Why There Are Words Literary Reading Series presents the following authors reading selections from their work to the tune of “Heat” — that’s the theme, June 10, 2010, 7 PM. Studio 333, at 333 Caledonia St., Sausalito. $5.
Cara Black is the author of nine novels in the bestselling Aimée Leduc series, all of which are available in paperback from Soho Crime. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son and visits Paris frequently.
Catherine Brady is the author of three story collections, including Curled in the Bed of Love, winner of the Flannery O’ Connor Award for Short Fiction, and most recently The Mechanics of Falling, winner of the Northern California Book Award for Fiction. Her stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies, including Best American Short Stories 2004. Her book on craft, Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction, is forthcoming in October 2010. She teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco.
Iranian-American author Elizabeth Eslami is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Warren Wilson MFA
Program for Writers. She has published work in over a dozen journals, including G.W. Review, Minnesota Review, Crab Orchard Review, Matador Travel, and The Millions. She’s currently a regular contributor at The Nervous Breakdown. Her first novel, Bone Worship (Pegasus), about the complex relationship between an Iranian father and his American daughter, has been called “wildly original” by Joan Silber and “a treasure” by David Haynes, and Janet Peery calls Eslami a writer of “uncommon wit and depth.” She lives in Eugene, OR.
Joe Quirk is a bestselling novelist and science writer, and a popular public speaker. His debut novel, The Ultimate Rush, was a People Magazine Page-Turner Of The Week. His new novel, Exult, has garnered praise from Khaled Hosseini, and is about hang gliders who live out the Icarus myth. His humorous science book It’s Not You. It’s Biology: The Science of Love, Sex, and Relationships has been translated into 17 languages and is a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. He recently published a science/history book, Call to the Rescue: The Story of the Marine Mammal Center, about how human activity impacts the lives of Bay Area sea lions and seals. Joe Quirk is a humor columnist at H+ Magazine, a publication dedicated to improving the human condition through biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. His PIXAR-illustrated Powerpoint presentation, Sperm-spreaders vs. Egg-protectors, shows college students how to use biology in their dating lives. He also ghostwrites books under secret names. He is committed to teaching the craft of creative writing to the next generation of storytellers.
Prartho Sereno is author of a book of memoir-essays, Everyday Miracles: An A to Z Guide to the Simple Wonders of Life (Kensington, 1998) and author/illustrator of the prizewinning gift book Causing a Stir: The Secret Lives and Loves of Kitchen Utensils. Her other publications include Garden Sutra, a poetry chapbook, and Call from Paris, an award-winning collection of poems (2007 Word Works Washington Prize). Prartho received a Marin Arts Council Individual Artist Grant in 2003 and a Radio Disney Super Teacher Award in 2005 for her work as a California Poet in the Schools. She is heading to Syracuse University as a teaching fellow in their 3-year MFA program in Poetry this July.
Todd Zuniga is the founding editor of Opium Magazine. He is also the co-creator and host of Opium Magazine’s Literary Death Match, which is reading series that occurs monthly in New York City, San Francisco, London, and other locales. He is also a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer for his short fiction and an award-winning journalist (Best Feature Writing awarded by Ziff-Davis Media), the host and creator of 1UP.com’s Sports Anomaly podcast, and the cartoonist behind EatPizzaInTheShower.com, as well as a contributor to The Nervous Breakdown.
