Welcome to Malvern Books!
Malvern Books is now closed. Malvern Books was a bookstore and community space in Austin, Texas. We specialized in visionary literature and poetry from independent publishers, with a focus on lesser-known and emerging voices.
An Update from the Manager of Malvern Books
Dear Friends,
We’ve had a wonderful time sharing our favorite books with you over the past nine years, and it’s been an honor to celebrate the work of so many brilliant writers through our readings and events.
Malvern Books is the realization of Joe Bratcher’s vision—Joe dreamt of a bookstore that would carry the books he loved, mostly poetry and fiction from small, independent presses. He wanted to promote writers and translators of books from other countries, while also championing the work of local writers.
When Joe first talked to me about opening Malvern Books, I must admit I was skeptical. I didn’t think we’d find an audience. It was 2012 and everyone was saying that bookstores were dead, Kindle and online shopping were the future. I anticipated many quiet sales days, with Joe and I just sitting there, looking at each other. He told me if that’s how it ended up, well, at least we’d have a chance to chat—and since we always seemed to laugh a lot when we talked, it sounded like a good way to spend some time. And so from then on, whenever we’d have a really slow sales day, with just a few people coming in, we’d look at each other and say, “We’re living the dream!” and we’d laugh.
But back to opening… in early 2013, with the help of our amazing architect, contractor, and interior designer, we created the space that Joe had in mind. We started posting on social media thanks to Tracey, our wonderful digital media manager and first Malvern hire. And we were so grateful to the many enthusiastic writers and readers who expressed their excitement at the imminent arrival of Malvern Books. From the very beginning it felt like we were building a community.
We opened our doors in October 2013, and we were shocked by how many people came by. You showed up and you loved what we had to offer! You constantly surprised and humbled us with your kind words and helpful suggestions. People from out of town would visit the store because a local friend had told them they had to come by, and we received much appreciated shout-outs from the Austin Chronicle and numerous other newspapers and journals.
And then 2020 hit—but even with the pandemic, we had loyal customers who came by for curbside pick ups, signed up for individual shopping appointments, and participated in our Zoom book clubs and events. If we didn’t say it enough, THANK YOU!
All along the way, we were lucky enough to have truly wonderful staff members who loved the books we carried and who helped us build the store we have now. Their work has been invaluable and we could not have done this without them.
On July 28th of this year, we lost Joe. I can’t tell you how hard it has been to try and carry on in this space without him. Our little Malvern world has not been the same since, and, as much as we love this store and our amazing customers, Malvern Books simply cannot continue without our Joe.
Malvern Books will be closing on December 31st, 2022. It has been a wonderful nine years and we thank each and every one of our cherished customers, friends, staff, and suppliers for helping us along the way.
As we move forward, we’ll be sharing our plans with you for sales and specials. For now, we just wanted to let you know this was coming. We hope you all continue to seek out works in translation and books published by small presses—there is so much great stuff out there—and that you continue to support our local independent bookstores, like our dear friends at BookWoman, among others. But, most importantly, we hope to see you in the store sometime soon, to say goodbye and to thank you, both for being the readers that you are and because you have come with us on this incredibly fulfilling journey in Joe’s world.
With heartfelt thanks and wishing you all the best,
Becky Garcia,
Manager, Malvern Books
Malvern Books will be exhibiting works from Josh Ronsen’s Tiny Art Exchange, an international art exchange of art between artists. We’ll have a ton of these tiny (less than an inch!) artworks for you to take a look at, so be sure to stop by! (The tiny art pictured below is by Reed Altemus.)
Ivy and the Wicker Suitcase has been described as “an Epic Surreal Ear Movie Musical!” It’s an enchanting illustrated tale told with music, dialogue, and sound effects… think Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but with a distinctly Austin twist!
Join us at Malvern Books for a lively evening of Ivy-related fun. Author Brian Beattie will give a recitation of the “epic” poem, “The Backstory Ballad of Ivy Wire,” and we’ll also feature musical performances and an exhibition of original artwork from the book.
Brian and the book’s illustrator, Valerie Fowler, will also present a “crankie” show, in which a long illustrated scroll is “cranked” along while a song from the musical is played—a sort of a very low tech, handmade video! And you’ll also have a chance to ask questions of the book’s creators, as well as have copies of the book signed.
Brian Beattie and Valerie Fowler live in Austin with their two teenagers, Felix and Ramona Beattie.
2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the original publication of Gertrude Stein’s modernist classic, Tender Buttons. To celebrate this groundbreaking work, poet Daniel Carter has created a puzzle zine based on Tender Buttons. Daniel will be hosting an evening of Tender Buttons fun at Malvern Books, using these puzzles to explore the wit and wisdom of Stein’s masterpiece.
We will also be celebrating the release of City Lights’ new edition of Tender Buttons. This centennial edition is the first version to incorporate Stein’s own handwritten corrections, as well as corrections discovered among her papers at the Beinecke Library at Yale University.
Daniel Carter is a writer, researcher, and designer, and is currently working on a PhD in Information Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Barrelhouse, Nashville Review, and Salt Hill.
Join us for an afternoon with novelist Larry Brill, a twenty-five-year veteran of TV news and former Austin TV news anchor. Larry will sign copies of his latest novel, The Patterer, a comic odyssey through the world of 18th-century London trash journalism, but based on Brill’s 20th-century experiences in the business. Along with a reading by one of the characters in his novel, Larry will be joined by Austin’s own Next Chapter Improv Group. The actors will call on writers in the audience to read a single page from their own work and then create a comedy sketch on the spot based on that reading.
Larry Brill spent twenty-five years as a television news anchor and reporter in four states, picking up numerous awards along the way. After leaving the business in 2000, Larry penned his first novel, Live At Five, a gentle lampooning of the TV news business. His second novel, The Patterer, carried that theme back in time, to imagine the hilarious possibilities of how today’s news clichés might look to a theater audience in 18th-century London.
Larry was crowned the “Worst Writer in America” twenty years ago as the winner of a tongue-in-cheek competition to intentionally write the WORST opening sentence to an imaginary novel based on that famous line “It was a Dark and Stormy Night….” The small amount of fame that followed gave him a new goal: with two books published and inching towards the bestseller list, he has set his sights on becoming the first author to officially go from worst to first.
The Next Chapter Improv is a group of twelve gifted actors from around the country now living in Austin. Their weekly performances received rave reviews during the 2013 season at The Institution Theater, and the recent Improv Play Festival. The concept is simple: a published author reads a short segment from his or her book, and based only on that, the actors create a sketch to advance the story in any way they see fit.
We’re celebrating Malvern Books’ first anniversary this weekend, and we’re doing it in fine style, with music, readings, food, prizes and cake! Come and join the fun!
This evening we’ll have classical guitar from Tony Morris, along with readings from W. Joe Hoppe, Kurt Heinzelman, and Richard Sober (who will also be displaying his artwork).
Kurt Heinzelman is a poet, translator, scholar, and editor. His latest book of poems, his fourth, is Intimacies & Other Devices (2013). Demarcations (2011) is his translation of Jean Follain’s 1953 volume of poetry Territoires. A scholarly article, “The Grail of Origin: Translation and Originality,” is forthcoming in The Writers’ Chronicle. He was founding co-editor of The Poetry Miscellany and is currently Advisor and Editor-at-Large for Bat City Review and Editor-in-Chief of Texas Studies in Literature and Language (TSLL). He is also an Honorary Professor at Swansea University (Wales).
Richard Sober has been painting and writing since he was fifteen. Sober’s checkered career includes work as a carpenter’s helper, mailroom clerk, cabdriver, messenger, dishwasher, line cook, housepainter, gardener’s helper, census field supervisor, bibiliographic searcher, caregiver, union steward, data entry clerk, warehouseman, and harm reduction specialist. He is the author of Chopin Express, Anything With a Hole In It, Rosewood-The Serpentine Nature of the Beast-Four Windowboxes, Correo Aereo, Because the House is Wild and Empty, and Adjusting to the Light. He is currently working on two manuscripts of poems, Borrowed Earth and Fictive Kin. This December he will have a solo exhibition of 350 paintings in Baltimore. Sober and Sandie Castle can be heard on a spiken word CD, Missing in Action, produced by Birdhouse Studios.
We’re celebrating Malvern Books’ first anniversary this weekend, and we’re doing it in fine style, with music, readings, food, prizes and cake! Come and join the fun!
This afternoon we have honky-tonk cabaret from TOPSY, a reading and book signing with Dr. Fred McGhee (author of Austin’s Montopolis Neighborhood), and a reading and screening of two short films from poet and film maker Richard Bailey.
Fred L. McGhee, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology at Austin Community College and served as the founding president of the Montopolis Neighborhood Association. Also a former board member of the Austin History Center Association, he has combined historical photographs with personal photographs and images generously provided by longtime residents and friends of the Montopolis neighborhood. A specialist in the multicultural history of Texas and Hawai’i, he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently a candidate for the Austin City Council from District 3, which includes Montopolis.
Richard Bailey’s poetry collection REVIVAL was awarded Finalist for the 2012 Emily Dickinson First Book Award. His poems have appeared in several journals, including The Madison Review, Mudfish, and Whiskey Island Magazine. His play A SHIP OF HUMAN SKIN was a Finalist at Kitchen Dog Theater’s New Works Festival, 2012, and Semifinalist at The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2012, and The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference, 2012. His short films have shown in festivals across the country, including SXSW, Black Maria, FOCUS, Social Outcast, Wildcatter Exchange, and at Anthology Film Archives in NYC.
Stop by Malvern Books to enjoy an afternoon of folk/experimental country music with musicians Jackson Emmer and Alison May.
Jackson Emmer is an American Folk and Experimental Country composer, known mostly for his songwriting, unique vocal style, and dynamic performances. Emmer also plays the guitar, mandolin, and banjos. A prolific DIY artist, Emmer has self-released 21 records since 2007, both solo, and with old-time band The Howling Kettles. He collaborates frequently with Alison May, and performs with the group Hot Eagle. Emmer was born in Chicago, but raised in California and Colorado.
Alison May is a folk singer, song writer, and multi-instrumentalist who has been performing, writing and recording out of Oakland, CA since leaving her native Texas in 2012. In 2013, May promoted the release of her first album, Earnest Keep, with two regional tours through the South and Midwest, one of which was by way of Amtrak train. May’s latest album is called Loved/Dark.
Join us for readings and a discussion with Valerie Miles, editor of A Thousand Forests in One Acorn, a collection featuring twenty-eight of the greatest Spanish-language writers. And we’ll start the night in fine style with live Flamenco music from guitarist David Córdoba.
A Thousand Forests in One Acorn is perhaps the greatest cross-section of contemporary Spanish-language literature to be anthologized and translated into English. Composed over many years of conversations and literary adventures throughout the Spanish-speaking world, the book captures the voices of leading writers as they reflect on the particular work they consider closest to their heart, or that best expresses their driving creative obsession. Editor Valerie Miles will discuss her inspiration to assemble this formidable anthology and what it was like to interview some of the greatest authors of Spanish-language literature including: Nobel prize winning author Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Javier Marías, Ana María Matute, and Enrique Vila Matas, among many others.
Valerie Miles is a writer, editor and translator who was born in New York and grew up in Pennsylvania, though she’s been living in Spain for over twenty years. In 2003, she founded the Spanish-language version of Granta, together with Aurelio Major, which is now on its fourteenth issue. Her articles, essays, and reviews appear in the New York Times, Paris Review, La Nación, La Vanguardia, and Granta.
David Córdoba was born in San Fernando, Spain. He began playing the guitar at the age of ten, and started taking classical lessons at sixteen under the tutelage of Spanish guitarist Antonio Clavel. At eighteen he fell in love with Flamenco music after getting his first album from the great Flamenco master Paco de Lucía. Since then, he has had the opportunity to perform throughout Spain, and has continued studying Flamenco guitar with gypsy maestro Baldomero Amador. David moved to Austin from Spain seven years ago.
Join us for a collaborative art opening and poetry reading with students from Austin Community College and Austin Independent School District.
Vision + Voice is a new collaboration between Austin Community College and Austin Independent School District that promotes literacy and creative expression by combining artwork from ACC students with poetry from AISD students. In the spring of 2014, ACC’s Arts & Humanities Division hosted a poetry contest open to all AISD students. AISD students submitted over 800 poems and a panel of judges selected one winning poem and 2-4 honorable mentions per grade for a total of 52 poems (you can watch videos of the winning students reading their poems here). Each of the fifteen winning poems has been paired with an original artwork by an ACC student to create posters designed to promote literacy and creativity. These posters will be displayed throughout AISD and ACC campuses, and in many other public spaces in Austin, including at Malvern Books through the month of December. We’re delighted to feature these art works in our store, and to host an art opening and poetry reading that celebrates this wonderful collaboration. Come to Malvern Books and…
See the posters!
Hear the poems!
Meet the poets!
Eat the cake!
“The Vision + Voice collaboration contributes to the culture of literacy we want for our district. Students were able to engage in authentic literacy experiences and the community is given the opportunity to celebrate their passion, creativity, and talents.”—Dr. Pauline Dow, AISD Chief Academic Officer
“The creative arts are important factors in student success and retention. By pairing the AISD poems with the artwork of ACC students we have created an enduring showcase for student work. We are thrilled to be able to partner with AISD on Vision + Voice and look forward to this being an annual project.”—Lyman Grant, ACC Dean of Arts and Humanities
Join us for an afternoon with cartoonist, artist, and activist Issa Nyaphaga. Issa will be discussing his latest collection of political cartoons, Art Stronger Than Hate (Alamo Bay Press). And we’ll get the afternoon off to a lively start with Mae Stoll and DrumForFun, a group of hand drummers who play and celebrate West African rhythms on traditional West African instruments.
Issa Nyaphaga is a renowned artist, activist, and educator who addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva earlier this year on the subject of freedom of artistic expression. After exile from his native country of Cameroon, he lived in Paris for ten years, where he worked at Charlie Hebdo. He now lives in Santa Fe, teaching at the community college and the Tarnoff Art Center.
Join us for a reading/performance from Austin playwright and debut novelist Kirk Lynn.
Kirk will present a reenactment of selected scenes from his fantastic debut novel, Rules for Werewolves, which is written entirely in dialogue. This event will feature, among other things, a choral reading, group prayers (prayer requests welcome!), saxophone music, and an audience Q & A.
Kirk Lynn has a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue and a sixth sense for finding the exact point at which absurdity mutates into heartbreak—or vice versa. Rules for Werewolves is a dark, delirious, innovative riot of a novel; a grand blast of chaos across the front lawns of America, and a truly outstanding debut.
—Justin Taylor, author of Flings and The Gospel of Anarchy
Kirk Lynn is one of six coproducing artistic directors of Rude Mechanicals theater collective. He is the head of the Playwriting and Directing Area in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, and received his MFA from the Michener Center for Writers. Lynn lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, the poet Carrie Fountain, and their children.
Join us for an evening with myth-maker and storyteller William Kuko, who will share a personal narrative mixed with history and myth to create a sacred place.
William Kuko is an inhabitant of the Pacific Northwest. Most of his time is spent in the Seattle metro area; he is an hermit and recluse by nature, even in the metropolis. Often Mr. Kuko disappears into the Cascade Mountains for great lengths of time. He is a most extraordinary student of poetry, history and all things biologic. Most importantly, William Kuko is a myth-maker and a storyteller: he makes all that was old and forgotten new again.
Join us for an afternoon with writer and musician Don Paul, who will share with us prose, poems, and songs from his one new book (Animals Are Always Making Music) and four new albums!
David Jewell and Brian Cutean combine their many years of elliptical storytelling and feverish brainmindhearts to present an afternoon of music, spoken word, and analogious sonic surprise at Malvern Books.
David Jewell (above left) is poet, storyteller, author, actor and stream of consciousness visionary imagineer who chronicles the 21st century mind and its many idiosyncracies. He and his writing have appeared in two Richard Linklater movies, Before Sunrise and Waking Life, and he’s shared shows with Laurie Anderson and Leon Redbone. His books are time bombs already detonating in another generation and hIs bio says he was “born in blank and lives in and.”
Brian Cutean (above right), a teller of offbeat street-tales filled with wordplay-metafable and songs from a colorful guitar, was a mainstay of Austin music in the 1980’s and 90s. He performed often at The Cactus Café, Chicago House, Maggie Mae’s, The Other Side, Folkville Ice Cream and other long gone venerable venues. Now hailing from the Pacific Northwest, he’s celebrating the release of his 9th nationally-released recording, The Sound Of Photosynthesis, on Burnttoothbrush Records. The record includes a musical version of an ee cummings poem and a song tribute to Austin bassist Robert Vignaud, who accompanied Cutean in concert and on recordings for more than 30 years.
On June 26th Malvern Books will join the world in observation of International Day in Support of Victims of Torture with presentations and discussion. Come join Celia VanDeGraaf, Joe Bratcher, Christopher Brown, Taylor Pate, and Matthew Hodges as we celebrate the survival of victims of torture and wonder in dismay that this practice continues. A significant portion of the event will center on discussion of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture.
On January 15th poets across the country will gather to voice their fears and concerns about a Trump Presidency. Join us at Malvern Books for the Austin event, organized by Justin Booth in association with the Chicon Street Poets. Nationwide, Poets Protest Against Trump is organized by Alan Kaufman, editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, and Michael Rothernberg, co-founder of 100 Thousand Poets For Change.
In tandem with a workshop they’re leading at the Fusebox Festival on Sunday, April 16th, Ayden LeRoux and Abraham Burickson offer a reading from their book Odyssey Works: Transformative Experiences for an Audience of One (Princeton Architectural Press). Odyssey Works infiltrates the life of one person at a time to create a custom-tailored, life-altering performance. It may last for one day or a few months and consists of experiences that blur the boundaries of life and art. The book uses a performance for Rick Moody, author of The Ice Storm, to discuss the broader ideas of their creative and collaborative work. Ayden and Abraham will read from portions of the book and discuss the ideas within, along with holding a question and answer session with the audience.
Ayden LeRoux is an artist, writer, critic, and educator. She is the author of Odyssey Works: Transformative Experiences for an Audience of One, published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2016, and Isolation and Amazement, published by Samsara Press in 2012. Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from Public Books, Cosmonauts Avenue, Theo Westenberger Estate, Works & Conversations, and Emergent Art Space. She is a regular contributor to Glasstire. LeRoux’s photography, performance, installation, and video work often incorporates text and has been exhibited in China, Cuba, Greece, and throughout the United States. She has had solo exhibitions at IDIO Gallery and Flux Factory in New York. She was an artist in residence at the ACE Hotel, Flux Factory, and with the Alaskan Parks and Recreation Department. LeRoux collaborates frequently and is the Assistant Director of Odyssey Works, an interdisciplinary performance group that studies the life of one individual and makes immersive, durational experiences for that person. Odyssey Works has been featured by Newsweek, the New York Times, ArtInfo, BOMB, Hyperallergic, the Marina Abramovic Institute, Vulture, NPR’s Studio 360, Fast Company, and San Francisco Magazine. She has been a Visiting Artist, lectured, and led workshops at the Brooklyn Museum, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Fordham University, and Battersea Centre for the Arts, among others.
Abraham Burickson is the Co-founder and Artistic Director of Odyssey Works. Burickson was trained in architecture; his work spans writing, design, and performance.
This event is co-sponsored by the Michener Center for Writers.
Join us for an evening with myth-maker and storyteller William Kuko, who will share a personal narrative mixed with history and myth to create a sacred place.
William Kuko (ウィリアム・空狐) is an inhabitant of the Pacific Northwest. Most of his time is spent in the Seattle metro area; he is an hermit and recluse by nature, even in the metropolis. Often Mr. Kuko disappears into the Cascade Mountains for great lengths of time. He is a most extraordinary student of poetry, history and all things biologic. Most importantly, William Kuko is a myth-maker and a storyteller: he makes all that was old and forgotten new again.
After 100 days the poets of Austin stand up and resist unjust practices and policies. The format will be fast, as we’d love to hear from many perspectives in this safe place reading. Outlaw Poet Justin Booth will host some of Austin’s best including W. Joe Hoppe, Joe Brundidge, Richard Acevado, Favian Harper, David Julian, Nikki Bruns, Rebecca Raphael, Stephany Morrissey, Brett Reeves, and Lyman Grant.
Everyone is welcome to join us for a launch party and concert to kick off the 2017 REVEL Solstice Festival: A Blank Canvas, a 17-event interactive chamber music, visual art, and poetry series. Award-winning poet Carrie Fountain will offer readings of her original work, and the acclaimed Bel Cuore Quartet will perform music from their upcoming CD release, Splashing the Canvas, in an exploration of what inspires us to create, to care for one another, to dream, to build, and to keep hope alive.
The 2017 REVEL Solstice Festival is sponsored in part by Classical 89.5 KMFA, Malvern Books, 4th Tap Brewing Co-Op, and Blackerby Stage & Studio.
Join us for an evening with Alaskan Fiddling Poet Ken Waldman, who will share poems from his recent collection, Trump Sonnets: Volume One, and play the fiddle with accompanists.
November 9, 2016, incredulous at Donald Trump’s victory, Ken Waldman, scribbled: “You make George W. seem a statesman—your opening trick,” which he made into the first line and a half of a sonnet. A week later, Waldman wrote two more Trump-inspired sonnets. He ended up processing Donald Trump’s unlikely rise to power by writing 71 sonnets in the first 50 days after the 2016 presidential election. 41 were in the voice of Donald Trump; the other 30 were addressed to him. The result: an ambitious, satirical look at current events.
Ken Waldman has six previous poetry collections, a memoir, a kids’ book, and nine CDs that combine original poetry with Appalachian-style string-band music and Alaska-set storytelling. Since 1995 he’s been a full-time touring artist, appearing in a wide range of venues for a wide
range of audiences.
Join us for a reading and discussion about women writing hard science Sci-Fi and Fantasy, featuring Nancy Smith and Christy Esmahan, facilitated by Patrice Sarath.
Nancy Smith is a writer of two published novels, eighteen screenplays, and twenty-two short stories. She is a filmmaker, script analyst, script supervisor as well as owner of First Look Script Analysis, operating since December 2005 and First Look Publishing operating since 2016.
Christy Esmahan is an award-winning novelist who is passionate about the environment. Her novels are primarily about climate change, the problem of plastic pollution in the oceans and social justice. Esmahan began her career as a scientist, earning her BA in Microbiology at Miami University and her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Universidad de Leon, Spain. She lived in Houston for sixteen years and moved to Austin about two years ago. When she’s not writing, she works as a professional translator and she loves to go birding with her husband.
Patrice Sarath is the author of the Gordath Wood fantasy series (Gordath Wood, Red Gold Bridge, and The Crow God’s Girl), the historical romance The Unexpected Miss Bennet, and several science fiction short stories published in a variety of magazines and anthologies.
Do you want to join other poets, musicians, and artists around the world in a demonstration and celebration to promote peace, sustainability and justice, and to call for serious social, environmental and political change? On September 30, 2017, a global healing celebration will be happening through a multitude of events involving poets, artists, and musicians! Join host Joe Brundidge for this 100 Thousand Poets for Change event at Malvern Books.
Visit 100 Thousand Poets for Change to learn more about the movement.
Join us for an evening of poetry and soundscapes with Kim Vodicka, who will read from her poetry collection Psychic Privates. With musical accompaniment by Josh Stevens, and featuring Taylor Gorman.
Poet. Nihilist. Spokesbitch of a Degeneration. Beavis in Scorpio. Moon in Roseanne. Penis in Uranus. Venus in ASS GLAM! Kim Vodicka is the author of two poetry collections: Aesthesia Balderdash (Trembling Pillow Press, 2012) and Psychic Privates (White Stag, 2018 [forthcoming]). She is also responsible for the Psychic Privates EP (TENDE RLOIN, 2017), the world’s first poetry chapbook on 7” vinyl, as well as the Psychic Privates comic book series (Oily Pelican Press). Her poems, art, and other creative abominations have been featured in Spork, Epiphany, Industrial Lunch, Smoking Glue Gun, Luna Luna Magazine, Paper Darts, The Volta, Tarpaulin Sky, Makeout Creek, Mojo, Best American Experimental Writing (BAX) 2015, and many others.
Josh Stevens (above left) is a Memphis-based multi-instrumentalist. A singer/songwriter by day and psychedelic sonic architect by night, he has an affinity for all things pedals and noises that project onto as many astral planes as possible. When he’s not making strange esoteric sounds, you’ll generally find him locking into the groove behind the drum kit with many bands, some of whom you may know, in any town that will have them. A luthier by trade, he follows his prowess and love for music to its core structure and foundation, analyzing all the details, eager to find out just what makes the pieces tick.
Taylor Gorman (above right) graduated from LSU in Creative Writing and received his MFA from Wichita State University. His work has appeared in The New Orleans Review, Passages North, Cutbank, and The Cincinnati Review. He lives in Austin, TX with his cat.
Join us for an evening with acclaimed writer and artist Eduardo Lalo, hosted by César A. Salgado.
The event will feature a bilingual reading from Lalo’s most recent book, Uselessness; a reading from a work-in-progress, Intemperie, a collection of Cioran- and Wittgenstein-like philosophical vignettes (with Sean Manning reading the English parts of these works); a conversation between Lalo, Salgado, and Manning about what the translation into English of Lalo’s past and recent work entails and implies, and a signing of some of Lalo’s recent books.
An award-winning Puerto Rican writer, essayist, photographer, and visual artist, Eduardo Lalo is known for cross-genre books that express his passion for both words and images. Among his titles are La Isla Silente (2002), Los Pies De San Juan (2002), La Inutilidad (2004), Donde (2005), Los Países Invisibles (2008), El Deseo Del Lápiz (2010), Necrópolis (2014), and Intemperie (2016). In 2013 he won the Rómulo Gallegos International Novel Prize for Simone (2011), now available in English from The University of Chicago Press. His visual work has been featured in numerous exhibitions. He was LLILAS Visiting Professor at the University of Texas at Austin in Fall 2016. Known for razor sharp columns in the island’s press, Lalo is today among the most outspoken and resolute critics of recurring colonialism in Puerto Rico and the world.
In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world.
This month’s guest is poet, playwright, and activist Nikki Luellen.
Nikki Luellen is a poet, playwright, and activist from Houston, Texas. In the past year, she has been writing and performing poems inspired by her active involvement with families who have lost their loved ones to police brutality and by her work with the group Refuse Fascism.
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
Join us for an evening with acclaimed poet Carl Phillips. We’ll be celebrating the recent release of his new collection, Wild Is the Wind. This event is sponsored by the Michener Center for Writers.
In Wild Is the Wind, Carl Phillips reflects on love as depicted in the jazz standard for which the book is named—love at once restless, reckless, and yet desired for its potential to bring stability. In the process, he pitches estrangement against communion, examines the past as history versus the past as memory, and reflects on the past’s capacity both to teach and to mislead us—also to make us hesitate in the face of love, given the loss and damage that are, often enough, love’s fallout. How “to say no to despair”? How to take perhaps that greatest risk, the risk of believing in what offers no guarantee? These poems that, in their wedding of the philosophical, meditative, and lyric modes, mark a new stage in Phillips’s remarkable work, stand as further proof that “if Carl Phillips had not come onto the scene, we would have needed to invent him. His idiosyncratic style, his innovative method, and his unique voice are essential steps in the evolution of the craft.” —Judith Kitchen, The Georgia Review
Carl Phillips is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Wild Is the Wind (FSG, 2018). His collection The Rest of Love (FSG, 2004) won the Theodore Roethke Memorial Foundation Poetry Prize and the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Male Poetry, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His other books include Rock Harbor (FSG, 2002); The Tether (FSG, 2001), winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; and Pastoral (Graywolf Press, 2000), winner of the Lambda Literary Award. Carl Phillips is a visiting poet at the Michener Center for a one week residency this semester.
In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world.
This month’s guest is scientist and author Juli Berwald.
Marine invertebrates stole Juli Berwald’s heart on her first snorkel in the Red Sea during college. Hoping to study the ocean forever, she spent seven years building mathematical algorithms to interpret satellite imagery of the ocean, receiving her Ph.D. in ocean science. Her husband stole her heart next, and she drifted away from the ocean to Austin, Texas to be with him. Landlocked, she wrote textbooks and popular science articles for National Geographic, the New York Times, Nature, and Redbook before the story of jellyfish led her back to the sea. Her science memoir, Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone, is “a heartfelt plea for humans to fulfill their responsibilities toward nature” (The New Yorker).
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
Join us for an evening devoted to discussion of Claudia Rankine’s award-winning poetry collection Citizen: An American Lyric, a powerful and direct engagement with race and violence in present-day American culture. We’ll also be discussing the cultural significance of the film Black Panther, and pose questions to the audience about the world as seen through the book and the movie. With host Joe Brundidge and guests Daria Howard and Kelene Blake-Fallon.
Joe Brundidge is an author and public speaker, and has hosted a number of open mic events for almost 20 years, including Spoken & Heard at Kick Butt Coffee, an event he curates. He also served as the Director of the Austin International Poetry Festival for three years, from 2012-2015. He is currently co-host of KOOP 91.7fm’s “Writing On The Air.” His second book of poetry, Element 615, was released in 2017.
Daria Howard is a Spoken Word Artist, Youth Development Professional at Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area, and a Teaching Artist with the Speak Piece Poetry Project.
Kelene Blake-Fallon is a Spoken Word Artist, Health and Wellness Consultant, and Adjunct Professor in the Adult Degree Program at Huston-Tillotson University.
Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric, published by Graywolf Press in 2014, is the first work of poetry to become a New York Times bestseller for multiple weeks on the paperback nonfiction list. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, and was also a finalist for the award in criticism, the first time in the history of those awards that a book was named a finalist in more than one category. “A classic that will be read, referred to and reflected on for generations” (Lit Hub), Citizen is a genre-bending work of art combining lyric prose with internal monologues, visual art, slogans, photographs, quotes, a screen grab from YouTube, and film scripts. It is a touchstone for talking candidly about racism. And it is a time capsule of contemporary headlines and key figures, with references to, among other things, Hurricane Katrina, the tennis champion Serena Williams, the 2006 World Cup, and the fatal shooting of Florida resident Trayvon Martin. Through a series of vignettes, the book recounts everyday moments of racism “of a kind that accumulate until they become a poisonous scourge: being skipped in line at the pharmacy by a white man, because he has failed to notice you in front of him; being told approvingly, as a schoolchild, that your features are like those of a white person; being furiously accosted by a trauma therapist who does not believe that the patient she is expecting could look like you” (The New Yorker). “I started working on Citizen as a way of talking about invisible racism—moments that you experience and that happen really fast,” Rankine told The New Yorker.
Jamaican-born author Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, two plays, and numerous video collaborations. She is the editor of several poetry anthologies, serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2016. Also in 2016, following ten years of teaching at Pomona College in Claremont, California, she was named the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University.
In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world.
This month’s guest is writer Natalia Sylvester.
Natalia Sylvester is the author of the novels Chasing the Sun and Everyone Knows You Go Home, which was named a Best Book of 2018 by Real Simple. She studied Creative Writing at the University of Miami and is a faculty member of the low-res MFA program at Regis University in Denver, Colorado. Natalia’s articles have appeared in Latina Magazine, Writer’s Digest, The Austin American-Statesman, and NBCLatino.com. Born in Lima, Peru, she came to the U.S. at age four and spent time in South and Central Florida and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas before her family set roots in Miami. She now lives and works in Austin.
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world.
This month’s guest is novelist, poet, and essayist Anis Shivani.
Anis Shivani is the Pushcart Prize-winning author of several books of fiction, poetry, and criticism each, including, most recently, Karachi Raj: A Novel, Soraya: Sonnets, Literary Writing in the 21st Century: Conversations, and the forthcoming A History of the Cat in Nine Chapters or Less. His work appears in many leading literary journals.
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world.
This month’s guest is Rinku Sen, author of The Accidental American and Stir It Up: Lessons on Community Organizing.
Rinku Sen is a writer and a political strategist. With over 30 years experience leading racial justice organizations in the United States, she has trained thousands of organizers, activists and agents of social change across the country. Rinku is currently Senior Strategist at Race Forward, having formerly served as Executive Director and as Publisher of their award-winning news site Colorlines. Under Sen’s leadership, Race Forward has generated some of the most impactful racial justice successes. One example is the groundbreaking 2011 Shattered Families report, which changed the immigration debate with investigative research on how record deportations of parents were leading to the placement of thousands of children in foster care, often separating them permanently and legally from their families. Sen was the architect of Drop the I-Word, a campaign for media outlets to stop referring to immigrants as “illegal,” resulting in the Associated Press, USA Today, LA Times, and many more outlets dropping the i-word, affecting millions of readers every day. Her books Stir it Up and The Accidental American theorize a model of community organizing that integrates a political analysis of race, gender, class, poverty, sexuality, and other systems. A key advisor in the philanthropy world, Rinku has worked with foundations like Novo, Open Society, Nathan Cummings and Kellogg. She is a devoted board member of numerous social justice organizations including Hedgebrook, a residency that supports visionary women writers to help achieve a just and peaceful world; the Ms. Foundation for Women, a public foundation building women’s collective power for social, economic and reproductive justice; and the Advancement Project, a multiracial civil rights organization dedicated to eliminating structural racism through high impact policy change. She also serves on the board of Maven, the largest independent media coalition in North America. A highly sought-after keynote speaker for colleges, Sen has spoken at Harvard, Brown, University of Michigan, Penn State, and was the Commencement Speaker at Antioch New England. She is a James O. Gibson Innovation Fellow at PolicyLink.
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world.
This month’s guest is writer and educator Jack Kaulfus.
Jack Kaulfus is the author of the short story collection Tomorrow or Forever (Transgress Press, 2018). Their work has been published in A Cappella Zoo, Heavy Feather Review, and Off the Rocks, among other journals. Jack teaches high school English in Austin, Texas, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University in San Marcos. When all the grading is finished, Jack plays in the queer Americana band Brand New Key.Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
Join us for a reading from The Lumberjack’s Dove—and a shadow puppet crankie show—with visiting writer GennaRose Nethercott, and with special guest Sean Petrie.
In the ingenious and vividly imagined narrative poem The Lumberjack’s Dove, GennaRose Nethercott describes a lumberjack who cuts his hand off with an axe—however, instead of merely being severed, the hand shapeshifts into a dove. Far from representing just an event of pain and loss in the body, this incident spirals outward to explore countless facets of being human, prompting profound reflections on sacrifice and longing, time and memory, and—finally—considering the act of storytelling itself. The lumberjack, his hand, and the axe that separated the two all become participants in the story, with unique perspectives to share and lessons to impart. “I taught your fathers how to love,” Axe says to the acorns and leaves around her. “I mean to be felled, sliced to lumber, & reassembled into a new body.” Inflected with the uncanny enchantment of modern folklore and animated by the sly shifting of points-of-view, The Lumberjack’s Dove is wise, richly textured poetry from a boundlessly creative new voice.
GennaRose Nethercott’s book The Lumberjack’s Dove was selected by Louise Glück as a winner of the National Poetry Series for 2017. She is also the lyricist behind the narrative song collection Modern Ballads, and is a Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellow. Her work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies including BOMB, The Massachusetts Review, The Offing, and PANK, and she has been a writer-in-residence at the Shakespeare & Company bookstore, Art Farm Nebraska, and The Vermont Studio Center, among others. A born Vermonter, she tours nationally and internationally composing poems-to-order for strangers on a 1952 Hermes Rocket typewriter.
Sean Petrie is a founding member of “Typewriter Rodeo,” whose poetry book came out earlier this year. He has 6 short books coming out in 2019 as part of Fountas & Pinnell’s “Leveled Books” series. He also teaches legal writing at UT, and thinks Buffy is the best show ever.
In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers and artists talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world.
This month’s Borderless features a conversation between writer and curator Lise Ragbir (left, below) and esteemed visual artist Deborah Roberts (right, below) about the connection between text, literature, visual art, and social justice.
Lise Ragbir is a writer, curator and Director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2017, she was Jack Jones Literary Art’s Tiphanie Yanique Fellow. In 2015, she was an invited participant in Callaloo’s Creative Writing Workshop, in Barbados. Her essays about arts and culture, race, and immigration have appeared in The Guardian, Hyperallergic, Time Magazine, and USA Today, among other outlets. She was born and raised in Montreal, and now makes her home in Austin, Texas.
Deborah Roberts (American, b. 1962) is a mixed media artist whose work challenges the notion of ideal beauty. Her work has been exhibited internationally across the USA and Europe. Roberts’ work is in the collections of Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York; LACMA, Los Angeles, California; Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey; and The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, New York. Roberts is the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2016) and Ginsburg-Klaus Award Fellowship (2014). She received her MFA from Syracuse University, New York. She lives and works in Austin, Texas. Roberts is represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
You’re invited to join us for another Austin edition of the Why There Are Words reading series! The theme of this month’s reading is “Walk on the Wild Side,” and the readers are Tomás Q. Morín, Carrie Fountain, Sarah Bird, and Eliza Gilkyson (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.
Tomás Q. Morín is the author of Patient Zero and A Larger Country. He translated Pablo Neruda’s The Heights of Macchu Picchu and with Mari L’Esperance co-edited Coming Close: Forty Essays on Philip Levine. He is at work on a memoir about fathers. He teaches at Drew University and in the low residency MFA program of Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Carrie Fountain’s poems have appeared in Tin House, Poetry, and The New Yorker, among others. Her debut collection, Burn Lake, was a National Poetry Series winner and was published in 2010 by Penguin. Her second collection, Instant Winner, was published by Penguin in 2014. Fountain’s debut novel, I’m Not Missing, was published in July, 2018 by Flatiron Books (Macmillan). Born and raised in Mesilla, New Mexico, Fountain received her MFA as a fellow at the James A. Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. Currently writer-in-residence at St. Edward’s University and Visiting Professor at the Michener Center, she is the host of NPR’s This Is Just to Say, a radio show and podcast where she has intimate conversations with America’s most influential poets. Fountain lives in Austin with her husband, playwright and novelist Kirk Lynn, and their two children.
Sarah Bird is the author of nine novels and one book of non-fiction. Her latest novel, Above the East China Sea, was long-listed for the Dublin International Literary Award; was an ALEX Award nominee; winner of the 2016 Texas Philosophical Society Literary Award; a Chicago Tribune Editor’s Choice; a Seattle Times Best Book of the Year; a Tucson Book Festival Great Books for Book Club selection; and a Marie Claire Best Summer Reads. Sarah has been an NPR Moth Radio Hour storyteller, and a writer for Oprah’s Magazine and the NY Times Sunday Magazine. During her ten-year screenwriting career, Sarah was hired to write for Paramount, CBS, Warner Bros, National Geographic, ABC, TNT, as well as several independent producers. Her latest novel, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen, inspired by the true story of Cathy/Cathay Williams, the only woman to serve with the fabled Buffalo Soldiers and the first woman to enlist in the peacetime U.S. Army, has been selected to be a lead Fall 2018 title.
Eliza Gilkyson is a twice Grammy-nominated (2006/2015) singer songwriter and activist who is one of the most respected musicians in Folk, Roots and Americana circles. Her songs have been covered by Joan Baez, Bob Geldof, Tom Rush and Rosanne Cash and have appeared in films, PBS specials and on prime-time TV. A member of the Austin Music Hall of Fame, and a recent inductee into the Austin Songwriter Hall of Fame, she has won countless Folk Alliance and Austin Music awards, including 2014’s Songwriter of the Year. Eliza’s music has always offered a vivid reflection of the times we live in, full of joys and sorrows, each song a window into a life of struggle and triumph in a world she feels is “poised on the edge of moral, economic and environmental bankruptcy.” Her new CD released in summer 2018 from Red House Records, is titled Secularia.
In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers and artists talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world. This month’s guest is Monica Muñoz Martinez.
Monica Muñoz Martinez is the Stanley J. Bernstein Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University and an Andrew Carnegie fellow. She an award-winning author, educator, and public historian. Her research specializes in histories of violence, policing on the US-Mexico border, Latinx history, women and gender studies, and public humanities. Her first book The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas (Harvard University Press, Sept 2018) is a moving account of a little-known period of state-sponsored racial terror inflicted on ethnic Mexicans in the Texas–Mexico borderlands. She is currently at work on Mapping Violence, a digital research project that recovers histories of racial violence in Texas between 1900 and 1930. Martinez is also a founding member of the non-profit organization Refusing to Forget that calls for public commemorations of anti-Mexican violence in Texas. Born and raised in Uvalde, Texas, Martinez received her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University.
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
You’re invited to join us for another Austin edition of the Why There Are Words reading series! This month’s theme is “Alchemy” and the readers are Joe Nick Patoski, Hugh Fitzsimons III, Bronte Treat, Elizabeth Harris, Dena Afrasiabi, and Gurf Morlix.
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.
A staff writer for Texas Monthly magazine for eighteen years, and a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman, Joe Nick Patoski (top row, left) has authored and co-authored biographies of Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Selena, and the Dallas Cowboys, directed a film on the Texas musician Doug Sahm, and collaborated on books about the Texas Mountains, the Texas Coast, and Big Bend National Park. His tenth book is Austin to ATX: The Hippies, Pickers, Slackers & Geeks Who Transformed the Capital of Texas.
Hugh Fitzsimons III (top row, middle) is a third-generation rancher from Dimmit County, Texas, and a director of the Wintergarden Groundwater Conservation District. He is currently expanding into the cultivation of environmentally beneficial restorative plants and crops. His first book, the memoir A Rock Between Two Rivers, was published in 2018 by Trinity University Press.
Bronte Treat (top row, right) is a writer based in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared in Sorin Oak Review, Peach Fuzz Magazine, and Women of Venus. She studied Rhetoric and Writing at St. Edward’s University, where she was an editor of Arete Academic Journal. Her work is concerned with family history and identity.
Elizabeth Harris’s novel, Mayhem: Three Lives of a Woman, winner of the Gival Press Novel Award and an Austin Chronicle Top Read of 2015, was a finalist for the Texas Institute of Letters Jesse Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction. Her first collection of stories, The Ant Generator, was winner of the University of Iowa Press John Simmons Prize. Harris (bottom row, left) taught fiction writing and modern literature for a number of years at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. She and her husband divide their time between the Texas coast and Austin.
Dena Afrasiabi (bottom row, middle) is an editor and fiction writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Toast, and Fiction Southeast, among other publications. Her writing has received fellowship support from the Millay Colony, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts as well as the National Endowment for the Arts. She’s currently at work on a novel.
Gurf Morlix (bottom row, right) won mainstream recognition during his time as Lucinda Williams’ guitar player, musical director and producer. After they had a falling out over the band’s musical direction, Morlix moved on and became a freelance producer. Since then, he’s helmed projects by a diverse set of country and Americana artists including Robert Earl Keen, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Slaid Cleaves and Mary Gauthier, as well as his own records. His new recording is Impossible Blue 2019.
Join us for an evening with Austin Community College Performance Poet and Community Engagement Specialist Taria Person.
Taria Person “The Realest Person,” author of Rainbow Elephant, and playwright of the stageplay Hangers, performs poetry about conflict resolution through self-awareness, and acknowledging, respecting, and accepting each other’s differences.
In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers and artists talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world. This month’s Borderless will feature a conversation between ire’ne lara silva and Marilyse Figueroa.
ire’ne lara silva is the author of two poetry collections, furia (Mouthfeel Press, 2010) and Blood Sugar Canto (Saddle Road Press, 2016), which were both finalists for the International Latino Book Award in Poetry, an e-chapbook, Enduring Azucares (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015), as well as a short story collection, flesh to bone (Aunt Lute Books, 2013), which won the Premio Aztlán. She and poet Dan Vera are also the co-editors of Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands (Aunt Lute Books, 2017), a collection of poetry and essays. ire’ne is the recipient of a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final recipient of the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award, and the 2008 recipient of the Gloria Anzaldúa Milagro Award. ire’ne is currently working on her first novel, Naci. Her latest collection of poetry, CUICACALLI/House of Song, was published by Saddle Road in April 2019.
Marilyse V. Figueroa is an unapologetic Scorpio just like Björk. They are a proud queer Xicanx-Boricua from Oklahoma and Tejas. They have been published in Acentos Review, St. Sucia Zine, and many others. You can catch this water sign writing poems, short fiction, or anything else that flows with their *feelings*. Marilyse works with youth and their writing whenever possible. They are currently the Regional Program Manager for Austin Bat Cave and Director of the San Marcos, Texas chapter of Barrio Writers Workshop.
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
Join Austin Audio Fiction at Malvern Books for a special introduction to local fiction podcasts. From sci-fi adventure to urban fantasy, learn about the world of audio drama and how your next favorite writer may actually be in your ears. Featuring Chris Garrett (“Splintered Caravan” podcast);Michelle Nickolaisen (“Unplaced”); Gabe Alvarez (“Starcalled”); and A. R. Olivieri (“GREAT & TERRIBLE”).
Michelle Nickolaisen is a writer and creator based in Austin, TX, with projects ranging from a novel series to a tabletop RPG to, of course, fictional podcasts. When not working on one of these projects, you can often find Michelle at the bouldering gym or training martial arts.
A. R. Olivieri is in fact a writer, director, producer, voice actor, anxiety sufferer, imposter, and french fry addict. Mostly though, he’s a creator of podcasts. He lives in Austin, Texas.
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.
In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers and artists talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world. This month’s Borderless guest is Raj Patel, co-author of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet.
Raj Patel is an award-winning writer, activist and academic. He is a Research Professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin, and a Senior Research Associate at the Unit for the Humanities at the university currently known as Rhodes University (UHURU), South Africa. In addition to numerous scholarly publications in economics, philosophy, politics and public health journals, he regularly writes for The Guardian, and has contributed to the Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Times of India, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Mail on Sunday, and The Observer. His first book was Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. His second, The Value of Nothing, was a New York Times and international best-seller. His latest, co-written with Jason W. Moore, is A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things.
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
Join us for a discussion with Daisy Hernández, co-editor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism. Daisy will be interviewed by Chaitali Sen.
Newly revised and updated, this landmark anthology offers gripping portraits of American life as seen through the eyes of young women of color.
It has been decades since women of color first turned feminism upside down, exposing the feminist movement as exclusive, white, and unaware of the concerns and issues of women of color from around the globe. Since then, key social movements have risen, including Black Lives Matter, transgender rights, and the activism of young undocumented students. Social media has also changed how feminism reaches young women of color, generating connections in all corners of the country. And yet we remain a country divided by race and gender. Now, a new generation of outspoken women of color offer a much-needed fresh dimension to the shape of feminism of the future. In Colonize This!, Daisy Hernández and Bushra Rehman have collected a diverse, lively group of emerging writers who speak to the strength of community and the influence of color, to borders and divisions, and to the critical issues that need to be addressed to finally reach an era of racial freedom. With prescient and intimate writing, Colonize This! will reach the hearts and minds of readers who care about the experience of being a woman of color, and about establishing a culture that fosters freedom and agency for women of all races.
Daisy Hernández is the author of A Cup of Water under My Bed: A Memoir and the former editor of ColorLines magazine. She has written for National Geographic, The Atlantic, the New York Times, and NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and currently teaches creative writing at Miami University in Ohio.
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers and artists talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world. This month’s Borderless guest is Oscar Cásares.
Oscar Cásares is the author of Brownsville, a collection of stories that was an American Library Association Notable Book of 2004, and is now included in the curriculum at several American universities, and the novel Amigoland. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Copernicus Society of America, and the Texas Institute of Letters. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he teaches creative writing at the University of Texas in Austin, where he lives. (Author photo credit: Joel Salcido.)
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
You’re invited to join us for another Austin edition of the Why There Are Words reading series! This month’s theme is “Silver Linings” and the guests are Kathryn Schwille, Kristen Staby Rembold, Mark Solomon, Marian Szczepanski, and musical duo Joanna Howerton and Michael Cross.
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.
Kathryn Schwille (top left) is the author of the novel What Luck, This Life, set in East Texas around the time of the Columbia shuttle disaster. It was selected by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as one of the best southern books of 2018. Her short stories have appeared in New Letters, Memorious, Crazyhorse, Literary Hub, and other journals, and have been cited twice for Special Mention in the Pushcart Prize. She lives in North Carolina and teaches at Charlotte Center for Literary Arts.
Kristen Staby Rembold’s (top center) most recent book is Music Lesson, poetry, published in 2019 by Future Cycle Press. She is also the author of two poetry chapbooks, Leaf and Tendril and Coming into This World, and a novel, Felicity, winner of Mid-List First Fiction Series Award. Her poems have appeared in many periodicals including Crab Orchard Review, Green Mountains Review, Literary Mama, Smartish Pace, and New Ohio Review. She has taught poetry and fiction writing at WriterHouse in Charlottesville, Virginia, and is former co-editor of IRIS: A Journal About Women. She holds degrees from Northwestern University and the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.
Mark Solomon (top right) has lived in NYC since 1941. Since 1973 his poems have appeared in Broadway Boogie, TriQuarterly, Hanging Loose, BOMB, The Marlboro Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, and Southern Poetry Review. A chapbook, Her Whom I Summoned, and My True Body, his first full-length collection, are available through Havel.Havulim@gmail.com
Marian Szczepanski (bottom left) is the author of the historical novel Playing St. Barbara (High Hill Press, 2013), which Huffington Post called “a stunning debut novel that shimmers with unforgettable characters while casting necessary light on a dark chapter in American history.” She has won awards for short fiction and magazine writing and holds an MFA in fiction from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She is a faculty member at Houston’s Writespace creative writing center and has also taught for the Texas Writers League (Austin), Gemini Ink (San Antonio), Village Writing School (Eureka Springs and Rogers, AR), University of Pittsburgh’s Writers Café, and St. Francis University (Loretto, PA). She divides her time between Houston and Hood River, Oregon.
Joanna Howerton grew up in a musical family in the beautiful hills of Kentucky. In the Blues, she found her true voice and style and honed her vocal skills and played with various R&B and jazz ensembles in New Orleans and Austin. Her partnership and duo with Michael Cross has been transformative, inspiring the creation of a sound that bridges their past and current influences.
Michael Cross, a talented vocalist, lyricist, composer and seasoned recording artist, has toured nationally and internationally. Recording projects include TX Blues Voices, and his own album Blues Lovin’ Man. Michael’s latest collaboration with Joanna Howerton has inspired new material and their duo is steadily building an enthusiastic following.
Join us for an evening with Austin-based poet Usha Akella, who will be in conversation with Chaitali Sen.
Usha Akella has authored four books of poetry and one chapbook, and has scripted and produced one musical drama. Her latest poetry book was published by Sahitya Akademi, India’s highest literary authority, in 2019. She recently earned an 2018 MSt. in Creative Writing from Cambridge University, UK. Her work has been included in the Harper Collins’ Anthology of Indian English Poets. She was selected as a Creative Ambassador for the City of Austin for 2019 and 2015, and has been published in numerous literary journals. She is the founder of ‘Matwaala,’ the first South Asian Diaspora Poets Festival in the US. She has won literary prizes (Nazim Hikmet award, Open Road Review Prize, and Egan Memorial Prize), and earned finalist status in a few US based contests. She has written a few quixotic nonfiction prose pieces published in The Statesman and India Currents. She is the founder of the Poetry Caravan in New York and Austin, which takes poetry readings to the disadvantaged in women’s shelters, senior homes, and hospitals. Several hundreds of readings have reached these venues via this medium.
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
Join us for a conversation between visiting translator Rosalind Harvey and host Sean Manning as they discuss topics such as translating voices, particularly in regards to her latest work Juan Pablo Villalobos’ The Other Side, a collection of stories from Central American teen refugees crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Their conversation will also be recorded for Adriana Pacheco’s Hablemos Escritoras podcast.
Rosalind Harvey (above left) is an award-winning literary translator, and has taught translation at undergraduate and postgraduate level at the universities of Roehampton, Bristol, and Warwick. Her translation of Juan Pablo Villalobos’ debut novel Down the Rabbit Hole was shortlisted for the 2011 Guardian First Book Award and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize, and her translation of his work I’ll Sell You A Dog was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and commended for the 2018 Valle-Inclán prize. She has worked on books by Guadalupe Nettel, Elvira Navarro, Enrique Vila-Matas, Héctor Abad Faciolince, and Alberto Barrera Tyszka, amongst others. She is a founding member and chair of the Emerging Translators Network, an online community for early-career literary translators, and speaks regularly on the topic of getting into the profession and surviving. She is a 2016 Arts Foundation Fellow, and in 2018 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is currently working on a collection of Peruvian short stories and an Argentine play, and her latest publication is a YA title by Villalobos about the journeys made by teenage Central American immigrants when they cross over illegally to the United States. She lives in Coventry in the West Midlands.
Sean Manning (above center) is a Lecturer who teaches courses on language, literature, and writing in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas at Austin, where he received his PhD in Spanish and Latin American Literature. He is also a literary translator and has translated numerous works including Eduardo Lalo’s The Elements, Azahara Palomeque’s American Poems, Carlos Pereda’s Lessons in Exile, and a collection of short stories from Lorenzo García Vega titled Falconry With Puppets. He is currently working on translations of Carlos Pereda’s latest book Destructions and Nomadic Thought and a novel by Argentine writer Diego Vecchio. He also co-edited No dicen nada, cantan, an anthology of poetry from the late Uruguayan poet and U.T. professor Enrique Fierro set to be published this year by Mexico’s Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Dr. Adriana Pacheco (above right) was born in Puebla, Mexico and is a naturalized American Citizen. She sits on and is former Chair at the International Board of Advisors at University of Texas-Austin. She is Affiliate Research Fellow at Llilas Benson, and co-founder of the Nineteenth-Century scholar section of LASA. Her research in the construction of feminine subjectivity from the nineteenth century onwards from the perspective of critical and postcolonial theories and cultural and historiographic studies has earned her multiple scholarships and grants. A Texas Book Festival Feature Author (2012), Dr. Pacheco has several publications in collective books and magazines like Revista de Estudios Hispánicos and Letras Libres, among others. Currently she is working on the book “Virile Angels,” Much More Than “Angels of the Home.” Female Education in Mexican Nineteenth-Century Catholic Newspapers and a collective Para seguir rompiendo con la palabra. Dramaturgas, cineastas, periodistas y ensayistas mexicanas contemporáneas. She is founder and producer of Hablemos Escritoras podcast and Proyecto Escritoras Mexicanas Contemporáneas.
Hablemos Escritoras podcast is a weekly podcast that focuses on the work, influences, publications, awards, and trajectory of contemporary female writers and translators of Spanish, and explores topics related to literature, culture, and society. In its more than 70 episodes it has interviewed authors from around the world. It can be heard on Soundcloud, Applepodcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.
In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers and artists talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world. This month’s Borderless guest is Varian Johnson.
Varian Johnson is the author of nine novels, including The Parker Inheritance, which was named a Coretta Scott King Honor Book, an Odyssey Honor Audiobook and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book; and The Great Greene Heist, which was named to over twenty-five state reading and best-of lists. He received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he now serves as a member of the faculty. Varian lives outside of Austin, TX with his family.
Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.
Join us for a night with spoken word artists Joaquín Zihuatanejo and Taria Person.
Joaquín Zihuatanejo is a brilliant poet. His testimonials and songs and explorations are multilingual, structurally adventurous. The wide range of forms and dictions makes visible his ravenous curiosity and intellect. His language, rippling with the loss of a father and racial and cultural tensions, resists one-dimensional answers. His nouns and verbs wonder, croon, weep, question, and roar. The deep attention to language and to the shaping of language infuses the work with a riveting self-awareness of the self—in this case, a Mexican American man unafraid to remember, to love. Beautifully crafted and richly imagined, Arsonist is a remarkable debut. —Eduardo C. Corral, author of Slow Lightning
Joaquín Zihuatanejo received his MFA in creative writing with a concentration in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His work has been featured in Prairie Schooner, Sonora Review, and Huizache, among other journals and anthologies. His poetry has been featured on HBO, NBC, and on NPR in Historias and The National Teacher’s Initiative. He was the winner of the Anhinga-Robert Dana Prize for Poetry. His book, Arsonist, was published by Anhinga Press in September of 2018, and was short-listed as a Finalist for both the Writers’ League of Texas Best Book Poetry Prize and the International Latino Book Award Best Book Poetry Prize. Joaquín has two passions in his life, his wife Aída and poetry, always in that order.
Taria Person is an alumna of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where she received a dual B.A. in English Creative Writing: Poetry, and Interdisciplinary Studies: Africana Studies. She is the author of Rainbow Elephant and At the Summit, and her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including: O’ Woman a Tapestry of Loving You, and Voices of Warriors: Poems of Hope & Healing. Taria Person won first place at the regional Big Ears: Spoken Word Expo/The 5th Woman Poetry Slam (2017), the Regional Southern Fried Hip-Hop Slam (2013), and Knoxville Poetry Slam (2012). Also, she has been an actress and Production Stage Manager for The Carpetbag Theatre Inc., during its original series of stage productions that have been funded by The Roy Cockrum Foundation, in celebration of (CBT’s) 50th Anniversary. Recently, Person has been commissioned to write a book of poetry by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation; won an Artistic Professional Development grant from Alternate Roots for her original stage play, Hangers; and became a member of the 5th Woman Touring Collective.
You’re invited to join us for another Austin edition of the Why There Are Words reading series! This month’s theme is Reconciliation and our guests are Sandra Sidi, Carrie Fountain, Josh Denslow, and The Flyin’ A’s (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.
Sandra Sidi writes fiction and nonfiction. She was a military analyst in Baghdad in 2007 and 2008. She is an MFA Candidate at Texas State University San Marcos, and holds a Master’s Degree in Political Science from Yale University. Her first piece, “Get A Weapon,” was published in The Atlantic and is forthcoming in Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: An Anthology by Kendall Hunt Publishing. She is working on a novel about Israeli soldiers.
Carrie Fountain is a poet and novelist, and serves as the 2019 Texas Poet Laureate. She is the author of two poetry collections, Instant Winner and Burn Lake, winner of the 2009 National Poetry Series Award, and the YA novel I’m Not Missing. Her first children’s book, The Poem Forest (Candlewick Press, 2020) tells the story of American poet W.S. Merwin and the palm forest he grew from scratch on the island of Maui. Her poems have appeared in Tin House, Poetry, and The New Yorker, among many others. She is the host of KUT’s This Is Just to Say, a radio show and podcast where she has intimate conversations on the writing life with other poets and writers. Fountain is writer-in-residence at St. Edward’s University, and lives in Austin, TX.
Josh Denslow’s short stories have appeared in print and online in such fine places as Barrelhouse, Third Coast, Cutbank, Wigleaf, and Black Clock, among many others. NOT EVERYONE IS SPECIAL, his debut short story collection, will be published in 2019 by 7.13 Books. Along with his wife and his brother-in-law, he plays drums in the band Borrisokane. KUTX called us “synth-punk gloom-wonders” and the band was hailed by the Austin Chronicle as one of the Best New Local Acts of 2013. They are currently recording thier first full-length album.
The Flyin’ A’s perform Americana with a Texas Kick. This husband and wife duo hails from Austin, Texas. You can hear their Texas roots in all they do. The high energy duo is famous for their top-notch songwriting, breathtaking harmonies, and exceptional live performance. Their latest album You Drive Me Crazy was selected to be on the 2017 first round Grammy Ballot and has taken them on tour around the US, UK, and the EU, and now they are headed to NZ for the first time. From Stuart Adamson’s outstanding lead guitar work and gritty vocals to Hilary Claire Adamson’s powerhouse vocal gymnastics and lilting harmonies, it is no wonder this duo is quickly gaining momentum both at home and abroad. They combine the best of Texas country, southern blues, folk and gospel to create an original sound that is all their own.
Malvern Books is proud to present an evening (via Zoom; details to come) with Cotton Mather guitarist and prize-winning poet Harold Whit Williams, who will be reading from his new book and performing songs from his new solo album, both titled My Heavens.
Worth noting: All royalties from the download or stream of My Heavens goes to Color of Change.
Williams returns to form on this, his fifth poetry collection. The very idea of a paradise—beyond sky or upon earth or within each moment—is poked and prodded with both sharp cynicism and wide-eyed wonder alike. Addressing grief, the day in/day out depictions are deeply distilled, the lines sober yet also playful, loose and languid. Nostalgia without sentimentality. Dreamlike visions without surrealism. These poems settle down across the kitchen table from a reader for a little give and take, a little what’s it all about? “The transubstantiation, the utter mystery,” Williams writes, “I swallow it all/And expect nothing in return.”
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Five brown authors of Hispanic, Filipino, and South Asian origins discuss what it is like being brown in America, how that has shaped their writing, and informed their latest books. We’ll talk about growing up brown and the experience of finding a place (physical or state of mind) to be brown in America through our work, relationships, family, community, etc.
This discussion will take place via Zoom and will be moderated by Martha Anne Toll. The panelists are: Donna Miscolta (Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories); Grace Talusan (The Body Papers); Sejal Shah (This Is One Way to Dance); Sopan Deb (Missed Translations); and Jenny Bhatt (Each of Us Killers: Stories).
Martha Anne Toll (top left) is the 2020 Winner of the Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction. Her debut novel, Three Muses, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing, Fall 2022. Her fiction has appeared in Catapult, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, eMerge, Slush Pile Magazine, Yale’s Letters Journal, Inkapture Magazine, Referential Magazine, and Poetica E Magazine. Martha’s essays and reviews appear regularly on NPR and in The Millions; as well as in the Washington Post, Washington Post’s The Lily, The Rumpus, Bloom, Scoundrel Time, Music & Literature, Words Without Borders [forthcoming], After the Art, Narrative Magazine, [PANK] Magazine, Cargo Literary, Tin House blog, The Nervous Breakdown, Heck Magazine, and the Washington Independent Review of Books. Her personal essay, “Dayenu,” was selected for an anthology featuring a range of well-known writers such as Lidia Yuknavich, Kwame Alexander, Dani Shapiro, and Ada Limón.
Donna Miscolta’s (top middle) third book of fiction Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories, about lessons a young Mexican American girl learns in a world that favors neither her race nor gender, was published by Jaded Ibis Press in September 2020. Her story collection Hola and Goodbye, winner of the Doris Bakwin Award for Writing by a Woman and published by Carolina Wren Press (2016), won an Independent Publishers award for Best Regional Fiction and an International Latino Book Award for Best Latino Focused Fiction. She’s also the author of the novel When the de la Cruz Family Danced from Signal 8 Press (2011), which poet Rick Barot called “intricate, tender, and elegantly written – a necessary novel for our times.” Recent essays appear in pif, Los Angeles Review, and the anthology Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19 and a short story is forthcoming in Latinx Subjectivities: A multi-genre anthology.
Grace Talusan’s memoir, The Body Papers, is a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, a winner in nonfiction for the Massachusetts Book Awards, and winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing. Her short story, The Book of Life and Death, was chosen for the 2020 Boston Book Festival’s One City One Story program and was translated into several languages, including Tagalog. Currently, Talusan is the Fannie Hurst Writer-in-Residence at Brandeis University.
Sejal Shah (bottom left) is the author of the debut essay collection, This Is One Way to Dance (University of Georgia Press, 2020). Her stories and essays have appeared in Brevity, Conjunctions, Guernica, the Kenyon Review Online, Literary Hub, Longreads, Poets & Writers, and The Rumpus. The recipient of a 2018 NYFA fellowship in fiction, Sejal recently completed a story collection and is at work on a memoir about mental health. She teaches in the Rainier Writing Workshop low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University and lives in Rochester, New York.
Sopan Deb (bottom middle) is a writer for the New York Times. Before joining the Times, he covered Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign for CBS News. He is also a New York-city based comedian. He is the author of the memoir Missed Translations: Meeting The Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me.
Jenny Bhatt (bottom right) is a writer, literary translator, and book critic. She’s also the host of the Desi Books podcast. Her debut story collection, Each of Us Killers, launched last month in the US with 7.13 Books. Her literary translation, Ratno Dholi: Dhumketu’s Best Short Stories, from Gujarati to English, is out this month with HarperCollins India. Her non-fiction writing has appeared or will be coming soon in NPR, The Washington Post, BBC Culture, The Atlantic, Longreads, Literary Hub, Poets & Writers, and several more.
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Join us for a reading from Rachel Genn, whose second novel, What You Could Have Won, will be released by And Other Stories in early November.
This event will take place via Zoom; see details below. The novel can be purchased via our online store, or call us on 512-322-2097 to arrange curbside pick up.
“A captivating portrait of regret, addiction, and the will to survive.” —Publishers Weekly
Fame is the only thing worth having. Love is temporary brain damage. Or so thinks Henry Sinclair, a failing psychiatrist, whose career-breaking discovery has been pinched by a supervisor smelling of nipple grease and hot-dog brine. An emotional miser and manipulator par excellence, desperate for the recognition he’s certain his genius deserves, Henry claws his way into the limelight by transforming his girlfriend—a singer-in-ascendance, beloved for her cathartically raw performances—into a drug experiment. As he systematically works to reinforce feelings of worthlessness while at the same time feeding off Astrid’s fame, and as Astrid collapses deeper into dependence, what emerges is a two-sided toxic relationship: the bullying instincts of a man shrunk by an industry where bullying is currency, and the peculiar strength of a star more comfortable offloading her talent than owning her brilliance.
Pinging between their apartment in New York (where they watch endless episodes of The Sopranos), a nudist campsite in Greece (where the tantalizingly handsome Gigi thwacks octopuses into the sand), and a celebrity rehab facility in Paris (founded by the cassock-wearing and sex-scandal plagued ‘artist’ Hypno Ray), What You Could Have Won is a relationship born of regrettable events, and a novel about female resilience in the face of social control.
Rachel Genn is a neuroscientist, artist and writer who has written two novels: The Cure (2011) and What You Could Have Won (2020). She was a Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence (2016), creating The National Facility for the Regulation of Regret, which spanned installation art, VR and film (2016-17). She has written for Granta, 3:AM Magazine, and Hotel, and is working on Hurtling, a hybrid collection of essays about the neuroscience, art and abjection of artistic reverie. She’s also working on a binaural experience exploring paranoia, and a collection of non-fiction about fighting and addiction to regret. Genn works at the Manchester Writing School and the School of Digital Arts, both at Manchester Metropolitan University, and lives in Sheffield.
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