Why There Are Words presents an evening of readings on the theme “Last Time.” Join us November 12, 2015, at Studio 333 on 333 Caledonia Street in Sausalito to hear what is surely not the last you will want to read from these acclaimed authors. Doors open at 7pm; readings begin at 7:15. $10.
Terra Brigando‘s first novel, Rooms for Ghosts, was released from Wordcraft of Oregon in August. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in English and Creative Writing from Mills College, where her thesis won runner-up in the Amanda Davis Thesis Award. Her work has appeared in Bloom, Word Riot, The Cortland Review, and others.
Michael Collins’ poems have received Pushcart Prize nominations and appeared in more than 40 journals and magazines, including Grist, Kenning Journal, Pank, and Smartish Pace. His first chapbook, How to Sing when People Cut off your Head and Leave it Floating in the Water, won the Exact Change Press Chapbook Contest in 2014. A full-length collection, Psalmandala, was published later that year (ELJ Publications, 2014). His latest is the chapbook, Harbor Mandala (Finishing Line Press, July 2015).
Ruth Galm is the author of the debut novel, Into the Valley (Soho Press, August 2015). Her writing has also appeared or is forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, Indiana Review, and Joyland. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and is a past resident of the Ucross Foundation. She was born and raised in San José, California, spent time in New York City and Boston, and now lives in San Francisco.
Annie Guthrie is a writer from Tucson. Her first book of poems, The Good Dark, was published this month of October by Tupelo Press. She teaches creative writing courses in Oracular Writing at the University of Arizona Poetry Center and offers apprenticeships in project and manuscript consultation. She has work published in several journals including 1913, A Journal of Forms; Cutbank; Drunken Boat; Fairy Tale Review; ManyMountains Moving; Omniverse; H_NGM_N; Ploughshares; Tarpaulin Sky, and more. She has received several awards including an Academy of American Poets Prize, an Arizona Commission on the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and TPAC Individual Artist Grant. Guthrie is also a jeweler. She published a book on the craft of jewelry making, “Instant Gratification” with Chronicle Books and has a studio at the Splinter Brothers Warehouse.
Tania Malik was born in New Delhi, and raised in India, Africa, and the Middle East. She was educated in boarding schools in the foothills of the Himalayas, and graduated from the University of Delhi with a degree in Geography. She has had a varied career in the travel marketing and non-profit industries. Her writings have appeared in the Baltimore Review, Bound Off, Salon.com and other publications. Her debut novel, Three Bargains, received a Publishers Weekly Starred review, and a Booklist Starred review. The New York Times said, “…Ms. Malik cleverly complicates the traditional rags-to-riches story.” While the San Francisco Chronicle called it “… an impressive feat of storytelling.” She lives in the Bay Area with her family.
Lori Ostlund’s novel After the Parade (Scribner, September 2015) is on the shortlist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and is a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. Richard Russo recently invited her to Maine, where he interviewed her as the first event in a new national Authors Guild Literary Series. Her first book, a story collection entitled The Bigness of the World, won the Flannery O’Connor Award, the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, and the California Book Award for First Fiction. Stories from it appeared in the Best American Short Stories and the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. Scribner will reissue the collection in early 2016. Lori has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award and a fellowship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Most recently, her work has appeared in ZYZZYVA, The Southern Review, and the Kenyon Review. She is a teacher and lives in San Francisco.
Townsend Walker draws inspiration from cemeteries, foreign places, violence and strong women. A novella, La Ronde, was published by Truth Serum Press in August 2015. Some seventy short stories have been published in literary journals and are included in eight anthologies. Awards: first place in the SLO NightWriters contest, second place in Our Stories contest, two nominations for the PEN/O.Henry Award. Four stories were performed at the New Short Fiction Series in Hollywood. He lives in San Francisco.
Why There Are Words takes place every second Thursday of the month, when people come from San Francisco, the North Bay, the East Bay, the South Bay–everywhere–to crowd the house. The brainchild of Peg Alford Pursell, this literary goodness has been going strong for five years.
