Why There Are Words
Why There Are Words presents presents an evening of readings on the theme “Untoward.” Join us on October 8, 2015 at Studio 333 in Sausalito to hear what the following authors find inappropriate, unexpected, inconvenient. Doors open at 7pm; readings begin at 7:15. $10.
Jane Ciabattari is the author of the short story collections Stealing the Fire and California Tales, co-founder of Flash Fiction Collective, National Book Critics Circle vice president/online (and former president), and a columnist for BBC.com and the Lit Hub. Her award-winning stories have been published widely, most recently in 100-Word-Story and New Flash Fiction Review. She studied creative writing at Stanford and, in graduate school at San Francisco State.
Daphne Gottlieb stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter just using her tongue. She is the award-winning author of ten books including the new collection of short stories, Pretty Much Dead. Previous works include Dear Dawn: Aileen Wuornos in her Own Words, a collection of letters from Death Row by the “first female serial killer” to her childhood best friend. She is also the author of five books of poetry, editor of two anthologies, and, with artist Diane DiMassa, the co-creator of the graphic novel Jokes and the Unconscious. She is the winner of the Acker Award for Excellence in the Avant-Garde, the Audre Lorde Award for Poetry, the Firecracker Alternative Book Award, and is a five-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.
Jordan E. Rosenfeld is author of two novels and four writing guides, most recently A Writer’s Guide to Persistence (Writer’s Digest Books) and the brand new novel Women in Red (Booktrope, 2015). Her articles and essays have appeared widely in publications such as AlterNet, DAME, Modern Loss, the New York Times, Ozy, Purple Clover, The Rumpus, Role/Reboot, THIS Magazine, the Washington Post, and many more. She is the creator of Word by Word, a literary radio show on KRCB radio.
Elizabeth Rosner is a bestselling novelist, poet, and essayist living in Berkeley. Her third novel, Electric City (Counterpoint Press), was published in Fall 2014 and named among the best books of the year by NPR. Her acclaimed poetry collection, Gravity (Atelier26 Books), was also published in Fall 2014. Her first novel, The Speed of Light (Ballantine), was translated into nine languages. Short-listed for the Prix Femina, the book won several literary prizes in both the US and Europe, including the Prix France Bleu Gironde; the Great Lakes Colleges Award for New Fiction; and Hadassah Magazine’s 2002 Ribalow Prize, judged by Elie Wiesel. Blue Nude (Simon & Schuster), her second novel, was named one of the best books of 2006 by the San Francisco Chronicle. Rosner’s essays have appeared in the NY Times Magazine, Elle, the Forward, Hadassah Magazine, and numerous anthologies; her poems have appeared in Poetry, Southwest Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Catamaran, and many others. Her book reviews appear frequently in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Alia Volz is a Spanish Interpreter raised in San Francisco and educated in Havana. She’s written for Tin House, Threepenny Review (Forthcoming 2016), Utne Reader, Huizache, The Rumpus, Narratively, ZYZZYVA and other fine lit rags.
Siamak Vossoughi was born in Tehran, grew up in Seattle, and has lived in San Francisco for twenty years. He has had some stories published in Kenyon Review Online, the Missouri Review, The Rumpus, Washington Square, and Glimmer Train. He is a recipient of the 2014 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, for his short story collection entitled Better Than War, published September 2015.
Naomi J. Williams is the author of Landfalls (FSG), which was long-listed for the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Zoetrope: All-Story, A Public Space, Ninth Letter, and many others. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee and one-time winner, she has an MA in Creative Writing from UC Davis. She lives in Davis, CA, and is hard at work on a second novel.
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.
