You’re invited to join us for another Austin edition of the Why There Are Words reading series! June’s theme is “Traveling Light” and the guests are Lucas Schaefer, Dalia Azim, S. Kirk Walsh, Nancy Koerbel, and Michael Fracasso (left to right, below).
Founded in 2010 by Peg Alford Pursell, Why There Are Words is an award-winning literary reading series that takes place every second Thursday in the San Francisco Bay Area, and beginning in 2017, will take place at 5 more national locations: New York City, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Portland, and Austin. Each reading event presents a range of writers, including those who have published books and those who haven’t. All writers share the criterion of excellence. The guiding idea behind the series is that good work is timeless and needs to be heard regardless of marketing or commercial concerns. If you’re interested in reading or would like more information, please contact Alison: wtawaustin@gmail.com.
Lucas Schaefer’s fiction has appeared in One Story and CRAFT. He has received a fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center, and has been a recent resident at 100W Corsicana, the Studios of Key West, and the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods. A graduate of the New Writers Project at UT-Austin, Lucas lives with his husband in Austin and is currently at work on a novel.
Dalia Azim’s writing has appeared in American Short Fiction, Aperture, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Glimmer Train (where she won their Short Story Award for New Writers), Other Voices, and Sightlines, among other places. She is manager of special projects at the Blanton Museum of Art and is working on a novel.
S. Kirk Walsh’s work has appeared—or is forthcoming—in StoryQuarterly, Guernica, Electric Literature, the New York Times Book Review, Longreads, and the Virginia Quarterly Review, among others. She lives in Austin, Texas, and is the founder of Austin Bat Cave, a writing and tutoring center for kids. Walsh has been awarded residencies at Yaddo, Ragdale, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is currently at work on a novel about Detroit, Michigan.
Nancy Koerbel’s poems have recently appeared in Redactions, One, and The Pittsburgh Poetry Review. A former recipient of a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, she lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she teaches legal and business writing, works as a copyeditor for a large tech company, and coordinates the Pittsburgh branch of Why There are Words.
Michael Fracasso, musician, chef, and Austinite, is a genre-crossing artist incapable of repeating himself. His critically acclaimed work includes nine distinctive solo CDs, recorded duets with both Patty Griffin and Lucinda Williams, an epic reinterpretation of John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero,” and memorable tributes to Woody Guthrie, Mickey Newbury and Townes Van Zandt. In 2011 he was short listed for the Austin Public Library Award for literary achievement.