Why There Are Words celebrates its sixth anniversary with a special show featuring brilliant authors with books published by brilliant independent presses. Come revel with us January 14, 2016, at Studio 333 on 333 Caledonia Street in Sausalito. Doors open at 7pm; readings begin at 7:15. $10.
Carmiel Banasky is the author of the novel, The Suicide of Claire Bishop, published by Dzanc Books (2015), which Publishers Weekly called “an intellectual tour de force and a moving reflection on the ways we try to save ourselves and others,” in a starred review. Her work has appeared in Glimmer Train, American Short Fiction, Slice, Guernica, PEN America, The Rumpus, and NPR, among other places. She earned her M.F.A. from Hunter College, where she taught Creative Writing, and her B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from Bread Loaf, Ucross, Ragdale, Artist Trust, I-Park, and other foundations. After four years on the road at writing residencies, she now teaches in Los Angeles. She is from Portland, Oregon.
Molly Giles has published four award winning short story collections–all with small presses–and a novel (which was published by Scribners and didn’t do nearly as well.) She has won an NEA, two Pushcart Prizes, several states’ art grants, and a National Critics Circle Award for Excellence in Book Reviewing. She taught at San Francisco State and the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville for many years and presently teaches workshops and mentors through Book Passage. She has new stories in small magazines no one has ever heard of, but should: Word Riot, Cog, Corium, Ursa Minor, and Fiction Southeast.
Margaret Malone is the author of the story collection People Like You from Atelier26 Books. Her stories and non-fiction can be found in The Missouri Review, Oregon Humanities, Propeller Magazine, Timberline Review, latimes.com and elsewhere. A recipient of an Oregon Literary Fellowship and an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship, Margaret is a co-host of the artist and literary gathering SHARE. She lives in Portland with her husband, filmmaker Brian Padian, and their two children.
Joshua Mohr is the author of four novels, including Damascus, which the New York Times called “Beat-poet cool.” He’s also written Fight Song and Some Things that Meant the World to Me, one of O Magazine’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San Francisco Chronicle best-seller, as well as Termite Parade, an Editors’ Choice on the New York Times Best Seller List. His novel All This Life was just published by Counterpoint/Soft Skull. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco.
Natalie Serber is the author of Community Chest, (Two Sylvias Press), and Shout Her Lovely Name, (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) a New York Times Notable Book of 2012, a summer reading selection from O, the Oprah Magazine, and an Oregonian Top 10 Book of the Pacific Northwest. Her fiction has appeared in The Bellingham Review, Gulf Coast, Inkwell, and Hunger Mountain. Essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Oprah Magazine, The Huffington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Oregonian, The Rumpus, Salon, and Fourth Genre. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Robert Thomas’ latest book, Bridge, is a novella published by BOA Editions, and it won the 2015 PEN Center USA Award for Fiction. His first book, Door to Door, was selected by Yusef Komunyakaa as winner of the Poets Out Loud Prize, and his second book, Dragging the Lake, was published by Carnegie Mellon . He has received a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and won a Pushcart Prize. Robert lives with his wife in Oakland.
Genanne Walsh is the author of Twister, awarded the Big Moose Prize for the Novel from Black Lawrence Press and published in December 2015. Twister was also a finalist for the Brighthorse Prize. She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and lives in San Francisco with her wife and dogs.
Colin Winnette is the author of several books, including the SPD best-seller Coyote (Les Figues Press) and Haints Stay (Two Dollar Radio), two of Flavorwire’s “Best Independent Press Books of 2015.” His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Lucky Peach, Los Angeles Review of Books, The American Reader, Believer magazine, and Electric Literature. He lives in San Francisco.
Why There Are Words takes place every second Thursday of the month, when people crowd the house. The brainchild of Peg Alford Pursell, this literary goodness has been bringing literature to the people for six years.
