University, the Bogliasco Foundation, and the Ledig-Rowohlt Foundation, she teaches at Arizona State University.
Why There Are Words takes place every second Thursday of the month, when people come from San Francisco, the North Bay, the East Bay — everywhere — to crowd the house. The brainchild of Peg Alford Pursell, this literary goodness has been going strong for four years. Interns Hal King and Kim Marcellino make everyone happy.
