Why There Are Words Literary Reading Series presents the following award-winning writers reading from their works on the theme “Edge” on April 11, 2013 (during the “cruelest month.”) Get down to Studio 333, where you can mix memory and desire, breed lilacs out of the dead land, etc. Doors open at 7 pm & we begin at 7:15. $10. Bring extra cash for books and booze.
Jayne Benjulian’s poetry appears in the literary journals The Seattle Review, Zone 3, Sequoia, Verdad, and Barrow Street among others. Her essays and interviews with playwrights and artists are published in magazines, theater playbills, and HowlRound, the online theater zine. She was Fulbright Lecturer in American Language & Literature in Lyon, France, and from 2008-2011, Director of New Play Development at Magic Theatre. She is a graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.
Claire Blotter writes and performs poetry with movement, sound, and body rhythms. Her work has been published in Barnwood, Gargoyle, the We’Moon Datebooks, California Quarterly, and Canary, among others. She represented San Francisco in poetry slams in the early ’90’s, placing second in National Team Competitions in Boston and Chicago. Her award winning video documentary, “Wake Up Call: Saving the Songbirds,” has been screened in 11 film festivals from Mill Valley to Chicago. She also taught writing and theater at S.F. State University, John F. Kennedy University, Dominican University, and the College of Marin. Her third chapbook, Moment in the Moment House, will be published by Finishing Line Press in early 2013.She teaches in the Independent Study, California Poets in the Schools, and Poetry Out Loud Programs in Marin County.
David Corbett is the author of four novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime (a New York Times Notable Book), Blood of Paradise (nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar), and Do They Know I’m Running (Spinetingler Award, Best Novel—Rising Star Category 2011). His short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, with two stories selected for Best American Mystery Stories. In 2012, Mysterious Press/Open Road Media re-issued all four of his novels plus a story collection in ebook format, and in January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character (“A writer’s bible that will lead to your character’s soul.” —Elizabeth Brundage).
The year she turned 50, Rebecca Foust took a look at her bucket list and realized she needed to get moving. She earned her MFA from Warren Wilson in 2010, the same year her first and second books were published. God, Seed won the Foreword Book of the Year Award and was a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award. All That Gorgeous Pitiless Song won the Many Mountains Moving Book Prize and was nominated for the Poet’s Prize. New poems are in the Hudson Review, JAMA, Sewanee Review, Woman’s Review of Books, and Zyzzyva . She also writes book reviews and essays, and she reads fiction as an assistant editor for Narrative Magazine.
Jennifer Gennari is the author of My Mixed-up Berry Blue Summer (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2012), an Association of Booksellers for Children Spring 2012 New Voices title and American Library Association Rainbow List title. Her poems have appeared in Marin Poetry Center anthologies. A graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts and a former reporter, she lives on a houseboat in Sausalito with her husband and (occasionally) their four daughters.
Laleh Khadivi is the author of The Age of Orphans and The Walking. She is the recipient of a number of prizes and some very excellent teaching and guidance concerning the reading and writing of fiction. Her work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle and The Virginia Quarterly Review.
Joshua Mohr is the author of four novels, including Damascus, which The New York Times called “Beat-poet cool.” He’s also written the novels Some Things that Meant the World to Me, one of O Magazine’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, and Termite Parade, an editors’ choice on The New York Times Bestseller List. He lives in San Francisco and teaches in the MFA program at USF. His latest novel is Fight Song, published in February 2013.
