Background: June 9

Join Bay Area lit lovers June 9 at Why There Are Words Literary Reading Series, Studio 333 in Sausalito, when the following authors will read from their work on the theme of “Background.” 7 PM. $5. As usual, authors will be selling and signing their books!
Cyndi Cady

Cyndi Cady‘s fiction has appeared in Potpourri, Dark Recesses Press, the West Marin Review, and the anthology Zebulon Nights. Her story “Dooley” was a finalist in the New Southerner Magazine’s 2010 fiction contest.

Aneesha Capur


Aneesha Capurs novel, Stealing Karma, debuted at the Beijing International Literary Festival in March 2011. Stealing Karma was launched by HarperCollins India in April to critical acclaim and was listed in the Top 5 Fiction Picks in The Hindu, India’s leading national newspaper, picked as Essential Reading in the Sunday Guardian and featured on CNN-IBN among others. Excerpts have been recognized in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Wild River Review, two Glimmer Train Press competitions, and the Writer’s Digest Literary Short Story award. Aneesha has an MBA from Wharton and an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson. Aneesha has attended the Vermont Studio Center, The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers Fiction Program, The Iowa Writers’ Summer Workshop, and the Fine Arts Work Center. Her professional career spans private, non-profit, and academic sectors. She was born in India and spent most of her childhood in Africa. She now lives in San Francisco.

Molly Giles

Molly Giles has published a novel, Iron Shoes, and two short story collections: Creek Walk and Other Stories, which won the Small Press Award for Short Fiction, and Rough Translations, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Her other awards include fellowships from the NEA, The McDowell Colony, and Yaddo, two Pushcart prizes, the Commonwealth Club of California Silver Medal, the Bay Area Book Reviewers’ Award, and The National Book Critics Circle Award for Book Reviewing. She directs the Programs in Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and was previously a professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University, as well as having also taught at the University of San Francisco and at countless summer workshops, including The Squaw Valley Community of Writers, The Napa Valley Writers Conference, and the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University.

Jeremy Hatch

Jeremy Hatch is a writer, musician, and professional bookseller leading a cheerful, aimless life in San Francisco. He is the Junior Literary Editor of The Rumpus and he has a blog.

Alison Luterman

Alison Luterman is the author of two books of poetry, The Largest Possible Life  and See How We Almost Fly. She has also written several plays, “Saying Kaddish With My Sister,” “A Night in Jail,” “Glitter and Spew,” “Hot Water,” and “The Recruiter.” She has been an artist in residence at many elementary and high schools through the California Poets in the Schools program, as well as Poetry Inside Out and Poetry Out Loud. She has mentored incarcerated youth in playwriting through Each One Teach One. She performs with the improvisation dance theatre troupe Wing It! She lives in Oakland, California.

Beverly Parayno

Beverly Parayno grew up in San Jose. Her story “House Cleaning” will be featured online as Story of the Week in Narrative Magazine in August 2011. Her fiction is also forthcoming online in Southword and her author interviews appear on The Rumpus. She has an MA from University College Cork, Ireland, and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she received a Lynda Hull scholarship. She has participated in the Tin House Writers Workshop and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Festival, and is a regular participant of the San Francisco Writers Workshop. She lives in Pacifica, where she is working on a collection of stories.