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
Austin Writers Roulette features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who love to perform their original written works such as poetry, essays, spoken word, singer-songwriting, or excerpts from novels for 5-8 minutes (1200 words or fewer). Interested artists who would like to perform for an upcoming event can email their submission to mathdreads@yahoo.com. Or you can show up during the day of the event and sign up for the open mic after all the featured artists perform. And of course, performance art lovers are always welcome!
This month’s theme is “Bumper Sticker Philosophy.” The line up of bumper sticker philosophers features: MAGIC JACK ATX, BIRDMAN 313, EL GUAPO, TERESA Y. ROBERSON, and THOM THE WORLD POET. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.
Poets and Timeless, Infinite Light cofounders Emji Spero and Joel Gregory are touring the south with The Sleeping Together Tour. Malvern Books is delighted to be hosting their Austin reading, where they’ll be joined by local poets Mónica Teresa Ortiz and Kimberly Alidio.
Timeless, Infinite Light is an Oakland-based small press that publishes contemporary writing with a tendency toward the experimental, radical, and mystical. We are committed to promoting critical poetic work by emerging and established writers, and we prioritize authors whose identities are often excluded from the literary mainstream. We believe in the radical potential of collaborative, hybrid, and embodied writing, and promote work that resists structures of oppression, both in form and content. This preference for challenging work extends to the design and structure of the books we produce.
Emji Spero is an Oakland-based artist exploring the intersections of writing, book art, installation and performance. They are a co-founder of Timeless, Infinite Light, Material Print Machine, and Omni Commons. Their book, almost any shit will do, uses found language, word-replacement and erasure to strange the familiar and and map the boundaries of collective engagement. Spero is currently working on Exhaustion, a dry lyric essay that documents the affective weight of accumulated subthreshold violences.
Joel Gregory is a poet and visual artist living in Oakland, California. He is a dropout of the Evergreen State College and the New School. He is a co-founder at Timeless, Infinite Light. His poetry can be found in Boog City, 580 Split, and Open House, and his visual art can be found on Instagram @niteselfie. He is currently working on Connection, a voyeristic book-length manuscript, in which he collages language from Craigslist missed connections into poems and reposts them in search of the absent object of desire.
Kimberly Alidio is the author of solitude being alien (dancing girl press, 2013) and the forthcoming full-length poetry collection, After projects the resound (Black Radish Books, 2016). Recent and forthcoming work appears in La Vague, Matter, smoking glue gun, and the Center for Art and Thought’s Racecraft exhibition. Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, she lives in Austin.
Mónica Teresa Ortiz was born and raised in Texas. Her work has appeared in Pilgrimage Magazine, Borderlands, the Texas Observer, Black Girl Dangerous, and elsewhere. A two-time Andres Montoya Letras Latinas Poetry Prize finalist, Ortiz is the poetry editor for Raspa Magazine, a queer Latino literary art journal.
Join us for the eleventh event in our Novel Night series, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: two published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. We’ll then have an open mic for writers who have signed up to read from their unpublished short stories or novels. And finally, we’ll have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles and invite questions from the audience. Also worth noting: there will be snacks!
This month’s readers will be Jim Sanderson and Dale Bridges. Jim will be sharing his most recent novel, Hill Country Property, and Dale will be reading from his short fiction.
Jim Sanderson has published three collections of short stories: Semi-Private Rooms (1994); Faded Love (Ink Brush Press, 2010), and Trashy Behavior (Lamar University Press, 2013). He has published seven novels, including: El Camino del Rio (University of New Mexico Press, 1998), Safe Delivery (University of New Mexico Press, 2000); La Mordida (University of New Mexico Press, 2002); Nevin’s History: A Novel of Texas (Texas Tech University Press, 2004); Dolph’s Team (Ink Brush Press, 2011); and Nothing Left to Lose (TCU Press, 2014). And he has published an essay collection, A West Texas Soapbox (1998). He is presently serving as the chair of the English and Modern Language Department for Lamar University.
Dale Bridges is a fiction writer, essayist, and freelance journalist. His writing has been featured in more than thirty publications, including The Rumpus, The Masters Review, and Barrelhouse Magazine. For several years, Dale was the A&E editor at an alternative newspaper called Boulder Weekly, where he wrote an award-winning humor column titled That’s Irrelevant. He has also won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for his feature writing, narrative nonfiction, and cultural criticism. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize on several occasions, and his essays and short stories have been anthologized. He lives in Austin with his wife and two cats. He is currently working on his first novel.
Join us in celebrating the Austin launch of It’s All About Shoes, a collection of essays, poems and stories about women and their unusual relationship to shoes, edited by Pamela L. Laskin (with co-editors Lyn Di Iorio and Karen Clark). Pamela will share excerpts from the anthology, and will be joined by writers Judith Austin Mills and Ute Carson, who will read from their recent works.
Pamela L. Laskin (above right) is a lecturer in the CCNY/CUNY English Department, where she directs the Poetry Outreach Center. Her poetry chapbooks include Grand Central Station (Millennium Poetry Prize); Remembering Fireflies; Secrets of Sheets; Ghosts, Goblins, Gods and Geodes; Van Gogh’s Ear; Daring Daughters/Defiant Dreams; The Plagiarist; and The Bonsai Curator. Her Young Adult novel Visitation Rites was published in 2012. Homer the Little Stray Cat is her most recent children’s book. A memoir, My Life in Shoes, came out in 2011. Of her many published short stories, two include YA stories, one in Young Miss and the other in Sassy. She edited two other anthologies: The Heroic Young Woman (2006), a book of original feminist fairy tales, and Life on the Moon: My Best Friend’s Secrets, a collection of young adult fiction.
Judith Austin Mills grew up surrounded by music and literature, an upbringing that she says “makes rhythm and rhyme natural friends” to her poetry. Family moves during childhood deepened her appreciation of adventure and contrast. Northern states provided indelible memories of seasonal change, but settling in Texas made her “dig deep to see beauty in any landscape.” Just released in October 2015, Those Bones at Goliad, a Texas Revolution novel, is a sequel to her 2011 historical novel How Far Tomorrow. In 2013, between the two novels, she published Accidental Joy: a streak of poetry, containing 101 psalms of poetry. Her short stories and poems have appeared in diverse publications, including the Texas Poetry Calendar. The fiction manuscript Tripping Home won a Writers’ League of Texas competition in 2001. Mills earned an undergraduate degree and later her M.A. in English with a Creative Writing concentration at the University of Texas and has been writing fiction and poetry ever since. With a career as a teacher, frequently in the French classroom, she is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor of English at Austin Community College.
Ute Maria Elisabeth Gräfin von Hardenberg-Carson was born on the Baltic Coast in Köslin, Pomerania, shortly after the beginning of World War II. As Russian forces swept toward central Europe, her family fled westward to what became West Germany, where she went to school and attended the Universities of Hamburg and Mainz. Immigrating to America in 1962, she completed her masters at the University of Rochester, becoming a college instructor of German Language and Literature, and Women’s Studies. A writer from youth, Carson’s first story was published in 1977. For the past 26 years she has continuously published stories and essays in journals, magazines, and books. In 2011 she published Just a Few Feathers, a book of poems. Her latest contributions include “Gypsy Spirit” in Falling in Love Again – Love the Second Time Around, and “A Mantra” in Arts and Letters Magazine. Colt Tailing, finalist for the 2003 Peter Taylor Book Award, is Carson’s first novel; In Transit her second. She is currently at work on a third, Letters to a Dying Friend. Carson has traveled the world and has lived in Germany, France, Scotland, New York, Vermont, and Florida. She now resides in Texas, with her husband. They have three daughters, five grandchildren, two horses, and a number of cats.
Earlier this year, Texas Association of Authors, C-Spot Magazine, and EBG247 teamed up to create a short story contest for Texas Authors. After receiving numerous entries, the judges awarded top-three places in a wide range of genres. Join us for a fun two-day event during which some of the winners of this year’s contest will share their stories. Today’s readers will be:
Diana Finfrock Farrar
Marla Dean
Tamara Hartl
Allan Kimball
Juan Manuel Casas
The book Short Stories by Texas Authors will be available for sale during the event, with proceeds benefiting a variety of reading programs administrated by DearTexas.info. In addition, those authors with published books will also have them available for sale during their reading time.
Earlier this year, Texas Association of Authors, C-Spot Magazine, and EBG247 teamed up to create a short story contest for Texas Authors. After receiving numerous entries, the judges awarded top-three places in a wide range of genres. Join us for a fun two-day event during which some of the winners of this year’s contest will share their stories. Today’s readers will be:
Bert Bebe
Marjorie Brody
B Alan Bourgeois
The book Short Stories by Texas Authors will be available for sale during the event, with proceeds benefiting a variety of reading programs administrated by DearTexas.info. In addition, those authors with published books will also have them available for sale during their reading time.
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’s guest is Carrie Fountain.
Carrie Fountain’s poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Tin House, and Poetry, 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. 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 at Austin. Currently writer-in-residence at St. Edward’s University, she lives in Austin with her husband, playwright Kirk Lynn, and their children.
Join the editors at Revista Pterodáctilo, a journal of Latin American literature, arts, and culture, for their semesterly Poetry and Ptamales Party, featuring readings by different poets from the UT community. They will also be releasing their Best of Pterodáctilo publication, a print addition recapping the last four years of work by Pterodáctilo bloggers.
Please join us at Malvern Books for Fantastical Fictions, an odd-monthly event focusing on the literary fantastic across genres and cultures hosted by Rebecca Schwarz and Chris Brown. We plan to bring together writers and readers of fantastic literature in Austin by featuring published writers reading from new works and from examples of fantastic literature available on our shelves. Discussion, Q&A sessions, and open mic for works in progress will follow the readings.
In January, we’ll move to our regular format, meeting on Wednesday, January 6th. Please email us to sign up for our Fantastical Fictions email list if you’d like to receive news about our upcoming fantastic literature events, as well as announcements about new works of fantastic literature in the store.
Our first event is a very special one: on Sunday, November 22nd at 2pm we’re thrilled to welcome award-winning Austin-based science fiction writer Howard Waldrop to our stage. Howard will read from his work, followed by an interview and discussion with his long-time friend, award-winning novelist Bradley Denton.
Howard Waldrop (pictured above) is a renowned science fiction author whose stories combine elements such as alternate history, American popular culture, the American South, old movies, classical mythology, and rock ‘n’ roll music. His highly original books include the novels Them Bones and A Dozen Tough Jobs, and the collections Howard Who?, All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past, and Going Home Again. Several of his stories have been nominated for awards; “The Ugly Chickens”—about the extinction of the dodo—won a Nebula Award for best novelette in 1980 and a World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction in 1981. Two of his short stories are currently being adapted for television by George R.R. Martin. Though born in Mississippi, Howard Waldrop has spent most of his life in Texas.
Join us for a reading from poet Glenn Hardin.
Glenn Hardin published Rejects in 1972 with Steven Harrigan and Monty Jones; Giants in 1977 (Lucille Press); Several “Pamphlets” in the 1980s; Fool Proof in 1990 (Bullet Proof Poetry Press); Stone Bruise in 1993 (Bullet Proof Poetry Press); Mr. Honey Word Goat Muscle in 2008 (Junk Flop Press); and Bad Mustache in 2014 (Interior Noise Press).
He produced and hosted a series of poetry readings at the Old Liberty Lunch on West 2nd Street in 1976, The Greater Texas Poetry Reading at Symphony Square in 1979, and hosted monthly Open Mic readings at Chicago House from 1984-1990. After moving to Bisbee, Arizona in 1991, Glenn worked on the Bisbee Poetry Festival and then hosted many reading series in town. In 2008 he moved to Wimberley, Texas and read regularly at Tantra Coffee House, Ruta Maya, and the Hideaway. In 1977 Giants won the Voertmann Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. In 1990 he won the Performance Competition at the Bisbee Poetry Festival.
Glenn Hardin was born in Oklahoma City in 1937 and the rest is as above; history.
Join us for an evening with author Jason Stoneking, who will be reading some of the candid, philosophical, and occasionally psychedelic essays from his new book.
Jason Stoneking is an American essayist, poet, and performance artist based primarily in Paris, France. He has authored two volumes of poetry and four collections of essays, and has performed his art and writing internationally for more than twenty years at venues ranging from the main stage at Lollapalooza to the Pont Neuf in Paris and the rooftops of Cairo. His new book, Audience of None, is a collection of candid, provocative, and unconventional essays that churn the stories of his life into an intimate blend of memoir and polemic. Sometimes dark, often funny, and occasionally psychedelic, his forays into DIY philosophy always leave the audience with more questions than answers.
HOLIDAY EDITION: UGLY SWEATER PARTY! Because you probably need an excuse to wear that green pullover covered in jingle bells or that one with the light up menorah. *Bonus points if your holiday sweater has dinosaurs on it.
Get your cones ready for another installment of Malvern Books’ newest FREE reading series, I SCREAM SOCIAL, hosted by Malvern’s own Annar Veröld & Schandra Madha.
Featuring young women poets and fiction writers from the Austin community, this month’s I Screamers are Blake Lee Pate, Taisia Kitaiskaia, and Ji Yoon Lee. They’re all rock stars, and we’re thrilled to be featuring them.
Following the reading, there will be a (mic-less) open mic. Bring old stuff, new stuff, silly stuff, whatever stuff. Just read stuff to us. And did we mention the free cool confections from Amy’s Ice Cream? And the photo booth? Oh yeah, it’s gonna be good.
Can’t make it this time around? No worries. I Scream Social is every fourth Friday ’til the end of time.
For eighteen years, the Austin reading for the Texas Poetry Calendar has been the culmination of the fall calendar readings for Dos Gatos Press. This year’s reading is hosted by Wade Martin and Allyson Whipple and will feature 17 poets sharing Texas-related work, including their poems from the 2016 Texas Poetry Calendar.
Readers include: Ralph Hausser, Jerry Hamby (the cover artist), Cheney Crow, Katherine Oldmixon, Mary Lynn Stafford, Stan Crawford, Marcelle Kasprowicz, Joanne Holladay, Tina Posner, Shubh Schiesser, Lyman Grant, Julieta Corpus, Sarah Webb, Cindy Huyser, Ben Groner, Mark Van Gelder, Margie McCreless Roe, and Diana Conces.
Join us in celebrating the launch of the Vision + Voice Anthology. Featuring readings by winning and honorable-mention poets, a poster exhibit, and refreshments!
Vision + Voice is a 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.
Join us for a reading featuring Kevin W. Burke, Rachel Wiley, Ronnie K. Stephens, and Lacey Roop (pictured below, left to right), four talented slam poets from Austin’s Timber Mouse Publishing.
Kevin W. Burke was born and raised in the aged suburban stretch, industrial parks, and haunted forests of the Chicago Southland. He has found work in a grocery store, animal shelter, power plants, scaffold yard, coffee shop, windshield warehouse, film studio, bar, classrooms, the back of an ambulance, a fire engine, and the poetry of the homemade flyers, frayed cables, and broken nosed laughter between punk-rock and hip-hop. He likes hugs, Radiolab, “big-fat-dirty-bass”, and making people realize there is electricity in their chests. When he’s not doing poetry things, he is working as a firefighter and resides in South Austin with a wonderful lady and their three big dogs. Here’s some other stuff Kevin’s done: 2011 Austin Poetry Slam Champion, 2011 Austin Poetry Slam Team, 2011
Southwest Shootout Individual Slam Champion, 2011 Texas Grand Slam Poetry Festival Champion, 2012 Austin Poetry Slam Team, 2013 Austin Poetry Slam Team, 2013 Texas Grand Slam Poetry Festival Champion, collaborated with Grammy winning Conspirare, shared stages with fancy people like Derrick Brown, Anis Mojgani, Buddy Wakefield, and Cristin O’keefe Aptowicz. Also, he has upcoming work published in Into Quarterly and Freeze Ray Press.
Rachel Wiley is known for her honest, witty, and sometimes sassy poetry that touches body image, romance, and feminism. From Columbus, Ohio, she attended the Theatre Studies program at Capital University. She tours colleges and slam venues nationwide. Her work has been featured by the Huffington Post, Everyday Feminism, Frigg Magazine, Drunken Boat, and Nailed Magazine. Her first full length poetry collection, Fat Girl Finishing School, was published by Timber Mouse Publishing in October 2014.
Ronnie K. Stephens is a full-time English teacher and the father of identical twins. His poems often explore vulnerability in its many facets. His first collection, Universe in the Key of Matryoshka, was published by Timber Mouse Publishing in 2014. Individual poems have previously appeared in Rattle, Paper Darts, Weave Magazine, DASH, and PANK, among others.
Lacey Roop has a kaleidoscope of work that is sure to make the heart shout, stomp, and stutter. As a slam poet, Lacey has previously placed 6th at the Women of the World Poetry Slam, been a two-time member of the renowned Austin Poetry Slam team, and ranked several times as a top-scoring poet at the Individual World Poetry Slam. Lacey has also opened for the Grammy Award winning band The Wailers, performed her poetry with the Grammy Award winning and transformative musical group Conspirare, and been a featured performer at the sold-out Desert Rocks Musical Festival. Lacey was also featured on PBS’s highly acclaimed show, Roadtrip Nation. Lacey’s work has also been published by A Light, Ascent Aspirations Magazine, and The Sunday Poem. She is also the author of a full-length book of poetry, And Then Came The Flood. In addition to sharing stages with bands, Lacey has performed alongside acclaimed poets such as Derrick Brown, Andrea Gibson, Staceyann Chin, Anis Mojgani, Ebony Stewart, and Lauren Zuniga. As an advocate and ally, Lacey’s work discusses gender & sexuality, marginalized voices, and women-empowerment. Lacey’s work also focuses on soaking up and sharing the hope and magic that exists all around us every day. She writes because it hurts not to, and greets life with a high-five, a pen, and a key that unlocks the bottom of the ocean (really, it does). She also gives the most incredible hugs. Ever.
Join us for the twelfth event in our Novel Night series, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: two published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. We’ll then have an open mic for writers who have signed up to read from their unpublished short stories or novels. And finally, we’ll have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles and invite questions from the audience. Also worth noting: there will be snacks!
This month’s readers will be Dana Barney (below left) and Mark Falkin (below right). Dana will be reading from his novel Flatline, and Mark will be reading from Contract City.
Dana Barney is a Bostonian turned Los Angeleno turned Austinite with a strong proclivity for the absurd and conspiratorial. He has a BA in writing from Bennigton College. He enjoys exploring the underlying, and sometimes inevitable, dark side of every day life. He lives in Austin, TX with his wife and two daughters.
Austin Writers Roulette features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who love to perform their original written works such as poetry, essays, spoken word, singer-songwriting, or excerpts from novels for 5-8 minutes (1200 words or fewer). Interested artists who would like to perform for an upcoming event can email their submission to mathdreads@yahoo.com. Or you can show up during the day of the event and sign up for the open mic after all the featured artists perform. And of course, performance art lovers are always welcome!
This month’s theme is “Accidental Orgasms.” Our lineup of featured artists is: ARALYN HUGHES, AMY, TERESA Y. ROBERSON & THOM THE WORLD POET. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.
Join us for a poetry reading and birthday cake to celebrate the late, great poet laureate of Hyde Park: Albert Huffstickler.
Albert Huffstickler (December 17, 1927 – February 25, 2002) was born in Laredo, Texas, but he lived in Austin in his later years, and became a local literary legend. You could usually find him in a café in Hyde Park, decked out in suspenders, smoking, drinking coffee, and working on a poem. (Rumor has it he wrote a poem a day, and his impressive publication record—four full-length collections, plus hundreds of poems published in chapbooks and journals—lends veracity to the story.) He was a two-time winner of the Austin Book Awards, and in 1989 the state legislature formally honored him for his contribution to Texas poetry. In May 2013 a new Hyde Park green space at the corner of 38th and Duval Streets was named Huffstickler Green in his honor. Huff was a friend and inspiration to many, and everyone who knew him talks of his kindness, his honesty, and his passionate support for local literature. Austin Community College English professor W. Joe Hoppe, who will be reading tonight, describes his friend and mentor as “a great encourager of poetry.”
Join us in celebrating the launch of Emil Kresl’s debut novel, On Cedar Hill.
Emil Kresl was born and raised in Minneapolis, MN, before going off to college in Madison, WI. He paid his way through college tending bar and cleaning up apartments after rent-jumpers. After college he tried a stint working in politics, but opted to return to running a bar where colleagues are loyal, the excitement is frequent, and the stories slightly less absurd.
After Madison, it was off to Hollywood where he learned about screenplays and swimming in the Pacific. Then a couple years later, he went off to Austin, Texas, to see what all the fuss was about. There he found the best swimming water he had ever seen. He also got to work with some of the best storytellers around, found the love of his life, and helped bring into this world a human of astonishing beauty, wisdom, and good humor.
To put food on the table, Emil helps people find happiness and fulfillment by contributing in a meaningful way to the world around them, which is not a bad way to collect a paycheck. In addition to doing all that other stuff like writing, being a dad, and consulting, he studies public policy and community planning, two things that hold the secret to making this world a better place (along with laughter, stories, and swimming).
Join us in celebrating the launch of J. Scott Brownlee’s first full-length poetry collection, Requiem for Used Ignition Cap (winner of the 2015 Orison Poetry Prize). Scott will be joined by fellow poets John Fry and Susan B.A. Somers-Willett.
J. Scott Brownlee is a poet from Llano, Texas. His work appears widely and includes the chapbooks Highway or Belief, which won the 2013 Button Poetry Prize, Ascension, which won the 2014 Robert Phillips Poetry Prize, and On the Occasion of the Last Old Camp Meeting in Llano County, which won the 2015 Tree Light Books Prize. His first full-length collection, Requiem for Used Ignition Cap, was a finalist for the National Poetry Series and selected by C. Dale Young as the winner of the 2015 Orison Poetry Prize. Brownlee is a founding member of The Localists, a literary collective that emphasizes place-based writing of personal witness, cultural memory, and the aesthetically marginalized working class. He teaches for Brooklyn Poets as a core faculty member and is a former Writers in the Public Schools Fellow at NYU, where he earned his MFA.
Please join us at Malvern Books for Fantastical Fictions, an odd-monthly event focusing on the literary fantastic across genres and cultures hosted by Rebecca Schwarz and Chris Brown. We plan to bring together writers and readers of fantastic literature in Austin by featuring published writers reading from new works and from examples of fantastic literature available on our shelves. Discussion, Q&A sessions, and open mic for works in progress will follow the readings.
Please email us to sign up for our Fantastical Fictions email list if you’d like to receive news about our upcoming fantastic literature events, as well as announcements about new works of fantastic literature in the store.
This month we’re thrilled to welcome award-winning Austin-based writer Andrew Hilbert to our stage.
Andrew Hilbert is a writer living in Austin, Texas. He won the Austin Chronicle’s Best of Austin 2015 Critic’s Pick for an author’s reading. He is the author of the horror novella Death Thing, published by Double Life Press, and three chapbooks. His stories and poems have been published worldwide. He is a cofounder of the small press Weekly Weird Monthly.
Join us for an evening with poets Cecily Parks, Kristen Case, Stefania Heim, and Marcela Sulak. They will be reading from their recent collections: Cecily from O’Nights, Kristen from Little Arias, Stefania from A Table That Goes On for Miles, and Marcela from Decency.
Cecily Parks’s first collection of poems, Field Folly Snow, was a finalist for the Norma Farber First Book Award. Her second collection, O’Nights, was published by Alice James Books in April. She lives in Austin and teaches at Texas State University.
Kristen Case is the author of the critical study American Pragmatism and Poetic Practice: Crosscurrents from Emerson to Susan Howe (Camden House, 2011). Her poems have appeared in Chelsea, The Brooklyn Review, Pleiades, Saint Ann’s Review, The Iowa Review, Wave Composition, and Eleven Eleven. Her chapbook, Temple, was published by MIEL in 2014, and her full-length collection, Little Arias, was published in September by New Issues Press. She is Associate Professor at the University of Maine at Farmington.
Stefania Heim is author of the poetry collection, A TABLE THAT GOES ON FOR MILES (Switchback Books, 2014). She is a Poetry Editor at Boston Review and a founding editor of CIRCUMFERENCE: Poetry in Translation. Her poems, translations, and essays have appeared in publications including A Public Space, Aufgabe, Jacket2, The Journal of Narrative Theory, The Literary Review, La Petite Zine, Poetry International, and Pinwheel. In 2015 she was selected as one of the Poetry Society of America’s “New American Poets.” She is currently translating the Italian poems of metaphysical artist Giorgio de Chirico.
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.
Join us for an early-evening reading with poets John Estes and Jennifer Chang.
John Estes directs the Creative Writing Program at Malone University in Canton, Ohio and is a visiting faculty member of Ashland University’s Low-Residency MFA. He is author of three volumes of poetry—Kingdom Come (C&R Press, 2011), Stop Motion Still Life (Wordfarm, forthcoming) and Sure Extinction, which won the 2015 Antivenom Prize from Elixir Press—and two chapbooks: Breakfast with Blake at the Laocoön (Finishing Line Press, 2007) and Swerve, which won a National Chapbook Fellowship from the Poetry Society of America.
Jennifer Chang is the author of The History of Anonymity. Her poems have recently appeared in The American Poetry Review, New England Review, Poetry, and Salt Hill. She has written essays on poetry for Los Angeles Review of Books, The Volta, Blackwell’s Companion to the Harlem Renaissance, and The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind. The recipient of fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo, she co-chairs the advisory board of Kundiman and is an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Join us for a reading with novelists Michael T. Fournier, James Reich, and Constance Squires (left to right, below).
Michael T. Fournier is the author of the novels Swing State (October 2014) and Hidden Wheel (October 2011), both published by Three Rooms Press, as well as Double Nickels On The Dime (April 2007), the 45th installment of Bloomsbury Press’s acclaimed 33 1/3 series. His writing has appeared in the Oxford American, Boston Globe, Pitchfork, Stolen Island, Dusted, Vice, Chunklet, Pennsylvania English, Razorcake and others. He’s publisher and fiction editor of Cabildo Quarterly, a broadsheet literary journal. He and his wife Rebecca live in Western Massachusetts with their cat.
James Reich is the author of the novels MISTAH KURTZ! (Anti-Oedipus Press, March 2016), BOMBSHELL (July 2013), and I, JUDAS (October 2011), published by Soft Skull Press. He is a Creative Writing and Literature faculty member at Santa Fe University of Art and Design. He is a member of PEN American Center, and the International Association of Crime Writers: North America. James is a regular contributor to The Rumpus, Fiction Advocate, Salon.com, The Nervous Breakdown, Bold Type Magazine, Sensitive Skin, International Times, LitroNY, Headzine, Sleeping Fish, and others. James was born in England in 1971, and has been a resident of the US since 2009.
Constance Squires’ first novel, Along the Watchtower (Riverhead) received the 2012 Oklahoma Book Award for Fiction. Wounding Radius and Other Stories, a short story collection, is forthcoming from Queen’s Ferry Press and she has completed a second novel, Live from Medicine Park. Her short stories have appeared in Guernica, This Land, Shenandoah, The Atlantic Monthly, The Dublin Quarterly, The Rolling Stone 500, Arcadia, and elsewhere. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, The Village Voice, Largehearted Boy, World Literature Today, and on the NPR program Snap Judgment. She teaches Creative Writing at the University of Central Oklahoma.
Join us in celebrating the release of Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres (Rose Metal Press), edited by Marcela Sulak and Jacqueline Kolosov. This event will feature readings from Marcela Sulak and contributors Katie Cortese, Joy Ladin, and Julio Ortega.
Family Resemblance explores hybrid literary genres in depth, providing craft essays and examples of hybrid forms by 43 distinguished authors, including Julie Marie Wade, Takashi Hiraide, Maggie Nelson, Joe Wenderoth, and Etgar Keret. In this study of eight hybrid genres—including lyric essay, epistolary, poetic memoir, prose poetry, performative, short-form nonfiction, flash fiction, and pictures made of words—the family tree of hybridity takes delightful shape, showcasing how cross-genre works blend features from multiple literary parents to create new entities, forms that feel more urgent than ever in today’s increasingly heterogeneous landscape.
Join us for an afternoon with writer Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar, who will be reading from and signing copies of her recent novel, The Migrant Report.
Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is a South Asian American who has lived in Qatar since 2005. Moving to the Arabian Desert was fortuitous in many ways since this is where she met her husband, had two sons, and became a writer. She has since published eight e-books, including a memoir for first time mothers, Mommy But Still Me; a guide for aspiring writers, So You Want to Sell a Million Copies; a short story collection, Coloured and Other Stories; and a novel about women’s friendships, Saving Peace. Her coming of age novel, An Unlikely Goddess, won the SheWrites New Novelist competition in 2011. Her recent books have focused on various aspects of life in Qatar. From Dunes to Dior, named as a Best Indie book in 2013, is a collection of essays related to her experiences as a female South Asian American living in the Arabian Gulf. Love Comes Later was the winner of the Best Indie Book Award for Romance in 2013 and is a literary romance set in Qatar and London. The Dohmestics is an inside look into compound life, the day-to-day dynamics between housemaids and their employers.
Austin Writers Roulette features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who love to perform their original written works such as poetry, essays, spoken word, singer-songwriting, or excerpts from novels for 5-8 minutes (1200 words or fewer). Interested artists who would like to perform for an upcoming event can email their submission to mathdreads@yahoo.com. Or you can show up during the day of the event and sign up for the open mic after all the featured artists perform. And of course, performance art lovers are always welcome!
This month’s theme is “Leap & the Net Appears.” The line up of featured artists includes: STEPHANIE WEBB, CAROLYN LINDELL, ARALYN HUGHES, TERESA Y. ROBERSON & THOM THE WORLD POET. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.
Join us for the thirteenth event in our Novel Night series, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: two published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. We’ll then have an open mic for writers who have signed up to read from their unpublished short stories or novels. And finally, we’ll have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles and invite questions from the audience. Also worth noting: there will be snacks!
This month’s readers will be Boyd Taylor and Matt Minor. Boyd will read from his novel The Monkey House, and Matt will read from The Representative.
Boyd Taylor is a writer who lives in Austin, Texas. In his prior life, he was a lawyer and corporate manager. The Monkey House is his third book recounting the lives and times of Donnie Ray Cuinn, first as an erstwhile grad student, and then as a lawyer in a small Panhandle town. The earlier books were The Hero of San Jacinto and The Antelope Play.
Matt Minor presently serves as a Chief of Staff in the Texas House of Representatives. He has worked as a political campaign manager and is a well-regarded public speaker. Matt has authored official state publications, oversees syndicated editorials, is a speechwriter and district radio legislative commentator. Prior to his life in state politics Matt was a professional musician and entertainer, his numerous recordings receiving wide critical praise. Matt practices numerous other arts including the craft of poetry; an interest that has brought academic recognition. Matt Minor lives with his wife Stacy on their ranch property in Wharton County, Texas. He maintains an apartment in Austin.
Join us for a reading with poets Joanna Fuhrman, Yerra Sugarman, and Laurie Filipelli (left to right, below).
Joanna Fuhrman is the author of five books of poetry, including The Year of Yellow Butterflies (Hanging Loose Press 2015) and Pageant (Alice James Books 2009). She is finishing up her tenure as the poetry editor of Ping Pong. Her poems have appeared in various journals including The Believer, Volt, New American Writing and various anthologies, including the Pushcart Prize 2011 and Litscapes (Steerage Press 2015). She teaches poetry writing at Rutgers University, through Teachers & Writers Collaborative, Poets House and in private workshops.
Yerra Sugarman is the author of two poetry collections: Forms of Gone and The Bag of Broken Glass, both published by The Sheep Meadow Press. She received a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and awards from PEN American Center, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Poetry Society of America, and The Nation magazine. She is a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston.
Laurie Filipelli is the author of a collection of poems, Elseplace, released by BrooklynArts Press in 2013. Her poems and essays have recently appeared or are forthcoming at apt, BOAAT, The Pinch, Redheaded Stepchild, The Rumpus, Salamander, So and So, Superstition Review and Xavier Review. She is the recipient of a Yaddo fellowship and lives in Austin where she works as a writer, editor, and writing coach.
Leading authors of the bizarro fiction movement converge on Malvern Books to tell tales that will turn brains to muck!
Featuring:
MP Johnson: Wonderland Book Award-winning author of Dungeons & Drag Queens!
Shane McKenzie: Master of gross-out and gore, and author of Muerte Con Carne, the basis for the film El Gigante!
Autumn Christian: Game designer, mind-exploder and author of Ecstatic Inferno.
John Wayne Comunale: Punk rocker in John Wayne Is Dead and author of The Porn Star Retirement Plan!
Gabino Iglesias: On everybody’s Best of 2015 list for being awesome, and for being the author of Zero Saints.
Warning: Bizarro fiction readings are action packed, loud and insane. Not your traditional literary reading.
Get your cones ready for another installment of Malvern Books’ newest FREE reading series, I SCREAM SOCIAL, hosted by Malvern’s own Annar Veröld & Schandra Madha and featuring young women poets and fiction writers from the Austin community. This month’s I Screamers are Rachel Elliott, Jessica Wolford, and Jade Yamamoto.
Following the reading, there will be a (mic-less) open mic. Bring old stuff, new stuff, silly stuff, whatever stuff. Just read stuff to us.
And did we mention the free cool confections from Amy’s Ice Cream? And the photo booth? Oh yeah, it’s gonna be good. Can’t make it this time around? No worries. I Scream Social is every fourth Friday ’til the end of time.
Join three Austin indie authors as they read selections from their novels and discuss how they made the leap to indie publishing.
Authors featured include (from left to right above):
· Kate Baray: reading from Spirelli Paranormal Investigations (urban fantasy)
· M.G. Herron: reading from The Auriga Project (sci-fi thriller)
· Jackie Dana: reading from By Moonrise (historical fantasy)
This event is organized by Write It Already, a local meet-up that encourages people to write—and finish what they start. There will be light refreshments and books by all three authors for sale at the event.
Kate Baray writes urban and paranormal fantasy, frequently with a romantic twist. She writes and lives in Austin, Texas with her pack of pointers and a bloodhound. Kate has worked as an attorney, a manager, a tractor sales person, and a dog trainer, but writing is her passion. When she’s not writing, she volunteers with a search and rescue team, sweeps up hairy dust bunnies, and watches British mysteries.
Matthew Gilbert Herron writes science fiction thriller stories. His first novel, The Auriga Project, was published in 2015. Matt has earned his bread as a river guide, pita roller, and digital project manager. These days, apart from writing fiction, he makes a living as a content strategist consulting with tech startups and creative agencies across the United States. When he’s not bending words to his will, Matt organizes Indie Publishing Austin, a local Meetup for writers and authors. He also likes to climb mountains, throw a frisbee for his Boxer mutt, Elsa, and travel to expand his mind. He graduated from McMaster University in 2009 with a Bachelor of the Arts in English Literature. Now he lives in Austin.
Jackie Dana is an author, freelance copywriter, herbalist and occasional troublemaker living in Austin, TX. In addition to writing, Jackie also is a passionate supporter of other writers and indie publishers. Currently she is the organizer of the author conference BrainstormATX (to be held June 18th, 2016 in Austin) as well as the ongoing Write It Already! meetup.
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’s guest is Allyson Whipple.
Allyson Whipple is a student in the online MFA program at the University of Texas at El Paso. She is co-editor of the Texas Poetry Calendar. Allyson is the author of the chapbook We’re Smaller Than We Think We Are (Finishing Line Press, 2013). Five Oaks Press will publish her second chapbook, Come Into the World Like That, in 2016. Allyson teaches ESL and technical writing at Austin Community College.
Join us in celebrating the launch of Barbara Frances’ new novel, Like I Used to Dance.
Barbara Frances has plenty of stories and a life spent acquiring them. Growing up Catholic on a small Texas farm, her childhood ambition was to become a nun. In ninth grade she entered a boarding school in Our Lady of the Lake Convent as an aspirant, the first of several steps before taking vows. The Sisters were disappointed, however, when she passed up the habit for the University of North Texas, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English and Theater Arts. Her professors were similarly disappointed when she passed up a postgraduate degree to become a stewardess for American Airlines. Barbara eventually returned to Texas and settled down. Marriage, children, school teaching and divorce distracted her from storytelling, but one summer she and a friend coauthored a screenplay. The next summer Barbara wrote a screenplay on her own. Others followed, including Two Women, a finalist in the 1990 Austin Screenwriters Festival. Three more were optioned: Silent Crossing, The Anniversary and Sojourner Truth. Barbara left teaching and continued to work on her screenplays. One day a friend’s child found and read Lottie’s Adventure, her script for a children’s movie. At her young fan’s urging, Barbara turned it into a book, published by Positive Imaging, LLC, her husband Bill’s press. For Like I Used to Dance Barbara drew upon childhood memories and “front porch stories.” Her next novel, Shadow’s Way, is a “Southern Gothic tale” about a woman caught in the struggle to keep her beloved plantation home from a scheming archbishop. Barbara and her husband Bill Benitez live in Austin, Texas.
Join us in celebrating the launch of Last Word/First Word: A Poetic Conversation by David Jewell and Ric Lance Scow Williams. The book was a collaborative effort of three years of emailing poems back and forth, nearly every day, and using the last word of the sender’s poem to start the poem to be sent back.
David Jewell (above left) has been living in Austin and doing poetry shows for about thirty years. He has published a few books, done some multi-media shows, opened for Laurie Anderson at the Paramount Theater, appeared in a movie called, Waking Life, and had a poem appear in a movie called Before Sunrise. Both movies were directed by Richard Linklater. Basically, David Jewell is very grateful to be here right now, exploring this mystery of the mysteriousness of everything.
Richard Lance Scow Williams (above right) or Ric as he is commonly known was an associate editor for The Austin Chronicle from 1988-2012. He loved promoting Austin poetry. In 2007, Ric’s the secret book of god was chosen by Robert Bonazzi of the San Antonio Express-News as “The Best Book of Poetry by a Poet Living in Texas.” His work has appeared in sundry locales of the mind and heart. He has a master’s degree in mythological studies/depth psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. He lives in Glorieta, New Mexico, with his astrologer wife Helga Scow Williams and two cats, Bat and Mouse. His latest books are Helga, from Bite Press and Last Word/First Word: Volume 1, also from Bite Press, which is a collaboration with David Jewell.
Join us for the fourteenth event in our Novel Night series, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: two published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. We’ll then have an open mic for writers who have signed up to read from their unpublished short stories or novels. And finally, we’ll have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles and invite questions from the audience. Also worth noting: there will be snacks!
This month’s readers will be Scott Semegran and Dwaines Lawless. Scott will read from his novel The Meteoric Rise of Simon Burchwood and Dwaines will be reading from Cajun Moon.
Scott Semegran lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, four kids, two cats, and one dog. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in English. He is a cartoonist and a writer. He can also bend metal with his mind and run really fast, if chased by a pack of wolves. His comic strips have appeared in the following newspapers: The Austin Student, The Funny Times, The Austin American-Statesman, Rocky Mountain Bullhorn, Seven Days, The University of Texas at Dallas Mercury, and The North Austin Bee. His short stories have appeared in independent publications and literary journals like The Next One Literary Journal from the Texas Tech University Honors College. He is a Kindle bestselling author.
Dwaines Lawless is a Cajun and like all Cajuns, loves telling bayou tales of folk healing and voodoo. A UT/Austin graduate, art educator, teacher of the blind, mother and grandmother, Lawless has written a gumbo tale, spiced with Cajun folklore, secret voodoo rituals and the mystery of dreams, especially the Cajun nightmare, the cochemere. This multicultural suspense is a rare, delightful journey into the mysticism of Cajun folk healing sure to leave you hungry for more. Dwaines currently lives in Austin with her husband, John, and their dog, Gypsy.
Austin Writers Roulette features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who love to perform their original written works such as poetry, essays, spoken word, singer-songwriting, or excerpts from novels for 5-8 minutes (1200 words or fewer). Interested artists who would like to perform for an upcoming event can email their submission to mathdreads@yahoo.com. Or you can show up during the day of the event and sign up for the open mic after all the featured artists perform. And of course, performance art lovers are always welcome!
This month’s theme is “Sex, Love & Virtual Reality.” Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.
Join us for an evening with award-winning writer Toni Sala, who will be reading from The Boys, an “altogether brilliant” novel that centers around the sudden deaths of two young men in a provincial town in the Catalonian countryside.
Live music from award-winning folksinger Tish Hinojosa will begin at 7pm.
Toni Sala is the author of over a dozen novels and works of nonfiction. In 2005 he was awarded the National Literature Prize by the Catalan government, and he has also received many other honors for his writing. He lives in Barcelona.
Mara Faye Lethem’s translations have appeared in The Best American Non-Required Reading, Granta, The Paris Review, Words Without Borders, and McSweeney’s. She is the translator of Papers in the Wind by Eduardo Sacheri, Wonderful World by Javier Calvo, and others. She lives in Barcelona.
The once-bucolic Catalonian village of Vidreres has been ravaged by a harsh recession, and now two of its young men have died in a horrible car crash. As the town attends the funeral, a banker named Ernest heads to the tree where they died, trying to make sense of the tragedy. There he meets a brutish trucker, who in between Internet hookups and trips to prostitutes has taken a liking to Iona, the fiancée of one of the dead boys. Iona might be just what he needs to fix his tawdry life, but she’s mixed up with an artist who makes frightening projects. Masterfully conjuring the voices of each of these four characters, Toni Sala entwines their lives and their feelings of guilt, fear, and rage over an unspeakable loss.
Long known as one of Spain’s most powerful authors, Toni Sala is at his mischievous best here, delivering a sinister, fast-moving tale laced with intricate meditations on everything from social networks to Spain’s economic collapse to the mysterious end that awaits us all. The Boys is a startlingly honest vision of the things we’ll do in order to feel a little less alone in this world.
WINNER OF THE 2014 PREMIS DE LA CRÍTICA, CATALONIA’S MOST PRESTIGIOUS LITERARY AWARD
“The Boys is a stark tale of confused people trapped in a wrinkle in time, rendered with painful sensitivity and gut-wrenching bleakness. No surprise that Toni Sala has been praised as one of Catalan’s most important writers.” —Counterpunch
“A compelling existential mystery . . . a sort of Catalan answer to Russell Banks’ The Sweet Hereafter, with a closing as haunting as a tale by Poe. Altogether brilliant.” —Kirkus, starred review
“Sala is a master of meditation, and the excitement and intrigue are never sacrificed despite digressive passages on Internet alienation, art, violence, phrases of grief, the Spanish recession, and love. One hopes this tremendous novel, already an award-winner overseas, will receive the attention it deserves here.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Join three Austin indie authors as they read selections from their novels and discuss how they made the leap to indie publishing.
Authors featured include:
· Anna Castle writes the Francis Bacon mysteries and the Lost Hat, Texas mysteries.
· Adrian R. Hale writes the contemporary romance Drift Heat.
· Sarah Atlas writes the erotic romance All the Beautiful Lies.
This event is organized by Write It Already, a local meet-up that encourages people to write—and finish what they start. There will be light refreshments and books by all three authors for sale at the event.
Anna Castle writes the Francis Bacon mysteries and the Lost Hat, Texas mysteries. She has earned a series of degrees—BA in the Classics, MS in Computer Science, and a PhD in Linguistics—and has had a corresponding series of careers, including waitressing, software engineering, grammar-writing, assistant professor, and archivist. Writing fiction combines her lifelong love of stories and learning. She physically resides in Austin, Texas and mentally counts herself a queen of infinite space.
Adrian R. Hale is a whirlwind of energy and optimism, just as ready to tell you about her books as she is to invite you over for cookies. She is a big dreamer and believes in chasing them down with speed and enthusiasm, much like the characters she writes. You can find her cycling around Austin, running trails, baking gourmet cupcakes, beautifying people for weddings and photo shoots, and traveling all over the country in pursuit of those interests. Once upon a time, Adrian went to college thinking she would be a journalist but dropped out to go to beauty school. Later she wrote a novel about a hair and makeup artist, so things have definitely come full circle!
Sarah Atlas doesn’t remember a time when she didn’t know how to read. She filled her childhood with books and started spinning stories at an early age, writing her first novel with a friend in seventh grade. Her earliest forays into erotica started in college. All the Beautiful Lies, a mainstream erotica, is her first published novel. Sarah lives with her family in Austin, Texas.
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. W. Joe’s guest this month is Abe Louise Young.
Abe Louise Young is an independent writer, educator and social justice activist. Her work has won a Grolier Poetry Prize, the Hawai’i Review’s Nell Altizer Award, a Narrative Magazine Story Prize, and the Academy of American Poets Prize. Her writing is forthcoming or has appeared in The Nation, WITNESS, New Letters, Feminist Wire and many other journals. She’s the author of two chapbooks of poetry, Heaven to Me (Headmistress Press) and Ammonite (Magnolia Press Collective).
A lifelong social justice advocate, she’s also the author/editor of numerous guides, including Queer Youth Advice for Educators: How to Respect and Protect Your LGBTQ Students; Hip Deep: Opinion, Essays, and Vision from American Teenagers; and an archive of oral histories with Hurricane Katrina survivors, Alive in Truth: The New Orleans Disaster Oral History Project. She is currently at work on a storytelling project about human rights abuses in Texas jails, and a memoir.
Young earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James Michener Fellow, and holds a BA from Smith College.
Get your cones ready for a special Galentine’s Edition of Malvern Books’ newest FREE reading series, I SCREAM SOCIAL, hosted by Malvern’s own Annar Veröld & Schandra Madha and featuring young women poets and fiction writers from the Austin community. This month’s I Screamers are *KATHERINE NOBLE, JULIE POOLE, & SAM KARAS.*
Following the reading, there will be a (mic-less) open mic. Bring old stuff, new stuff, silly stuff, whatever stuff. Just read stuff to us.
And did we mention the free cool confections from Amy’s Ice Cream? And the photo booth? Oh yeah, it’s gonna be good. Can’t make it this time around? No worries. I Scream Social is every fourth Friday ’til the end of time.
Join us in celebrating the launch of Bruce McCandless’ latest novel, The Black Book of Cyrenaica, a historical horror story involving a supernatural terror that besieges an expedition to save American sailors imprisoned in Tripoli.
We’ll also enjoy live music from two talented musicians, with Jason McKenzie on percussion and Roberto Riggio playing the oud.
Bruce McCandless is an Austin-based writer whose previous credits include Sour Lake, Color War, and what some believe to be the best novel ever written about the University of Texas, The Krottkey Chronicles. McCandless’s Ninth Planet Press (Motto: “Strange Things for Good People”) is an Austin-based independent micro-publisher that uses locally sourced art, design, and web talent to create a uniquely Texan brand of speculative fiction.
Please join us at Malvern Books for Fantastical Fictions, an odd-monthly event focusing on the literary fantastic across genres and cultures hosted by Rebecca Schwarz and Chris Brown. We plan to bring together writers and readers of fantastic literature in Austin by featuring published writers reading from new works and from examples of fantastic literature available on our shelves. Discussion, Q&A sessions, and open mic for works in progress will follow the readings.
Please email us to sign up for our Fantastical Fictions email list if you’d like to receive news about our upcoming fantastic literature events, as well as announcements about new works of fantastic literature in the store.
This month we’re thrilled to welcome writer Marshall Ryan Maresca to our stage.
Marshall Ryan Maresca is a fantasy and science-fiction writer, as well as a playwright, living in South Austin with his wife and son. He is the author of the Maradaine Novels: The Thorn of Dentonhill, A Murder of Mages, and The Alchemy of Chaos. His work also appeared in Norton Anthology of Hint Fiction and Rick Klaw’s anthology Rayguns Over Texas. He also has had several short plays produced.
Join us for a reading with acclaimed poets Chip Dameron and Larry D. Thomas, who will be sharing their recent collections with us.
Chip Dameron is the author of seven collections of poetry and a travel book. His poems and essays on contemporary writers have appeared in such periodicals as Mississippi Review, Southwestern American Literature, San Pedro River Review, Puerto del Sol, Texas Quarterly, and many other journals and anthologies, as well as publications in Canada, Ireland, Nigeria, India, China, Thailand, and New Zealand. Dameron has co-edited two literary magazines, Thicket and Chachalaca Poetry Review, and served on the editorial board of four others. A two-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize in poetry and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, he lives and writes in Brownsville, Texas.
Larry D. Thomas, a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, served as the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate. He has published several award-winning collections of poetry, and his poems have appeared in numerous national journals, including the Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Callaloo, Chattahoochee Review, Christian Science Monitor, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Journal of the American Medical Association, Louisiana Literature, Poet Lore, Puerto del Sol, Review Americana, Right Hand Pointing, San Pedro River Review, Southwest Review, Southwestern American Literature, Texas Review, Town Creek Poetry, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. As If Light Actually Matters: New & Selected Poems, the most comprehensive and definitive collection of his poetry to date, was issued by Texas Review Press. Among his many honors/awards are two Texas Review Poetry Prizes, two Western Heritage Awards (Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma), the Violet Crown Book Award (Writers’ League of Texas), nomination for the 2007 Poets’ Prize (Nicholas Roerich Museum), and eight Pushcart Prize nominations.
Join us for the fifteenth event in our Novel Night series, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: two published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. We’ll then have an open mic for writers who have signed up to read from their unpublished short stories or novels. And finally, we’ll have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles and invite questions from the audience. Also worth noting: there will be snacks!
This month’s readers will be Joe Giordano and Joseph Pluta.
Joe Giordano was born in Brooklyn. His stories have appeared in more than seventy magazines including Bartleby Snopes, decomP, and Shenandoah. Birds of Passage was published by Harvard Square Editions in October 2015. The novel recalls the Italian immigration experience at the turn of the twentieth-century when New York’s streets were paved with violence and disappointment. Here’s what Kirkus said about Birds of Passage. “This riveting debut novel by Giordano charts the passage of two young Italian men to early twentieth century New York, as they strive to make their mark in the New World…. Part thriller, part love story, part coming-of-age narrative, this book’s appeal reaches successfully beyond the often restrictive confines of its genre. A refreshing rethink of the archetypal mafia novel.”
Joseph Pluta has published 23 books, over 100 short stories, and more than 70 articles in professional academic journals. In addition to his written work, he has served on the faculties of universities in California, Florida, Texas, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Throughout his career, he has consistently been recognized for outstanding teaching. His diverse experiences include Editor of a magazine, host of a radio show, founder and director of a University Honors Program, member of the Board of Directors of the Writers’ League of Texas, and consultant to both foreign governments and American small businesses. Joe grew up in New Buffalo, Michigan and still enjoys traveling throughout the state and Canada. He is retired and currently resides in Austin, Texas.
Austin Writers Roulette features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who love to perform their original written works such as poetry, essays, spoken word, singer-songwriting, or excerpts from novels for 5-8 minutes (1200 words or fewer). Interested artists who would like to perform for an upcoming event can email their submission to mathdreads@yahoo.com. Or you can show up during the day of the event and sign up for the open mic after all the featured artists perform. And of course, performance art lovers are always welcome!
This month’s theme is “Arbitrary & Nonsensical.” Spring Break is the perfect time to laugh and awe at the entertaining illogicalness of it all! The line up of featured artists is: UDELLE ROBINSON, CODY COPELAND, BRIAN GROSZ, CAROLYN LINDELL, KENT GROSSWILER, TERESA Y. ROBERSON and THOM THE WORLD POET. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.
Get your cones ready for Malvern Books’ newest FREE reading series, I SCREAM SOCIAL, hosted by Malvern’s own Annar Veröld & Schandra Madha and featuring young women poets and fiction writers from the Austin community.
This month’s readers are Kendra Fortmeyer, Melanie Westerberg, and Janalyn Guo. And we’ll also have live music from Jessie Torrisi of The Please Please Me.
Following the reading, there will be a (mic-less) open mic. Bring old stuff, new stuff, silly stuff, whatever stuff. Just read stuff to us. And did we mention the free cool confections from Amy’s Ice Cream? And the photo booth? Oh yeah, it’s gonna be good.
Austin Community Salutes Springtime and the Belle of Amherst. Hosted by W. Joe Hoppe and Brett Reeves.
In this crowd-sourced, participation-based event, we will resurrect the poems of Emily Dickinson, hauling them out of the schools and into the streets. This is church for people who don’t go to church. We will read aloud, sing aloud, and expound aloud, using Ms. D’s poems as our starting point. Participants draw poem numbers from a hat, or may choose their favorite Dickinson poem. When your number’s up, you stand and read.
Sponsored by Brett Reeves Educator and Malvern Books.
Join us for a reading with poets Emily Pérez and Ryan Sharp.
Emily Pérez is the author of the book House of Sugar, House of Stone, as well as the chapbook Backyard Migration Route, which explores her Mexican-American heritage and her childhood in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. She holds degrees from Stanford and the University of Houston, where she was poetry editor for Gulf Coast and taught with Writers in the Schools. Her poems have appeared in journals including Crab Orchard Review, Calyx, Borderlands, and DIAGRAM. She is a high school dean and English teacher in Denver where she lives with her husband and sons.
Ryan Sharp holds an MFA in Writing from Pacific University and is currently pursuing his PhD in poetry and poetics at the University of Texas. His poetry and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in several journals including Berkeley Poetry Review, Callaloo, DIALOGIST, The Ilanot Review, and PANK. He lives in Austin, TX, where he serves as the editor for Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review and as the Writers’ Studio Coordinator at Huston-Tillotson University.
Join four Austin indie authors as they read selections from their works and discuss how they made the leap to indie publishing. This event features Jami Crumpton, Steve Statham, Aurelia Maria Casey, and Michael Bunker (left to right, below).
This event is organized by Write It Already, a local meet-up that encourages people to write—and finish what they start. There will be light refreshments and books by all four authors for sale at the event.
Born and raised Texas girl, Jami Crumpton, is an award-winning author as well as a wife, mother, and an actress/comedian. When Love Leads You Home is her debut inspirational romance. Jami has three adult children and lives north of Houston with her husband of 26 years.
Steve Statham is the author of six novels and two short story collections. He has had 12 non-fiction books published on automotive subjects, and was the editor of a classic car magazine for many years.
Aurelia Maria Casey is an author, fashion designer, and engineer, because she loves transforming ideas from imagination to reality. She writes epic fantasy, urban fantasy, science fiction, realist fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. She firmly believes that story can change the world and wants to make the real world a little safer, a little more open-minded, with each story she imagines.
Michael Bunker is a USA Today Bestselling author, off-gridder, husband, and father of four children. He lives with his family in a “plain” community in Central Texas, where he reads and writes books… and occasionally tilts at windmills. In November of 2015, Variety announced that Michael had sold a film/TV option for his bestselling novel Pennsylvania to Jorgensen Pictures. JP is currently developing Pennsylvania for production into a feature film or television series. Michael is writing the first draft of the screenplay. Michael’s latest (and best-rated) novel is Brother, Frankenstein, which was released in late April of 2015.
We’re thrilled to be hosting a series of readings as part of the 24th annual Austin International Poetry Festival.
See the Austin International Poetry Festival website for the schedule of readings (TBA).
We’re thrilled to be hosting a series of readings as part of the 24th annual Austin International Poetry Festival.
See the Austin International Poetry Festival website for the schedule of readings (TBA).
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.
We’re thrilled to be hosting a series of readings as part of the 24th annual Austin International Poetry Festival.
See the Austin International Poetry Festival website for the schedule of readings (TBA).
Austin Writers Roulette features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who love to perform their original written works such as poetry, essays, spoken word, singer-songwriting, or excerpts from novels for 5-8 minutes (1200 words or fewer). Interested artists who would like to perform for an upcoming event can email their submission to mathdreads@yahoo.com. Or you can show up during the day of the event and sign up for the open mic after all the featured artists perform. And of course, performance art lovers are always welcome!
This month’s theme is “Best Sincerest Lie.” Our lineup of featured artists is: BIRDMAN 313, JENNIFER PREISS, ROBERT BAYLESS, DONNA DECHEN BIRDWELL, NORI HUBERT, CHERI VAUSE, TERESA Y. ROBERSON, and THOM THE WORLD POET. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.
Join us for an evening with Indonesian author and journalist Leila S. Chudori. Leila will be sharing her historical novel Home (recipient of the 2012 Khatulistiwa Literary Award, Indonesia’s most prestigious literary prize), which explores the lives of Indonesian exiles from the 1965 anti-Communist massacre to the overthrow of Suharto in 1998.
Leila S. Chudori (Jakarta, 1962) is Indonesia’s most prominent and outspoken female author and journalist. She has worked at the renowned Indonesian news magazine TEMPO since 1989, where she is now Senior Editor. A scholarship recipient, she completed university studies at Trent University in Canada and returned to Indonesia in 1988. Chudori started publishing as a child at the age of twelve in children’s magazines, and she is the author of several anthologies of short stories, novels, TV & film scripts, Chudori is considered one of Indonesia’s boldest storytellers.
Join us for the sixteenth event in our Novel Night series, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: two published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. We’ll also have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles and invite questions from the audience. Also worth noting: we’re offering 20% OFF ALL FICTION TITLES during Novel Night (from 6pm till closing).
This month’s readers will be Liv Hadden and John Herndon. Liv will be reading from her debut novel, In the Mind of Revenge, a thriller set in the near future, while John will share his new novel, One Too Many, about a retired armed robber who just can’t seem to stay away from trouble.
Debut novelist Liv Hadden has her roots in Burlington, Vermont and has lived in upstate New York and Oklahoma, where she went to college at the University of Oklahoma, and earned her degree in Environmental Sustainability Planning & Management. She now resides in Austin, Texas with her husband and two dogs, Madison and Samuel, and is an active member of the Writer’s League of Texas.
John Herndon is a poet, novelist and filmmaker who lives in Austin. One Too Many is his first novel. He has published five books of poetry. Frame Switch, a feature-length found-footage thriller based on his screenplay, is in festival release. He teaches writing and literature at Austin Community College.
Join us for an evening featuring poetry by Tupelo Press 30-30 Project and Conference Participants: Christine Beck, Katy Chrisler, D.G. Geis, Robert Okaji, Pamela Paek, and Ronnie K. Stephens.
Christine Beck was named the fifth Poet Laureate of West Hartford in May of 2015. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree from Southern Connecticut State University and is the author of Blinding Light (Grayson Books, 2013) and I’m Dating Myself (Dancing Girl Press, 2015). Her second chapbook, Stirred, Not Shaken, is forthcoming from Five Oaks Press. She teaches poetry, creative writing and literature at The University of Hartford, Southern Connecticut State University, and in private workshops. She is a former president of the Connecticut Poetry Society and currently directs its monthly series at which poets moderate a discussion about a well-known poet at the Hartford Public Library. She is also a board member of Riverwood Poetry Series, which presents poetry and panel discussions about social justice issues.
Katy Chrisler received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has held residencies with Land Arts of the American West and 100 West Corsicana. Recent work of hers has appeared or is forthcoming in Tin House, Octopus Magazine, The Volta, and The Seattle Review. She currently lives and works in Austin, Texas.
D.G. Geis lives in Houston, Texas. He has an undergraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Houston and a graduate degree in philosophy from California State University. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in 491 Magazine, Lost Coast, Blue Bonnet Review, A Quiet Courage, SoftBlow International Poetry Journal, Blinders, Burningword Literary Journal, Crosswinds, Scarlet Leaf, and Sweet Tree, among others. He will be featured in a forthcoming Tupelo Press chapbook anthologizing nine new poets and is winner of Blue Bonnet Review’s Fall 2015 Poetry Contest. He is editor-at-large of Tamsen.
Robert Okaji lives in Austin with his wife, two dogs and some books. He is the author of the chapbook If Your Matter Could Reform (Dink Press), and a micro-chapbook, You Break What Falls (Origami Poems Project). His work has appeared in Boston Review, Hermeneutic Chaos, Mockingheart Review, Eclectica and elsewhere.
Pamela Paek is an educational research who acts, performs stand-up, and is adored by her 14-year old Goffin’s cockatoo, Chilly. Her poetry has been published in the Squaw Valley Review, GAMBA Zine, Aileron, Lynx Eye, and Apocalypse. She has her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in educational psychology, and a BA in both creative writing and applied mathematics from the University of California, San Diego.
Ronnie K. Stephens is a full-time English teacher. He has identical twins and a brand new baby that take up all the space in his chest. He is currently pursuing an MFA from Wilkes University. His first collection, Universe in the Key of Matryoshka, was published by Timber Mouse Publishing in 2014. His second collection will be released later this year.
d. ellis phelps, poet-novelist and painter, is the author of Making Room for George (Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press, forthcoming, 2016) and of the blog, formidable woman: toward a culture of gentleness. Her poetry, art, and essays appear online and in print, most recently in the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project, Energy Magazine, Poet’s Billow (Bermuda Triangle Prize, 2015), and elsewhere. She holds a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin.
Join us in celebrating the Texas Association of Authors’ fifth annual Book Awards Contest.
We’ll have readings and book signings from Texas authors, including:
Kenneth Bennight – Crime Fiction
L E Kinzie – Fiction & Poetry
Cathy Clay – Spiritual
L M Nelson – Romance
Join us in celebrating the Texas Association of Authors’ fifth annual Book Awards Contest.
We’ll have readings and book signings from Texas authors, including:
Mitchel Street – Fantasy
Larry Morris – SciFi
C. M. Bratton – SciFi
Randall Reneau – Suspense
Get your cones ready for Malvern Books’ I SCREAM SOCIAL reading series, hosted by Malvern’s own Annar Veröld and Schandra Madha, and featuring young women poets and fiction writers from the Austin community. This month’s I Screamers are local poets Andrea Eames, Jenna Opperman, and Sarah Hackley.
Following the reading, there will be a (mic-less) open mic. Bring old stuff, new stuff, silly stuff, whatever stuff. Just read stuff to us. And did we mention the free cool confections from Amy’s Ice Cream & Sweet Ritual? Oh yeah, it’s gonna be good.
Join us for a reading with poets Lucas Hunt, Carol Denson, Cindy Huyser, and Meg McKeon.
Lucas Hunt was born in rural Iowa, and is the author of Lives (Vagabond, 2006), Light on the Concrete (North Sea, 2011), and The Muse Demanded Lyrics (Pen & Anvil, 2016). He studied at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and MFA program at Southampton College. Hunt has published in the New York Times, East Hampton Star, Clarion, Slice, and received a John Steinbeck Award for poetry. He is the director of Orchard Literary, founder of Hunt & Light, and a professional live auctioneer.
Carol Denson’s poems have appeared in The Adirondack Review, Gulf Coast, J Journal, and Literary Mama, among other journals. Her essay “Transfertle the Plum” on poetry and parenting was published in Rattle’s Single Parents issue. Her work has been supported by the the Jentel Foundation and the Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County. Her chapbook, Across the Antique Surface, was published in 2013.
Cindy Huyser’s chapbook, Burning Number Five: Power Plant Poems, was named co-winner of the 2014 Blue Horse Press Poetry Chapbook contest. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, the 2017 Texas Poetry Calendar, the anthologies In The Words of Women 2016 (Yellow Chair Press) and Untameable City (Mutabilis Press), and in Bearing The Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems, which she is co-editing with Scott Wiggerman of Dos Gatos Press.
Meg McKeon received her MFA from The University of Texas at Austin’s New Writers Project in 2013. After a couple harrying years in the non-profit world, she’s back in grad school again, pursuing an MEd. She lives in Austin, TX and throws pots in her spare time.
Join us in celebrating the release of The Dark Side of the Cross, a mystery novel by James S. Parker.
Author James S. Parker has led a successful business career over the last thirty years in telecommunications. A graduate of Eastern Kentucky University, Jim’s background in the field of Criminology has come alive in his writing, giving authenticity to his storyline and his characters. His first two books, The Dark Side of the Cross and Relic of Darkness, have met with strong critical acclaim. James and his wife, Margaret, presently reside in Austin, Texas, along with their daughter.
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.
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 in celebrating the release of Becoming the Virgin, the debut poetry collection from Malvernite Taylor Jacob Pate. Featuring readings from Taylor and assorted Malvern staff members, including Fernando Flores, Schandra Madha, Matthew Hodges, and Stephanie Goehring.
Join us in celebrating the winners of the Texas Association of Authors’ fifth annual Book Awards Contest. We’ll have readings and book signings with the winners, including:
Fairy Tale Fiction – Heart by CM Bratton
Sci-Fi Fiction Series – Evriskon Series by CM Bratton
Mystery Fiction – The Sisters Series by Becki Willis
Suspense Fiction – Forgotten Boxes by Becki Willis
Poetry – Poetry with a Purpose by Jerome Dolenz
Political Fiction – The Contest by Bennett Easton
Sci-Fi Fiction – New Territory by Larry Morris
Women’s Fiction – Johnnie Comes Lately by Kathleen Rodgers
Biography Fiction – Home at Last by Jan Sikes
General Fiction – Yarning by R C Knipstein
Romance – Dark Lord of Kismera by Tamara Hartl
Fantasy Fiction – Gods of Arcadia: Son of Aries (Book Two) by Andrea Stehle
Please join us at Malvern Books for Fantastical Fictions, an odd-monthly event focusing on the literary fantastic across genres and cultures hosted by Rebecca Schwarz and Chris Brown. We plan to bring together writers and readers of fantastic literature in Austin by featuring published writers reading from new works and from examples of fantastic literature available on our shelves. Discussion, Q&A sessions, and open mic for works in progress will follow the readings.
Please email us to sign up for our Fantastical Fictions email list if you’d like to receive news about our upcoming fantastic literature events, as well as announcements about new works of fantastic literature in the store.
This month we’re thrilled to welcome writer Stina Leicht to our stage.
Stina Leicht is a two-time Campbell Award nominee for Best New Writer and a Crawford Award finalist. Her latest novel, Cold Iron, debuted in July 2015 with Simon and Schuster’s Saga imprint. Two other Fantasy novels, Of Blood and Honey and its sequel, And Blue Skies from Pain, are set in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Her Feminist essays were featured in the Hugo Award winning Women Destroy Science Fiction! Issue of Lightspeed Magazine. She is currently working on her newest novel, Blackthorne, a sequel to Cold Iron set to be published in the summer of 2017.
Join us for a celebration hosted by Pterodáctilo, the bilingual journal and blog run by graduate students in UT Austin’s department of Spanish and Portuguese. This bilingual event will feature poetry readings… and tamales!
Readers/performers include:
Ignacio Carvajal Regidor (poet)
Judith Santopietro (poet)
Jaime Perez Gonzalez (poet)
Nicolas Emilfork (guitar)
Join us in celebrating the release of the latest issue of Hothouse Literary Journal.
Hothouse Literary Journal is the official journal for the UT English Department. They publish poetry, nonfiction, and fiction stories from multiple genres every year. The release event consists of readings from the published authors and a chance to own a free copy of Hothouse.
Join us in celebrating the release of the latest issue of Analecta, the official Literary and Arts Journal at the University of Texas.
An entirely student-run publication, Analecta is produced by a small group of undergraduate students committed to finding exceptional work by both undergraduate and graduate students at UT. Analecta features a manifold collection of poetry, prose (both essays and fiction), dramatic works, and visual arts.
This all-women reading features writers from the Revolution Writing Workshop led by Abe Louise Young. Join us for poetry and prose about mothering, queer and straight parenting, being mothered and unmothered, sex, Mother Earth, river otters and more!
Featuring Abe Louise Young, Angeliska Polachek, Beth Remsburg, Erin Flynn, Jack Darling, Jamie Harris, Margaux Binder, Margaret Halpin, Robin Bradford, Susannah Frischman-Phillips, Tonya Lyles, Vive Griffith, and Melynda Nuss.
Austin Writers Roulette features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who love to perform their original written works such as poetry, essays, spoken word, singer-songwriting, or excerpts from novels for 5-8 minutes (1200 words or fewer). Interested artists who would like to perform for an upcoming event can email their submission to mathdreads@yahoo.com. Or you can show up during the day of the event and sign up for the open mic after all the featured artists perform. And of course, performance art lovers are always welcome!
This month’s theme is “Saying the Magic Words.” The featured artists are: SYDNEY CHANDLER, AMY ROSE, ERIK CORREDOR, BRIAN GROSZ, TERESA Y. ROBERSON, ANYAH DISHON, & THOM THE WORLD POET. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.
Join us in celebrating the release of the Spring 2016 edition of Austin Community College’s journal, The Rio Review. Students featured in this issue will share their fiction, nonfiction, and poetry with us.
Join us for the seventeenth event in our Novel Night series, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: two published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. We’ll also have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles and invite questions from the audience. Also worth noting: we’re offering 20% OFF ALL FICTION TITLES during Novel Night (from 6pm till closing).
This month’s readers will be Gudjon Bergmann, who will be reading from The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself, and Richard Lee Price, who will be reading from
Troubadours.
Gudjon Bergmann is a veteran nonfiction author and novelist. The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself is his debut novel and was inspired by an acquaintance’s suicide attempt more than fifteen years ago. In addition to being a mystery, the book challenges many of the ideas and stereotypes that people associate with meditation and spirituality. Bergmann was born and raised in Iceland, but moved to the USA in 2010 and became a US citizen in 2013. He publishes a new short story on his website every Friday (look for the #fridayshort).
Richard Price is a musician and professor who lives in Austin. Troubadours draws on his experiences playing salsa in the live music capital of the world and his travels in Mexico. Troubadours is, in many respects, a love song to Austin and the Hill Country.
Join us for a reading with three acclaimed Texas novelists, Mary Helen Specht, Elizabeth Harris, and Thomas McNeely.
Mary Helen Specht’s novel, Migratory Animals, is a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, an Indie Next Selection, and an Austin-American Statesman Selects book. She received the Texas Institute of Letters Steven Turner Award for First Fiction and has been a Fulbright Scholar and a Dobie Paisano Fellow.
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. She taught fiction writing and modern literature for a number of years at the University of Texas at Austin.
Thomas H. McNeely’s first novel, Ghost Horse, was winner of the 2014 Gival Press Novel Award. Library Journal described Ghost Horse “as if Cormac McCarthy and Denis Johnson teamed up to write a 1970’s Texas YA novel that went off the rails somewhere—in a very, very good way.” McNeely has received fellowships from the Dobie Paisano Program, the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He currently teaches at Emerson College and the Stanford Online Writers Workshop. He will be teaching a workshop on revising fiction, “Losing Yourself, Finding Your Voice: The Art of Revision,” at the Writers’ League of Texas on Saturday, May 14th.
Join us for a reading to celebrate the launch of the latest issue of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review! Readers include: featured poet Sam Sax, Cindy Huyser, Cindy King, and Ann A. Philips.
Cover artwork: Wild Horses by Donna Sharrett
Get your cones ready for Malvern Books’ I SCREAM SOCIAL reading series, hosted by Malvern’s own Annar Veröld and Schandra Madha, and featuring young women poets and fiction writers from the Austin community. This month’s readers are Katelin Kelly, Autumn Hayes, and Maggie Ilersich.
Following the reading, there will be a (mic-less) open mic. Bring old stuff, new stuff, silly stuff, whatever stuff. Just read stuff to us. And did we mention the free cool confections from Amy’s Ice Cream & Sweet Ritual? Oh yeah, it’s gonna be good.
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!
Join us in celebrating the launch of two new books: Tony Burnett’s The Reckless Hope of Scoundrels – selected poems 1985-2015 and Carlotta Stankiewicz’s Haiku Austin (love song to Austin / in 17 syllables / wonderful and weird).
Educated at University of North Texas, Tony Burnett is an award-winning poet, journalist, activist, and songwriter. His poetry and short fiction have been published in national literary magazines and anthologies including Sixfold, Connotation Press, Short Story America, Frontier Tales, Texas Poetry Calendar, Poetry @ Round Top anthology, Tidal Basin Review, Red Dirt Review and Toucan Literary Magazine. He is Editor in Chief of Scribe, the online blog of the Writers’ League of Texas with over 6000 subscribers, and serves as Board President of the Writers’ League of Texas. He makes his home in rural central Texas near Temple with his trophy wife, Robin. His hobbies include poking wasp nests with short sticks and wandering aimlessly about.
Carlotta Eike Stankiewicz is an Austin-based writer and poet. She has performed in Austin’s Listen To Your Mother Show (2012) and recently read her piece “The Salon” at Austin’s One Page Salon on March 2, 2016. Her blog features both humorous rhyming verse and free verse. A single mom of two teenage daughters, she funds their activities by working as an advertising Creative Director, most recently at GSD&M, for national brands like Zales, AT&T, and John Deere. Haiku Austin is her first book, and features both her poetry and her photography.
Join us for an afternoon with poets Brandon Lamson and Brian Nicolet.
Brandon Dean Lamson teaches literature and creative writing in the Honors College at the University of Houston. His first book, Starship Tahiti, won the Juniper Prize for Poetry and was published by the University of Massachusetts Press. Beginning on Rikers Island, the book traces a creation myth in reverse, moving from prison to the spacious arches of Grand Central Station and finally to the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. Themes of violence, race, and identity are explored in various real and imagined settings where inmates read Antigone, Howlin’ Wolf sings in a black barbershop, and Metallica records burn on a Viking altar. He is also the author of a chapbook entitled Houston Gothic (LaMunde Press, 2007) and his recent work has appeared in Poetry Daily, Brilliant Corners, NO INFINITE, Synecdoche, and Buddhadharma Quarterly. An avid yogi, he teaches meditation and leads workshops in yoga and poetry. Currently, he is finishing a second book of poems titled Mountains Walking that explores ecological crises in Western Appalachia and a memoir based on his prison teaching experience titled Caged.
Brian Nicolet holds an MFA from the University of Houston and has received scholarships to Bread Loaf and Sewanee writers’ conferences. His poems and reviews have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Gulf Coast, Colorado Review, and Subtropics, among other publications. He works and teaches at Austin Community College.
Join us in celebrating the launch of The Beatest State in the Union, a new anthology of Texas Beat writers.
The Beatest State in the Union is a 325-page large format seminal anthology of Texas writing that includes many of the iconic beat writers writing and being in Texas and traces their influence on other writers up to the present time. This event will be a celebration of writers in the anthology from Austin, San Antonio, and College Station. We will read selections from iconic beats in the anthology and other works by the writers in the anthology. The anthology includes fiction, memoir, poetry, and some journalism.
Readers include Joe Hoppe, PW Covington, Lorraine Caputo, Lyman Grant, Mick White, Janet McCann, Manuel Martinez, Thom the World Poet, Chris Carmona, and Ricardo Acevedo.
It’s poetry karaoke time! Held on the first Monday of each month, Malvern Karaoke Mondays is a fun FREE event featuring adventurous verses, snack surprises, and a monthly haiku competition.
Here’s how poetry karaoke works: you roll a 20-sided lettered die and 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.) 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.
And if you fancy yourself as a haiku whiz, you should enter our monthly haiku contest, judged by our curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe (and/or a guest judge of his choosing). For this month’s contest you’ll need to provide the first and third lines that best accompany this second line:
Time’s river asbestos flows
COMPETITION CONDITIONS: Haiku must be submitted to info@malvernbooks.com by midnight on Sunday, June 5th. We’ll announce the winner at the event on Monday. Prize = $10 Malvern Gift Card (which must be picked up in-store) and you’ll be listed in our BOOK OF HAIKU WINNERS. All decisions final. No crying!
Join us for the eighteenth event in our Novel Night series, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: two published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. We’ll also have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles and invite questions from the audience. Also worth noting: we’re offering 20% OFF ALL FICTION TITLES during Novel Night (from 6pm till closing).
This month’s Novel Night has a sci-fi/fantasy twist! Our readers will be Donna Dechen Birdwell and Chris Rogers. Donna will be reading from Shadow of the Hare—Recall Chronicles, Vol. II, and Chris will be reading from Emissary.
Anthropologist Donna Dechen Birdwell creates a dystopian world with sensitivity and insight deriving from years of observation and dedicated study of the human condition. “We are our stories,” she says. “Our most precious human quality is our fertile imagination.” Donna is also an artist, a former journalist, and a native Texan.
Chris Rogers wrote her first romance novel in 1989, then promptly decided this was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life even if she never made a dime at it. To make time for studying the craft of writing, she folded her marketing business and took a job at a bank. Two novels later, all three rejected because they had “too much mystery,” she realized romance wasn’t her genre. By 1996, Chris had finished five novels, two screenplays, a handful of short stories and a short play—and this was her year to finally achieve notice as a writer. One of her short mysteries won a notable national contest and was published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Her ten-minute play also won a contest and was produced at Stages Theater in Houston. And most important, she acquired an agent who sold her Dixie Flannigan mystery series to Bantam Books. The first three books in that series were published in print, electronic and audio formats and were translated into three languages. After Amazon dazzled the publishing world, Chris became a ghostwriter for a number of years before deciding to join the world of Indie writers. Since then she has published four short story anthologies, four books on writing, and four novels in various genres.
Please join us for a celebratory reading by the writers of S. Kirk Walsh’s nine-month Fiction Writing Workshop (Sept-June). Short excerpts from novels and stories will be read.
Participating writers include Cristina Adams, Dena Afrasiabi, Kalli Angel, Nicole Beckley, Megan Coxe, Julien Devereux, Katherine Moore, Victoria Rossi, Kirk Wilson, Karen Valby, and Ryan Vaughn. This accomplished group of writers features published fiction and nonfiction writers and poets and translators. For the past nine months, they have participated in an intensive fiction workshop, drafting and revising novels and short stories throughout the year. Come and celebrate their wonderful work and distinctive voices with this end-of-the-workshop reading.
Refreshments and sweets will be served.
Austin Writers Roulette features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who love to perform their original written works such as poetry, essays, spoken word, singer-songwriting, or excerpts from novels for 5-8 minutes (1200 words or fewer). Interested artists who would like to perform for an upcoming event can email their submission to mathdreads@yahoo.com. Or you can show up during the day of the event and sign up for the open mic after all the featured artists perform. And of course, performance art lovers are always welcome!
This month’s theme is “This Changes Everything.” Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.
Join us for an evening with renowned Korean writer Jung Young Moon, who will be reading from his new novel, Vaseline Buddha (Deep Vellum Publishing), translated from the Korean by Yewon Jung.
Vaseline Buddha is a tragicomic odyssey told through free association. The story opens when our sleepless narrator thwarts a would-be thief outside his moonlit window, then delves into his subconscious imagination to explore a variety of geographical and mental locations—real, unreal, surreal—to explore the very nature of reality: from a treacherous flight in the mountains of Nepal to a park bench in Budapest to a bizarre conversation in Amsterdam to an encounter with an inflatable rubber dolphin floating in a small river in provincial France.
One achieves a kind of serenity when we delve into this book. I find that eccentrics like Jung are needed in literature.
—Achim Stanislawski
Jung Young Moon was born in Hamyang, South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea in 1965. He graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in psychology, and made his literary début in 1996 with the novel, A Man Who Barely Exists. Jung is also an accomplished translator who has translated more than forty books from English into Korean, including works by John Fowles, Raymond Carver, and Germaine Greer. In 2005 Jung was invited to participate in the University of Iowa’s prestigious International Writing Program, and in 2010 he spent three months in a residency at the University of California-Berkeley’s Center for Korean Study. In 2012 he won three of Korea’s most prestigious literary awards for his novel A Contrived World, just out from Dalkey Archive in spring 2016, who also published his short story collection A Most Ambiguous Sunday and Other Stories in 2014. His works have been translated into numerous languages, and he is widely read in France and Germany, where he enjoys tremendous critical acclaim and popular appeal.
Yewon Jung was born in Seoul, and moved to the US at the age of 12. She received a BA in English from Brigham Young University, and an MA from the Graduate School of Interpretation and Translation at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
This event is part of a nationwide tour arranged by publishers Deep Vellum and Dalkey Archive (who recently released Jung’s novel A Contrived World) and the Literature Translation Institute of Korea.
Join us in celebrating the launch of Bill Shaw’s new book, Conspiracy II, the third novel in the author’s Pistol Thicket trilogy. With readings from Bill Shaw and Frank R. Southers, who will be signing copies of his most recent book, “Senator White”: A Novel.
About Conspiracy II:
There is more than folk wisdom in the saying that “Opposites Attract,” but that phrase is put to its sternest test in the case of Myrna Minkoff and Ignatius P. Reilly, two twenty-something college grads. Myrna, an Ivy Leaguer, is the lovely scion of a wealthy Long Island family and a staunch supporter of the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, while I.P. is an All-American football player from the Louisiana Baptist Academy. I.P. is a Donald Trump operative from New Orleans whose religious, social, and economic status is scarcely closer to Myrna’s than it is to a distant galaxy…
About “Senator White”: A Novel:
Ginny Hopkins, pregnant and married for over two years to Peter Hopkins, learns that she is not truly divorced from Hugh Robles because of her lawyer’s goof. Now, she’s charged in criminal court with Bigamy, a felony with a minimum two-year sentence in State Prison. To get justice, Ginny files a complaint with the Texas Grievance Committee in San Antonio against her lawyer, Senator Tony White. The Grievance Committee prosecutor owes his job to Senator White and fears Ginny will reveal the complaint to the media to hurt Senator White’s re-election campaign… will Ginny Hopkins find justice against powerful Senator White?
Bill Shaw and his wife of 50 years, Monica, live in Austin, Texas, close to their three daughters and five grandchildren. Bill is the retired Woodson Professor of Law and Ethics in Business at the McCombs School, the University of Texas, Austin. He holds degrees from Louisiana Tech, Tulane, and The University of Texas at Austin. He taught graduate and undergraduate students at Texas for over 35 years, retiring in 2007. Professor Shaw published over 50 scholarly articles on law and ethics during his career as well as four books. He served as President of The Academy of Legal Studies in Business and as Editor-in-Chief of the American Business Law Journal.
Frank R. Southers is well-qualified to write about the Texas Lawyer Disciplinary System because he served in San Antonio on the Grievance Committee for ten years, the last six as Chairperson. Since then he has represented complainants, accused lawyers, and witnesses. As an Adjunct Professor of Law for twenty years at St. Mary’s University School of Law, Mr. Southers taught Workers’ Compensation, Personal Injury Law, Personal Injury Practice, and Legal Malpractice. He graduated from St. Mary’s University with a B.A. in English and graduated magnum cum laude from St. Mary’s University School of Law at age 22. He co-authored a legal treatise, “Texas Workers’ Compensation Desk Book,” and has written many legal articles covering such topics as Evidence, Trial Practice, Civil Procedure, Medical Malpractice, Mediation, Legal Malpractice, and Grievance Law. Now, Southers has turned to writing fiction, especially about lawyers. The Grievance Committee—Book One was his debut novel. Since then, he has written four other indie novels. Although raised in San Antonio, Southers now resides in Austin with his wife, Dr. Linda R. Southers, PhD. and their two dogs.
It’s Bloomsday! Join us for a celebration of the life of writer James Joyce. Featuring live Irish music from Serge Laîné and Larry Rone (pictured below, from Poor Man’s Fortune), readings from Ulysses with an introduction by Joyce aficionado Peter Q, the moderator of the Finnegans Wake Reading Group, plus spirited discussion (audience participation welcome!)… and suitably Irish snacks, including Guinness cake!
Bloomsday, named for Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses, is observed around the world on June 16th, as this is the date during which the events of Ulysses are relived (16th June, 1904). Fun fact: Joyce apparently picked June 16th as it was the date of his first date with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle.
Poor Man’s Fortune combines Breton, Cajun, Scottish, French & Irish music with original tunes and even more original ideas. This is World Music in a world of its own. Jigs, reels, polkas, 2-steps and waltzes. Breton plinns, an dros, ridées & gavottes. Made-up folk dances, songs of joy, sadness and murder… all featuring an assemblage of traditional and modern instruments, including dulcitare, wooden flute, accordion, pennywhistle, bombarde, bagpipes & hurdy-gurdy. Poor Man’s Fortune is at their best live on a stage in front of a crowd of any manner of music lover. Folkies, punks, rockers, mods, mockers, your teenage son’s friends, and your in-laws, no one is immune to a PMF stage show. Rock and roll energy with the precision of a string quartet.Join us for an evening with Matthew Freeman, who will be reading from his fifth book of poetry, Everything I Love Restored, which was recently published by Coffeetown Press.
Matthew Freeman’s newest collection presents a romantic vision wherein the environment can range from ecstatic to sinister. Steeped in urban shamanism, the poems reflect a desperate search for the American Sublime, the author’s search for the clarity of salvation, his love of language, and his hope that the poor and destitute will not be forgotten.
Matthew Freeman discovered he was a poet when as a teenager he was ruined with love. So began a journey that would leave him expelled from school and committed to an asylum, suffering with schizophrenia. After beginning his recovery he got his BA in English from St. Louis University, where he was given the Montesi Prize, and received his MFA from the University of Missouri, where he won the Graduate Poetry Prize.