Why There Are Words presents an evening of readings on the theme “Gift Horse.” Join us December 10, 2015, at Studio 333 on 333 Caledonia Street in Sausalito for our last event of 2015. Doors open at 7pm; readings begin at 7:15. $10.
Jodi Angel is the author of two collections of short stories. Her first collection, The History of Vegas, was named a Best Book of 2005 by the San Francisco Chronicle. Her second collection, You Only Get Letters from Jail, (2013), was published by Tin House Books and named as a Best Book of 2013 by Esquire. Her short stories have appeared in Esquire, Tin House, One Story, Zoetrope: All-Story, Electric Literature Recommended Reading, and The Offing, among other publications and anthologies. Her short story, “Snuff,” was selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2014. She lives in Northern California with her wife and daughter.
Gint Aras (Karolis Gintaras Žukauskas) has been trapped on planet Earth since 1973. He is the author of two novels, Finding the Moon in Sugar (Infinity, 2009) and The Fugue, (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, 2015). His prose and translations have appeared in The St. Petersburg Review, Quarterly West, Antique Children, Criminal Class Review, The Hellgate Review, Curbside Splendor, Šiaurės Atėnai, STIR Journal, Dialogo, The Good Men Projec,t and other publications. He earned his MFA from Columbia University. Currently employed as a community college professor, he lives in Oak Park, Illinois with his family.
Jean Hegland’s latest novel, Still Time, was released in September 2015 by Arcade/Skyhorse. In addition to receiving a starred review in Booklist, re-publication admirers include novelist Karen Joy Fowler, who calls it a “moving, beautiful story,” novelist and philosopher Rebecca Goldstein, who says it is, “a high-wire act of literary daring,” and Shakespeare scholar David Crystal, who claims, “Still Time is a novel Shakespeare would be proud of.” Her first novel, Into the Forest, has been translated into eleven languages and is a frequent choice for campus- and community-wide reading programs. A film adaptation of Into the Forest starring Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2015. Midwest Book Review calls Jean’s second novel, Windfalls, “a profound look at motherhood,” while Publishers Weekly promises it is “a good prospect for reading groups.” Excerpts from her first book, The Life Within: Celebration of a Pregnancy, have appeared in a junior high school science textbook, a college English textbook, and a guided journal for pregnant women. Jean is an avid teacher and a frequent presenter at writing workshops and conferences, both in the US and abroad. She lives in Northern California.
Yang Huang grew up in Jiangsu, China and came to the U.S. to study computer science. While working as an engineer, she attended Boston College and earned an MFA from the University of Arizona. Her debut novel Living Treasures is shortlisted for The Rubery Book Award, a Pen/Bellwether Prize finalist, and an INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award Finalist. Her fiction and a feature-length screenplay have appeared in Asian Pacific American Journal, The Evansville Review, Futures, Porcupine Literary Arts Magazine, Nuvein, and Stories for Film. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and works for UC Berkeley as a computer engineer.
Christian Kiefer’s first novel, The Infinite Tides (Bloomsbury) appeared on best of the year lists from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist and was given rave reviews in The Washington Post, Oprah.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, Brooklyn Rain, Library Journal, Huffington Post, and elsewhere. T.C. Boyle called the novel “smart, lyrical [and] deeply moving” and noted its “emotional complexity and pure aching beauty.” Pam Houston called it “the most emotionally and syntactically sophisticated debut I have ever seen.” His second novel, The Animals (Liveright / W.W. Norton) was a best book of the year from Amazon.com and was praised by Richard Ford, Janet Fitch, and many others. Porter Shreve, writing about the novel in the San Francisco Chronicle, noted that “the book is not just a galloping great read; it’s a violent, tender, terrifying, genuine work of art.” He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize for his short fiction, which has appeared in Santa Monica Review, Zyzzyva, Catamaran Literary Reader, and elsewhere. He writes and publishes poetry on a regular basis, and has a long second career in music, under the auspices of which he has collaborated with members of Smog, Sun Kil Moon, Wilco, Low, and The Band. He holds a Ph.D. in American literature from the University of California at Davis and teaches regularly at conferences including the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Catamaran Writing Conference, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, where he was a fellow, and currently serves on the faculty of the low-res MFA at Sierra Nevada College. Upcoming work includes the novella, One Day Soon Time Will Have No Place Left to Hide (Nouvella) and the novel, Kingdom of Wolves (Liveright / W.W. Norton). He lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada northeast of Sacramento, California with his wife and sons.
Renée Thompson is the author of two novels, The Plume Hunter and The Bridge at Valentine, which received high praise from Larry McMurtry and which was selected as the 2014 Community Book for Woodland Reads. Her short fiction has appeared in the anthology series, Manifest West; Narrative; Crossborder; Literal Latte; Arcadia; Chiron Review, and elsewhere. Her fiction has been performed at the reading series Stories on Stage/Sacramento, and Stories on Stage/Davis. She is at work on a new novel.
Josh Weil is the author of the novel The Great Glass Sea and the novella collection The New Valley, both New York Times Editor’s Choices. A Fulbright Fellow and National Book Foundation 5-under-35 honoree, he has been awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Sue Kaufman Prize from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the GrubStreet National Book Prize, the New Writers Award from the GLCA, and a Pushcart Prize. His writing has appeared in Granta, Tin House, One Story, Esquire, and The New York Times. He lives with his family in the Sierra Nevadas.
Why There Are Words takes place every second Thursday of the month, and is hosted by curator/founder Peg Alford Pursell.
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