Malvern Books

A reading with Daniel Chacón and Ire’ne Lara Silva.

Daniel Chacón is author of four books of fiction, including the short story collections Hotel Juárez and Unending Rooms, for which he won the 2007 Hudson Prize. His stories and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies.

Ire’ne Lara Silva was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award, the 2008 recipient of the Gloria Anzaldua Milagro Award, a Macondo Workshop member, and a CantoMundo Inaugural Fellow. She and Moisés S. L. Lara are currently co-coordinators for the Flor De Nopal Literary Festival.

The inaugural event in our Everything is Bigger monthly reading series, hosted by Tyler Gobble. To kick things off, we have readings from Dean Young, Blake Lee Pate, and Vincent Scarpa.

Dean Young is the author of more than ten collections of poetry, including most recently, Fall Higher and Bender: New and Selected Poems, as well as a book of prose on poetry, The Art of Recklessness. He is currently the William Livingston Chair of Poetry at the University of Texas at Austin. Additionally, he is this year’s Texas State Poet Laureate.

Blake Lee Pate is co-editor of Smoking Glue Gun Magazine and an MFA candidate in poetry in the New Writers Project at the University of Texas, Austin. She is currently the marketing director for Bat City Review. Her work can be found in Forklift, Ohio; elimae; and decomP, among other places.

Vincent Scarpa is a first-year fiction writer at UT’s Michener Center for Writers. He is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the recipient of the 2012 Norman Mailer College Fiction Prize.

Introducing W. Joe’s Poetry Corner! For the inaugural event in this reading series, we have an evening with poet and visual artist David Thornberry. The event will kick off with our host, W. Joe, interviewing David. Next up, David will give a reading, followed by an audience Q&A. David’s artwork will also be on display in the store.

In association with the New Writers Project at the University of Texas, we’re proud to present a reading with poet Michael Teig. Michael is a founding editor of jubilat, and author of the collections Big Back Yard (2003; selected by Stephen Dobyns as winner of the inaugural A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize) and There’s a Box in the Garage You Can Beat with a Stick (2013).

“… Michael Teig maps the mercurial terrain of the imagination with such equipoise you may forget you’re dreaming just as these pages are so soaked with the miraculous everyday, you may forget you’re awake. Imagine getting a letter from a zinnia. Deft as an owl landing in a blossoming cherry tree, these are gorgeously uncanny and regal poems.”—Dean Young, in praise of There’s a Box in the Garage You Can Beat with a Stick

So nice, we’re doing it twice! (And also: many more times!) This month’s reading will be hosted by the inimitable Tyler Gobble and will feature Claudia Smith, Dan Boehl, and Laurel Hunt.

Claudia Smith grew up in Houston, Texas. Her fiction has appeared in several journals and anthologies over the years, including Nortons’ The New Sudden Fiction: Short Short Stories From America And Beyond and Cinco Puntos/Akashic’s Lone Star Noir. Her collections of short-shorts The Sky is A Well and Put Your Head In My Lap are available from Rose Metal Press and Future Tense Books, respectively; her chapbook The Sky Is Well‘s first printing sold out, but was reprinted in the collection A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness. Her debut collection of short stories, Quarry Light, is now available from Magic Helicopter Press.

Dan Boehl is a founding editor of Birds, LLC, an independent poetry publisher, which put out his book The Kings of the F**king Sea. He helps run the Austin reading series Fun Party.

Laurel Hunt is an MFA candidate at the Michener Center for Writers at UT-Austin. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Smoking Glue Gun; Forklift, Ohio; and Whiskey Island, among other places.

If you’re the cautious type who would like to check out last month’s Bigger fun before you commit, please visit our YouTube channel for footage.

P.S. RAFFLE PRIZES! OH BOY!

For the second installment of W. Joe’s Poetry Corner, we’re delighted to present an evening with Austin poet Cindy St. John. The event will kick off with our host, W. Joe, interviewing Cindy. Next up, Cindy will give a reading from her new chapbook, I Wrote This Poem (forthcoming from Salt Hill), followed by an audience Q&A session.

Cindy St. John holds an MFA from Western Michigan University. She is the author of four chapbooks, including Be The Heat, and her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including H_NGM_N, No Tell Motel, and the Southern Review. She teaches Language Arts at Austin’s Fulmore Middle School and is one of the co-hosts of the Fun Party reading series. In 2013, she was a Millay artist-in-residence.

A reading with poets Peter Streckfus (author of The Cuckoo and Errings) and Rob MacDonald (editor of Sixth Finch).

Peter Streckfus’ debut collection, The Cuckoo, was selected by Louise Glück for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Additional honors include fellowships from the Peter S. Reed Foundation and the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference, and two Pushcart Prize nominations. In 2013 he was a Rome Prize Fellow in Literature. His work has been anthologized in numerous collections, including Under the Rock Umbrella: Contemporary American Poets from 1951 to 1977 (2006).

In association with the New Writers Project at the University of Texas, we’re proud to present a reading with poet Noelle Kocot.

Noelle is the author of six poetry collections, including Soul in Space (2013) and The Bigger World (2011), and a book of translations of some of the poems of Tristan Corbière, Poet by Default (2011). Her poems have also been anthologized in numerous editions of The Best American Poetry. She is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, and the American Poetry Review, among others, and some of her work recently went to Mars on the spaceship MAVEN. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and currently lives in New Jersey.

The irrepressible Tyler Gobble hosts our monthly reading series, Everything is Bigger, which features prose and poetry and prizes! This month’s readers are Trey Moody, Nick Courtright, and Thomas Courtney Vance.

Trey Moody is the author of Thought That Nature (Sarabande Books, 2014), selected by Cole Swensen for the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry. His poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2009, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, and Washington Square. He lives in San Marcos, Texas.

Nick Courtright’s second book, Let There Be Light, is out now from Gold Wake Press. Punchline, his 2012 release, was a National Poetry Series finalist. His poetry has also appeared in many literary journals, including The Southern Review, AGNI, Kenyon Review Online, and Boston Review. In Austin, Texas, he is a freelance writing coach who also teaches university-level Creative Writing, Classicism, Romanticism, and Writing for Publication, among other literature and writing courses.

Thomas Courtney Vance’s writing appears or will appear in Revolution House, North American Review, Independent Ink, and Unstuck. She’s a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.

We’re proud to present a reading with poets Gary Whited and Dave Oliphant. The evening will also feature jazz from Margaret Slovak and Tony Morris, so be sure to come by at 6.30pm for some excellent live music!

Gary Whited (above left) is a poet, philosopher, and psychotherapist. His poetry collection, Having Listened, won the 2013 Homebound Publications Poetry Contest and is being considered for a Ben Franklin Award. “Farm,” one of the poems from the book, has been nominated for a Pushcart prize. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including The Aurorean, Salamander, and Comstock Review. He is also a contributing author to a collection of essays in honor of his philosophy teacher, Henry Bugbee, titled Wilderness and the Heart: Henry Bugbee’s Philosophy of Place, Presence, and Memory. He is currently working on a new translation of Parmenides’ On Nature.

Dave Oliphant (above right) is the author of several volumes of poetry, including Memories of Texas Towns & Cities (2000) and Backtracking (2004). He has edited numerous anthologies, written many works of criticism, and is an important scholar of Texas Jazz. His translations include Figures of Speech by Enrique Lihn (1999), Love Hound by Oliver Welden (2006), and After-Dinner Declarations by Nicanor Parra (2008).

Presenting W. Joe’s Poetry Corner, in which our host W. Joe Hoppe interviews a poet, who will then give a reading and answer questions from audience members. For March 2014, W. Joe’s Poetry Corner welcomes Vicente Lozano to the stage. Lozano is a recipient of a postgraduate fellowship from the Michener Center for Writers, and has also participated in Macondo, Sandra Cisneros’ socially engaged writing community. In 2007 Lozano received a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship from The Texas Institute of Letters. The Vermont Studio Center has gifted him with several artist grants.

Lozano’s obsession has been with his family’s Mexican history in South Texas (though thirty years in Austin have, at times, made him an unavoidable watcher of whiteness and its awkward hat dance with an emerging Latino population). Precisely because Race and History are heavy—the gifts that keep on giving™—he escapes into pop culture, satire, and absurdity as often as he can.

By day he keeps computers from crashing. For the past ten years he has been Systems Administrator for The Undergraduate Writing Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

Join Smoking Glue Gun at Malvern Books for a night of readings by Claire Bowman, Meg McKeon, Taisia Kitaiskaia, and Scott Hammer. Smoking Glue Gun will provide refreshments and the new SGG Spring Chapbooks will be for sale!

Claire Bowman was born in the cornfields next to the Missouri river. Her mother raised her in the woods. She is an Assistant Poetry Editor for Bat City Review and an MFA Candidate at the Michener Center for Writers. She sometimes loves it all. There are demons in her heart. They never let up.

Meg McKeon holds an MFA in poetry from The New Writers Project at The University of Texas at Austin. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: Ghost Town; H_NGM_N; ILK Journal; Blackbird; Spork Press; LEVELER; and Smoking Glue Gun.

Taisia Kitaiskaia was born in Russia and raised in America. Her poems and translations are forthcoming or have appeared in Gulf Coast, Colorado Review, Narrative Magazine, and Poetry International, and she is currently a Michener fellow at the University of Texas in Austin.

Scott Hammer is the author of the poetry chapbook Some Body Some Hollow, forthcoming from Horse Less Press. His writing has appeared in places like Smoking Glue Gun, ILK Journal, La Petite Zine, Noo Weekly, The Baltimore Review, Vector Press and others. He is currently writing in Philadelphia.

Join us for an evening with poets Karen Kevorkian and Richard Bailey.

Karen Kevorkian has recently published two poetry collections, Lizard Dream (What Books Press) and White Stucco Black Wing (Red Hen Press). Her poetry and fiction have appeared in several anthologies and journals including Fiction International, Poetry International, Quarterly West, Witness, Volt, Shenandoah, and the Michigan Quarterly, Massachusetts, Antioch, Virginia Quarterly, Agni, Hayden’s Ferry, Los Angeles, and the Mississippi reviews. Educated at the universities of Texas, Virginia, and Utah, she now teaches creative writing in the English department at UCLA and before that in the creative writing program at the University of Virginia. For several years she edited and produced exhibition catalogues for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She has been awarded fellowships from the Wurlitzer, Ucross, Djerassi, and Millay foundations and the MacDowell Colony.

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.

Join us for a reading and celebration as participants of the Free Minds writing workshop and students of the Class of 2014 share their original works of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction.

Members of the Free Minds writing workshop meet over the course of 8 weeks to produce and share writing in a supportive group environment. These workshops are founded on the principle that each person has a unique and powerful voice which deserves to be heard. Our spring workshop has been led by Mary Lavallee, an MFA candidate in UT’s Department of English and an instructor of literature and writing. Students in the Free Minds Class of 2014 will share excerpts from personal narratives, developed with guidance from Project Director Vivé Griffith, poet and graduate of UT’s Michener Center for writers. All are welcome to attend!

Free Minds is a collaboration between Foundation Communities, UT Austin, and ACC which offers educational and creative opportunities to adults who have faced barriers to higher education. To learn more about our free community writing workshops or our two-semester course in humanities, visit Free Minds Austin or call 512.610.7961.

The irrepressible Tyler Gobble hosts our monthly reading series, Everything is Bigger, which features prose and poetry and prizes! This month’s readers are Andrew Zawacki, Laurie Saurborn Young, and Fernando Flores.

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.

We’re celebrating National Poetry Month with a very special edition of W. Joe’s Poetry Corner… it’s poetry karaoke time!

Here’s how poetry karaoke works: you roll a lettered die and then select a poem by a poet whose last name starts with the letter the die landed on—and then you read this poem aloud for everyone to enjoy! (Poems can be chosen from a book on our shelves, or from one of the anthologies we’ll provide.) And there will, of course, be fabulous raffle prizes for a few lucky readers.

Everyone is welcome to take part, but please note that participants can’t read their own poetry—poetry karaoke is all about introducing people to the poems and poets that have inspired you.

Join us for an evening with poets Nicolas Hundley and Samira Noorali.

Nicolas Hundley is the author of The Revolver in the Hive, published by Fordham University Press and winner of the 2012 Poets Out Loud Editor’s prize. His work has appeared in FIELD, Massachusetts Review, Crazyhorse, New Orleans Review, Gulf Coast, Verse, POOL, LIT, Conduit, Salt Hill, Seattle Review, and others. He attended the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He works and teaches at the University of Texas at Austin.

Samira R. Noorali is an Austin-based writer. She has been published in Poetry Nook Magazine, won awards for appellate advocacy while a Juris Doctor candidate at University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, and has served as a news writer for ITL News. In 2013, she published A Simple Rebirth, an anthology of illustrated poems. Most recently, she has written a play based on A Simple Rebirth, which is set for a June reading with Shunya Theater in Houston.

Hosted by Tyler Gobble and featuring Katherine Noble, Corey Miller, Alen Hamza, W. Joe Hoppe, Tiff Holland, Lisa Olstein, and Tomas Morin.

To close the book on National Poetry Month, Everything is Bigger host Tyler Gobble is throwing a special shindig called Poets Picking Poets. It’s inspired/modeled after that McSweeney’s anthology called Poets Picking Poets, except as a reading.

Here’s how it’s gonna go:

– Two flights of readers, four poets per flight
– Malvern employee Katherine Noble and W. Joe’s Poetry Corner host W. Joe Hoppe were chosen to start each flight
– Each poet picked a poet to follow them
– Each poet will read four poems—one by his/herself, one by someone/anyone else, another by his/herself, and one by the poet they picked

We’re delighted to present an evening with writers Gregory Robinson and Adeena Reitberger.

Gregory Robinson lives in Boulder City, Nevada with his wife Joan and his dog BinBin. He is currently Chair of the Humanities Department at Nevada State College. When he is not writing, he is hiking around the desert, doing iaido, or (of course) watching movies.

Adeena Reitberger was born in Baltimore, Maryland and grew up in the Washington, D.C. area. Her stories and essays have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Mississippi Review, Cimarron Review, Nimrod International Journal, Sierra Nevada Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Austin, Texas, and is the coeditor of American Short Fiction.

Come hear readings from the authors whose work is featured in Hothouse Literary Journal‘s Spring 2014 issue and be the first to get a copy! As the official literary journal of UT’s Undergraduate English Department, Hothouse is a collection of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction written by English majors. Copies of the journal are FREE and there will also be an electronic version released. This is a literature event you won’t want to miss!

The captivating Tyler Gobble hosts our monthly reading series, Everything is Bigger, which features prose and poetry and prizes. This month’s intrepid readers are Tim Earley, Jess Stoner, and Will Clark.

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.

Presenting W. Joe’s Poetry Corner, in which our host W. Joe Hoppe interviews a poet, who will then give a reading and answer questions from audience members. This month, Joe will play host to poet Cindy Huyser. Cindy’s poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including Tri-State University TriAngle, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, GrrlTalk: An Anthology of Writing by the Austin WriterGrrls, and San Pedro River Review. She co-edited the Texas Poetry Calendar from 2008 through 2013, and has read her work at a number of venues across Texas.

Join us for an evening with writers Lowell Mick White and Ken Fontenot. Be sure to come by at 6.30pm for live music from TOPSY; the reading will begin around 7pm.

Lowell Mick White is the author of two novels, Professed and That Demon Life, and a story collection, Long Time Ago Good. Awarded the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Institute of Letters, White lived in Austin for twenty-five years, at various times working as a cab driver, as a shade tree salesman, and as an Internal Revenue Service bureaucrat. Formerly NEA Artist-in-Residence at the federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas, he is currently Assistant Professor of English at Pittsburg State University, where he teaches creative writing and literature.

Ken Fontenot has an MA in German Language and Literature from UT Austin. His most recent book of poems, In a Kingdom of Birds, won the 2013 Texas Institute of Letters award for best book of poems. His novel came out in 2010 from Slough Press. It’s called For Mr. Raindrinker.

Join us for a reading to celebrate the launch of the latest issue of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review! Featuring keynote poet Laurie Ann Guerrero (winner of the 2012 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize and author of the collection A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying), along with writers Ken Fontenot, Jonathan Moody, Anis Shivani, Scott Wiggerman, and Steve Wilson. We’ll also showcase work from photographer Joel Salcido, whose current touring exhibit is “Aliento A Tequila.” Southern funk band Westgate Revival will open the program with blues and jazz.

Join us for an evening with writers Lauren Becker, Josh Denslow, and Tyler Gobble. Lauren will read from her new short story collection, If I Would Leave Myself Behind, and sign copies of the book.

Lauren Becker recently moved to Austin from Oakland, California. She has worked as an attorney, a health care policy analyst and advocate, a freelance writer, and a disability specialist. Her fiction has appeared at Tin House online, Hobart, the Los Angeles Review, Pedestal Magazine, Wigleaf, [PANK], and NANO Fiction. Her non-fiction has been featured on The Rumpus and The Nervous Breakdown. She is editor of the online literary journal, Corium Magazine.

Josh Denslow’s stories have appeared in Third Coast, Black Clock, Cutbank, Pear Noir!, and Wigleaf, among others. He is a staff editor at SmokeLong Quarterly and an Associate Editor at Unstuck. He has written and directed five short films, and he plays the drums in the band Borrisokane.

Tyler Gobble is a proud Hoosier in Austin, TX. He runs the Everything is Bigger reading series at Malvern Books, and his first book will be out from Coconut Books in the fall. He likes bacon, disc golf, and tank tops, in no particular order. More at tylergobble.com.

Texas Association of Authors celebrates the winners of their third annual Book Awards Contest with a weekend of readings at Malvern Books.

Saturday’s Reading Schedule:

• 1.15pm—Myra Hargrave McIlvain, author of Stein House (General Fiction winner)
• 2.15pm—Jedah Mayberry, author of The Unheralded King of Preston Plains Middle (Multi-Cultural Fiction winner)
• 3.15pm—Robert Stevens, author of Master Robert (Civil War Historical Fiction winner)
• 4.15pm—R. Flowers Rivera, author of Troubling Accents (Poetry winner)

Texas Association of Authors celebrates the winners of their third annual Book Awards Contest with a weekend of readings at Malvern Books.

Sunday’s Reading Schedule:

• 1.15pm—Elizabeth A. Garcia, author of One Bloody Shirt at a Time (Police/Crime Fiction winner)
• 2.15pm—Howard Webb, author of Loup Garou (Supernatural Fiction winner)
• 3.15pm—Marjorie Brody, author of Twisted (Young Adult Fiction winner)
• 4.15pm—L. A. Starks, author of Strike Price (Mystery/Thriller Fiction winner)
• 5.15pm—Kenneth Womack, author of Playing the Angel (Contemporary Fiction winner)

W. Joe is back for another round of poetry karaoke!

Here’s how it works: you roll a lettered die and then select a poem by a poet whose last name starts with the letter the die landed on—and then you read this poem aloud for everyone to enjoy! (Poems can be chosen from a book on our shelves, or from one of the anthologies we’ll provide.) And there will, of course, be fabulous raffle prizes for a few lucky readers.

Everyone is welcome to take part, but please note that participants can’t read their own poetry—poetry karaoke is all about introducing people to the poems and poets that have inspired you.

Join us for the launch of All the Unspeakable Things, a collection of poetry and shorter pieces by Marty Lloyd Woldman.

Marty Woldman is a Texas-born writer, performer and philosopher. Traveling far beyond his native borders, he has spent his entire life writing, wandering and performing, and will spend the rest of his life doing the same. Marty has been featured in publications ranging from innovative indie rag Raw Paw to the Texas capital staples The Austin Chronicle and Austin Daze. Austin’s world-renowned performance venues (Emos, Red Eyed Fly, Ruta Maya) have been his forge and witnessed his fury for more than a decade as a spoken-word host, feature and walk-on performer.

The works of Marty Woldman are honest to absurdity, cohesively surreal, and just as blissfully contradictory as the man. His words present an influence of the masters delivered with a flawless lack of pretension, finely honed by real-world grit.

Join us for an evening with noir writers Tom Zigal and Rod Davis. They will be sharing work from their recent New Orleans-based novels: Rod Davis will read from South, America and Tom Zigal will read from Many Rivers to Cross. There will also be live music from Americana roots duo Mark Viator and Susan Maxey. Music starts at 6.30pm; the readings will begin around 7pm.

Tom Zigal (above left) was born in Galveston, Texas, in 1948 and grew up in nearby Texas City. He attended high school in Louisiana and received degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and Stanford University. He has been publishing short stories, reviews, and essays for forty years, and he is the author of three popular crime novels featuring Kurt Muller as the sheriff of Aspen, Colorado. He has completed two novels of a trilogy-in-progress set in New Orleans—The White League and Many Rivers to Cross, which won the 2014 Jesse Jones Award for Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters. Zigal lives in Austin with his wife and stepchildren.

Rod Davis (above right) was the recipient of the fiction award in the 2005 PEN Southwest Book Awards for Corina’s Way. Davis is also the author of American Voudou: Journey into a Hidden World, a study of West African religion in the United States. A six-part series on the Texas-Mexico border, “A Rio Runs Through It,” appears in Best American Travel Writing 2002, and his PEN/Texas-award-winning essay, “The Fate of the Texas Writer,” is included in Fifty Years of the Texas Observer. His most recent novel, South, America, has been described as “a triumph of Southern noir” and compared to the works of James M. Cain and Mickey Spillane. Davis is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, PEN Center USA, and the National Book Critics Circle. National professional honors have included a fellowship at the Yaddo Colony, a Lowell Thomas Award (Bronze) for personal commentary on post-Katrina New Orleans, and Gold and Silver Awards for feature writing from the City/Regional Magazine Association (CRMA). He has taught writing at the University of Texas at Austin and Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Join us for an afternoon with Sarah Stark, author of the novel Out There. Sarah will give a reading, answer questions, and sign copies of the book.

Out There is the story of a young Army veteran of Native descent (Jefferson Long Soldier) who returns home safely to New Mexico after two tours of duty in Iraq convinced that the book he carried with him (One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez) saved his life. But when he can’t get the medical care he needs to heal from the dark memories of war, he borrows his cousin’s motorcycle and rides south across the border to Mexico in search of the famous writer behind the magic of the life- saving classic novel. Humorous, redemptive, and awash in magical realism, Out There exalts the process of healing, the power of literature and the very real possibility of hope and love emerging from tragedy. It is also a beautiful homage to García Márquez, who recently passed away at the age of 87.

Sarah Stark grew up in the Austin, Texas area among readers and teachers and football enthusiasts. After graduating cum laude with a B.A. in Foreign Service from Baylor University, she earned an M.A. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. Afterwards she worked as a foreign policy analyst in Washington, D.C., writing about international security issues, including nuclear nonproliferation and peacekeeping. For the last fourteen years Sarah has made her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she currently teaches literature and creative writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA).

Join us for an evening with writers Pam Jones and Kelly Luce.

Pam Jones (left) is an East Coast native, now planting her roots in Austin, Texas with her husband and cat. She studied Creative Writing at Hampshire College, and has held down a variety of jobs, at YMCAs, at an art gallery, even as an artists’ model. Her writing has appeared in Otoliths e-magazine as Pam Hopkins. The Biggest Little Bird is her first novel.

Kelly Luce (right) grew up in Brookfield, Illinois. After graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in cognitive science, she moved to Japan, where she lived and worked for three years. Her work has been recognized by fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale Foundation, the Kerouac Project, and Jentel Arts, and has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Crazyhorse, Kenyon Review, American Short Fiction, The Southern Review, and other magazines. She lives in Santa Cruz, California, and Austin, Texas, where she is a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas and fiction editor of Bat City Review. Her first book, the short story collection Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail, will be released shortly.

Join us for an evening with acclaimed poets Marcela Sulak and Jenny Browne.

Marcela Sulak is the author of Immigrant (Black Lawrence Press, 2010) and the chapbook Of All the Things that Don’t Exist, I Love You Best (Finishing Line Press, 2008). She has translated three collections of poetry: by Karel Hynek Macha, K.J. Erben, and Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha. She is co-editor of Family Resemblances: An Anthology and Exploration of Eight Hybrid Literary Forms (forthcoming from Rose Metal Press). She is also an editor of The Ilanot Review and Tupelo Quarterly, and hosts the weekly TLV1 radio show “Israel in Translation.” Her essays have appeared in the Iowa Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Rattle, among others. She is currently the Director of the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University.

Jenny Browne is the author of three collections of poems: At Once, The Second Reason, and Dear Stranger. Recent poems and essays have appeared in numerous venues, including American Poetry Review, Barrow Street, The New York Times, Tin House and Zocalo Public Square. A former James Michener Fellow at the University of Texas-Austin, she is the recipient of two Texas Writers League Fellowships and a 2012-13 NEA Literature Fellowship. For many years she worked as poet in residence for the Texas Commission on the Arts, and with the University of Iowa’s International Writers Program. She currently lives in downtown San Antonio, Texas, and teaches at Trinity University.