Why There Are Words presents the following acclaimed authors reading from their works on the theme of “The Stranger.” Join us for a night like no others July 9, 2015, at Studio 333 in Sausalito. Doors open at 7pm; readings begin at 7:15. $10.
Jayne Benjulian’s poems have appeared in Agni, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, Women’s Review of Books, Nimrod International, and elsewhere; her essays, in HowlRound and The California Journal of Women Writers. She has taught at Emory University, San Francisco State University, and University of San Francisco, and was a Fulbright Fellow in Lyon, France. She holds an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. In previous incarnations she was chief speechwriter at Apple, director of new play development at Magic Theatre, and investigator for the Public Defender in King County, WA.
In addition to his new story collection, Listen (Four Way Books, 2015), Liam Callanan is the author of the novels The Cloud Atlas, a finalist for an Edgar Award, and All Saints, a Target Bookmarked Breakout book. A frequent essayist for print and public radio, he has taught at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. Born in Washington, DC, and raised in Los Angeles, he now calls Wisconsin home.
Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet’s The Greenhouse was awarded the 2014 Frost Place Prize and published by Bull City Press in September 2014. Her first book, Tulips, Water, Ash, was selected for the Morse Poetry Prize and published by University Press of New England. Her poems have been awarded a Javits fellowship and a Phelan Award, and have appeared in journals including Kenyon Review, Cream City Review, At Length, Quarterly West, Blackbird, The Iowa Review, 32 Poems, and Third Coast and in the anthologies Best New Poets and The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry. She writes, edits, and teaches in Oakland, California.
Robin McLean‘s debut collection Reptile House won the 2015 BOA Editions Fiction Prize and was also a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Prize in 2011 and 2012. According to Publishers Weekly, Reptile House “moves seamlessly from adultery to kidnapping, from assassination plots to extreme geothermal events, all in a voice that is spare and darkly poetic” offering “strangely realistic glimpses into conflicts that are equal parts surreal and hyper-realistic.” A figure skater first—having learned to skate and walk at the same time—she believes crashing on ice prepared her for writing fiction. She teaches at Clark University and splits her time between Newfound Lake in Bristol, New Hampshire, and a 200-year-old farm in western Massachusetts.
Marie Mutsuki Mockett was born and raised in California to a Japanese mother and American father, and graduated from Columbia University with a degree in East Asian Languages and Civilizations. Her memoir, Where the Dead Pause and the Japanese Say Goodbye, was published by Norton and is a Barnes and Noble Discover Pick, and IndieNext Pick and a New York Times Critic’s Choice. Her first novel, Picking Bones from Ash, was shortlisted for the Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and a finalist for the Paterson Prize. She has written for The New York Times, Salon, National Geographic, Glamour, and other publications and has been a guest on Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered on NPR.
Patrick O’Neil is the author of the memoir, Gun Needle Spoon (Dzanc Books, June 2015), and the excerpted in part French translation, Hold-Up (13e Note Editions). His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including: Juxtapoz, Sensitive Skin, Salon.com, The Weeklings, Razorcake, Fourteen Hills, and Word Riot. He has been nominated twice for Best of the Net, and is a regular contributor to the recovery website After Party Chat. Patrick holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. He lives in Hollywood, California, and teaches at Antioch University and Los Angeles Valley College. For more information please visit his website.
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.
