Malvern Books

Join us in celebrating the recent release of Rachel Z. Arndt’s essay collection, Beyond Measure.

With mordant humor and penetrating intellect, Rachel Z. Arndt casts her gaze beyond event-driven narratives to the machinery underlying them: judo competitions measured in weigh-ins and wait times; the significance of the elliptical’s stationary churn; the standardized height of kitchen countertops; the rote scripts of dating apps; the stupefying sameness of the daily commute. “How much can data tell us?” Arndt asks, challenging us to consider the simultaneous comfort and absurdity of our exhaustively quantified—yet never entirely quantifiable—lives.

Rachel Z. Arndt received MFAs in nonfiction and poetry from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow and nonfiction editor of the Iowa Review. Her writing has appeared in Popular Mechanics, Quartz, Pank, and Fast Company, among others. She is currently the assistant editor of the McSweeney’s Poetry Series and a reporter. She lives in Chicago.

Join us for an evening with Elizabeth Threadgill, Melissa Cundieff and Roger Jones. Elizabeth Threadgill is celebrating the launch of her chapbook Tangled in the Light (Finishing Line Press), and Melissa Cundieff is celebrating the launch of her book Darling Nova (Autumn House Press).

Elizabeth Threadgill holds an MFA in Poetry and a PhD in Developmental Education-Literacy, both from Texas State University. She grew up in Marfa, Texas, and now lives in upstate New York with her husband, poet James Henry Knippen. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Utica College. Tangled in the Light marks Elizabeth’s poetry debut and is representative of landscape and life in rural Texas.

Melissa Cundieff is the author of Darling Nova, selected by Alberto Ríos for the 2017 Autumn House Press Full-Length Poetry Prize. She holds an MFA from Vanderbilt, and her poems have appeared in such places as Best of the Net, Ninth Letter, Crab Orchard Review, Mid-American Review, TriQuarterly, and Four Way Review. Originally from Texas, she lives in Saint Paul, MN with her two children.

Roger Jones has a BA and MA from Sam Houston State University and a PhD in English from Oklahoma State University. He has taught at SHSU, Oklahoma State and Lamar University in Beaumont, and since 1987, has taught at Texas State University in San Marcos, where he has served since 1998 on the MFA Creative Writing poetry faculty. He has published poems in various journals since the 1970s. The Texas Review Press published his chapbook Remembering New London in 1981, and his full collections Strata (1993) and Are We There Yet? (2008). In 2015, Finishing Line Press published his chapbook Familial, and his collection of Japanese haibun poems Goodbye was published as an electronic chapbook in 2017 by the Snapshot Press in the UK.

Please join us for a celebratory reading by the writers of S. Kirk Walsh’s nine-month fiction workshop (Sept-June). Short excerpts from novels and short stories will be read.

Participating writers include Cristina Adams, Erin Augustine, Nicole Beckley, Deborah de Freitas, Matt Holmes, Lisa Jackson, Jack Kaulfus, Alejandro Puyana, Victoria Rossi, Ramona Reeves, Siobhan Welch, and Stefani Zellmer. This talented group of writers features published fiction and nonfiction writers, book critics, and MFA graduates. For the past nine months, they have participated in an intensive fiction workshop, drafting and revising novels and short stories throughout the year. Please join us in celebrating their inspiring work and distinctive voices with this end-of-the-workshop reading. Refreshments and sweets will be served.

Austin Writers Roulette is an uncensored, theme-inspired spoken word and storytelling event. It features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who 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 “Never-Ending Tomorrow”—who knows when this s@#% will end? Take a break from the never-ending heat with our lineup of featured poets and storytellers: NICOLE CORTICHIATO, HALEY CAMPBELL, STEPHANIE ELISE FRENO, RG HOOK, TERESA Y. ROBERSON, & THOM THE WORLD POET. An open mic follows.Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.

Join us in celebrating the launch of award-winning author Roger Thompson’s new book, No Word for Wilderness: Italy’s Grizzlies and the Race to Save the Rarest Bears on Earth (Ashland Creek Press).

In Italian, there is no word for wilderness. Yet in the mountains of Italy, brown bears not only exist, they are fighting to survive amid encroaching development, local and international politics, and the mafia. This meticulously researched and eye-opening book tells the incredible stories of two special populations of bears in Italy—one the last vestige of a former time that persists against all odds, the other a great experiment in re-wilding that, if successful, promises to change how we see not only Italy but all of Europe. The stories of these bears take readers on a spectacular journey across Italy, where we come face-to-face not only with these fascinating species but with embattled park directors, heroic environmentalists, innovative scientists, and a public that is coming to terms with the importance of Italy’s rich natural history. Award-winning author Roger Thompson has traveled throughout Italy documenting the history and current crises of these bears, and the result is an engaging and in-depth examination that resonates across all endangered species and offers invaluable insights into the ever-evolving relationships between human and non-human animals in a rapidly changing world.

Roger Thompson is an award-winning nonfiction writer and director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University. His work and features have appeared in the New York Times, theatlantic.com, Ozy, Quartz, Raw Vision, and others, and he is senior editor for a fine art photography magazine based in Brooklyn.

Join us for another installment of Novel Night, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. And we’ll also have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles. Also worth noting: we’re donating all proceeds from this Novel Night to CASA and Malaria No More.

This month’s Novel Night guests are Maureen Asantewaa and H.R. Young-Lira. Maureen will be reading from her debut novel, Tenth Year in the Sun, and H.R. Young-Lira will also be sharing her debut novel, The Truth About Sunday Minor.

In high school, Maureen Asantewaa dreamt of writing, but it would be over twenty years before she entertained the idea of writing as a career. In the meantime, she began work in Human Resources in Houston and D.C. before eventually moving overseas. There, she experienced many fulfilling moments as she traveled and lived around the world. Later, as Maureen delved into fiction, she made sisterhood and West African culture a recurring theme in her work. She crafts her inspirational literature from her home base in Austin, Texas. Maureen’s debut novel, Tenth Year in the Sun, is a women’s fiction story inspired by her experiences and the connections she made in her life at home and abroad. Maureen describes the novel as being “at the intersection of Women’s Fiction and West African culture.”

H.R. Young-Lira is a Texas writer living east of Austin among the loblollies of Lost Pines Forest. She is shopkeeper of Loblolly Lost, an online bookstore of curated collectibles for the personal library. She graduated from the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Texas State University. The Truth About Sunday Minor is her first novel.

It’s Bloomsday! Named for Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Bloomsday is observed around the world on June 16th, as this is the date during which the events of Ulysses are relived (16th June, 1904). Join us for a celebration of the life of James Joyce, with short readings from Ulysses (sign up in store on the day if you’d like to read!) and suitably Irish snacks.

You’re invited to join us for the sixth Austin edition of the Why There Are Words reading series! This month’s readers are Elizabeth Crook, Spike Gillespie, Alyce Guynn, and Ray Bonneville (left to right, below).

Founded in 2010 by Peg Alford Pursell, Why There Are Words is an award-winning literary reading series that takes place every second Thursday in the San Francisco Bay Area, and beginning in 2017, will take place at 5 more national locations: New York City, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Portland, and Austin. Each reading event presents a range of writers, including those who have published books and those who haven’t. All writers share the criterion of excellence. The guiding idea behind the series is that good work is timeless and needs to be heard regardless of marketing or commercial concerns. If you’re interested in reading or would like more information, please contact Alison: wtawaustin@gmail.com.

Elizabeth Crook lived in Nacogdoches, Texas and then San Marcos, Texas with her parents and brother and sister until age seven when the family moved to Washington D.C. She attended Baylor University for two years and graduated from Rice University in 1982. She has written five novels: The Raven’s Bride and Promised Lands, published by Doubleday and reissued by SMU Press as part of the Southwest Life and Letters series; The Night Journal, published by Viking/Penguin in 2006 and reissued in paperback by Penguin; Monday, Monday, published by Sarah Crichton Books, FSG, in April 2014 and reissued in paperback from Picador; and The Which Way Tree, published by Little, Brown and Company, available in February 2018 and optioned by Maverick Films LLC with Robert Duvall to star. Elizabeth has written for periodicals such as Texas Monthly and the Southwestern Historical Quarterly and served on the council of the Texas Institute of Letters and the board of the Texas Book Festival. She is a member of Women Writing the West, Western Writers of America, and was selected the honored writer for 2006 Texas Writers’ Month. Her first novel, The Raven’s Bride, was the 2006 Texas Reads: One Book One Texas selection. The Night Journal was awarded the 2007 Spur award for Best Long Novel of the West and the 2007 Willa Literary Award for Historical Fiction. Monday, Monday was awarded the 2015 Jesse H. Jones award for fiction. Elizabeth currently lives in Austin with her family. 

Spike Gillespie is the critically acclaimed author of many books and countless magazine articles. Austin Chronicle readers voted her Best Memoirist in Austin in 2016 and 2017. She writes the blogs EmotionalRapeSurvivor.com and MeditationKicksAss.com. Spike’s work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times, The Washington Post, Real Simple, GQ, Esquire, Elle, Smithsonian, National Geographic Traveler, Interweave KNITS, The Christian Science Monitor, Texas Monthly, The Dallas Morning News, and other publications. In 2006, Austin Chronicle readers voted her Best Author in Austin. Spike also provides commentary for Austin’s NPR affiliate, KUT. She lives on a ranch just outside of Austin with horses, cows, chickens, and dogs.

Alyce Guynn has always loved words, especially when served up with a heaping helping of music. She began public reading at Austin’s iconic Alamo Lounge and emmajoe’s. Alyce also loves collaboration. Deal Me In, her book of 52 love poems, is illustrated by Jesse ‘Guitar’ Taylor. She enjoys performing with musicians who add their magic to her words. The chapbook Beyond Blue is her homage to the late Champ Hood, with whom, along with Marvin Dykhuis, she often performed. Marvin and Alyce recorded a CD featuring poems from Deal Me In with Marvin providing the music. Alyce’s poems appear in Feeding the Crow, Seventh Quarry, various chapbooks, magazines, liner notes, blogs and anthologies. She arrived in Austin in the mid-sixties as a newspaper reporter and has worked the last 33 years as an antitrust investigator. 

Ray Bonneville is a poet of the demimonde who didn’t write his first song until his early 40s, some 20 years after he started performing. But with a style that sometimes draws comparisons to JJ Cale and Daniel Lanois, this blues-influenced, New Orleans-inspired “song and groove man,” as he’s been so aptly described, luckily found his rightful calling. Born in Quebec, his family moved to Boston when he was 12. He served a year in Vietnam as a Marine, struggled and overcame drug addiction, earned a pilot’s license in Colorado, then moved to Alaska, then Seattle, and Paris and New Orleans. But it took a close call while piloting a seaplane across the Canadian wilderness to make him decide it was time to get busy writing songs. He’s since earned many accolades, including a Juno Award for his 1999 album, Gust of Wind. His post-Katrina ode, “I Am the Big Easy,” earned the International Folk Alliance’s 2009 Song of the Year Award, and in 2012, Bonneville won the solo/duet category in the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge. Easy Gone, Ray’s fourth album for Red House Records, takes listeners to some of the dark spaces and exotic places Bonneville has gone on his own travels. An Austin resident since 2006, Bonneville still puts the rhythms and soul of New Orleans into much of his music. His songs carry a groove and momentum that’s uniquely his—and will always be a part of him, no matter where he roams.

Join us in celebrating the recent release of visiting author Mark Haskell Smith’s novel Blown. With host Jill Alexander Essbaum.

Biting satire and criminal mischief abound in Mark Haskell Smith’s new novel Blown, which follows a Wall Street trader who disappears—with millions in stolen cash—and the madcap team of investigators on his trail in the Cayman Islands in this hot, hilarious case of offshore banking gone awry. Wickedly funny, ribald, and sharp-eyed, Blown starts as a simple case of embezzlement and explodes into a fatal high-stakes gamble for money and the pursuit of happiness.

Mark Haskell Smith is the author of five novels, most recently Raw: A Love Story, and the nonfiction book Heart of Dankness: Underground Botanists, Outlaw Farmers, and the Race for the Cannabis Cup. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Vulture. He lives in Los Angeles.

Get your cones ready for the third anniversary of Malvern Books’ FREE reading series, I SCREAM SOCIAL, hosted by Malvern’s own Annar Veröld and Schandra Madha.

When we first started the I Scream Social, our vision was that a small group of young women writers from Austin would come together for just one summer to share what they’d been working on while eating some free ice cream. But that one summer turned into three years and that small group turned into an incredible, diverse community of artists from across the country breaking all the moulds of what the written & spoken word can do. And the ice cream just turned into even more ice cream.

To celebrate our third birthday, we’ll have ice cream cake, raffled prizes, a photo booth, and, of course, the open mic!

~7pm – Inclusive open mic. All are welcome. Don’t be shy!

Can’t make it this time around? No worries. I Scream Social is every month ’til the end of time.

Join us for a reading and exhibit to celebrate the launch of the latest issue of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review.

Bring friends – join the celebration! The event is free of charge and open to everyone.

Keynote poet is Joe Brundidge, a well-known presence at Austin poetry scenes for nearly 20 years. A frequent host and public speaker, Brundidge co-hosts KOOP 91.7FM’s “Writing on the Air” and is a former director of the International Poetry Festival and of the “Spoken & Heard” poetry series. His most recent book, Element 615, was published by Lit City Press in 2017 and is reviewed in the new issue by Rachel A. Wise.

Featured artist Eric Tippeconnic, a member of the Comanche Nation, will engage us with an art talk based on his series “Comanche Motion” on view at the Bullock Texas State History Museum through Jan. 2, 2019. Tippeconnic’s vibrant artwork honors the Comanche culture historically and as a “living, thriving and contemporary” nation. Tippeconnic will sign limited edition posters of Borderlands issue 48 cover featuring his visually-striking artwork “Traditional Comanche Woman” as a special fundraiser for the journal.

Borderlands is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.

Join us for a FREE monthly reading series, Malvern’s Multi-Verse, in which we explore the infinite possible (multi)verses of Austin’s boundless literary universe! Space-time might be flat and stretch out infinitely, but Malvern’s Multi-Verse is well-rounded, lasts for about an hour, and includes free cookies! Yes indeed, it’s the best of all possible worlds…

This month’s guest is Teresa Y. Roberson.

Author, spoken word poet and producer of The Austin Writers Roulette, Teresa Y. Roberson writes based on her survival skills honed through working and traveling globally, cooking and eating ethnic food, doing yoga and dancing, and challenging society’s preconceived ideas about minority women.

When Chinese novelist Su Wei​ ​and his translator Austin Woerner first met in 2005, little did they know that their friendship would spark a ten-year-long experiment in creative co-translation that would take them from the classrooms of Yale to the mountains of​ ​southern China​ ​and back again. Join​ ​Austin as he recounts​ ​this literary odyssey, culminating in the publication of​ ​his​ ​English translation of Su’s novel​ ​​​The​ ​Invisible Valley in English this April​,​​ ​by Small Beer Press​.​ Austin​ ​will reveal the story behind​ ​the story, a coming-of-age narrative set during the Cultural Revolution against a backdrop of rainforest landscapes, Taoist mysticism, and Cantonese folklore. In the process​ ​he will share the​ ​joys and complexities of​ ​literary​ ​translation and​ ​his adventures in Chinese literature both on and off the page.

In tropical southern China, in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, a teenage boy named Lu Beiping stumbles upon a band of woodcutters living deep in the mountains. Outcasts from mainstream society, the “driftfolk,” as they call themselves, practice a secret faith whose central tenets would be heresy in the world Lu Beiping comes from. As he is drawn deeper into their way of life—a realm of strange freedoms and restrictions, where the line between magic and reality is not always clear—Lu must struggle with what is natural and what is truly deviant, and learn to play a precarious balancing act between two taboo-ridden worlds.​ ​(​You can read an excerpt here​.)​

Like many Chinese writers of his generation, Su Wei spent his teenage years being “re-educated” through farm labor in the countryside, working for ten years on a rubber plantation in the mountains of tropical Hainan Island. He is known for his nonfiction essays as well as for his highly imaginative novels, which are seen as unique in their treatment of the Cultural Revolution. He fled China in 1989, and since 1997 he has taught Chinese language and literature at Yale University. ​​The Invisible Valley is his first book to be translated into English.

A Chinese-English literary translator, Austin Woerner has translated two volumes of poetry, ​​Doubled Shadows: Selected Poetry of Ouyang Jianghe and ​​Phoenix, and edited the English edition of the innovative, bilingual Chinese literary journal ​​Chutzpah! Together with Ou Ning, he co-edited the short fiction anthology ​​Chutzpah! New Voices from China. He has a BA in East Asian Studies from Yale and an MFA in creative writing from the New School, and he is currently a lecturer at Duke Kunshan University.

Join us in celebrating the launch of the third issue of Kallisto Gaia Press’ literary journal, The Ocotillo Review, which features over 100 pages of literary genius by award-winning writers from around the world and superb new pieces by writers from underserved communities. Numerous poets and writers will read excerpts of their work from this edition.

Austin Writers Roulette is an uncensored, theme-inspired spoken word and storytelling event. It features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who 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 “Dog Days/Cat Nights”—the days may be long and grueling, but the freaks come out at night! The lineup of featured artists includes: RG HOOK, NICOLE CORTICHIATO, STEPHANIE ELISE FRENO, TERESA Y. ROBERSON, and THOM THE WORLD POET. An open mic follows the featured artists. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.

In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world.

This month’s guest is novelist, poet, and essayist Anis Shivani.

Anis Shivani is the Pushcart Prize-winning author of several books of fiction, poetry, and criticism each, including, most recently, Karachi Raj: A Novel, Soraya: Sonnets, Literary Writing in the 21^st Century: Conversations, and the forthcoming A History of the Cat in Nine Chapters or Less. His work appears in many leading literary journals. 

Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.

Join us in celebrating the launch of Keith R. Rees’ new novel, One Night in Bangkok.

Miles Devereaux, an ordinary, working class, family man, is thrust sixty years into the dazzling futuristic world of 2065 Bangkok, and into a life-and-death game of chess where the players and pieces’ fates depend on each player’s acumen. Requiring Miles to match wits and physical skills with an array of opponents while faced with solving the mystery of his time travel and how to return to his own time, One Night in Bangkok is a riveting adventure set in what might very well be our own future.

Keith R. Rees has been writing professionally for over 20 years. One Night in Bangkok, a science fiction work, is the first installment in what is projected to become The One Night Trilogy. He has always been a fan of science fiction, particularly stories that involve time travel, and writes stories that have both realistic and human sides to them.

Join us for an evening with Emmy Pérez, Leticia Urieta, Marilyse V. Figueroa, and Britt Haraway (left to right, below). Hosted by ire’ne lara silva.

Emmy Pérez is the author of With the River on Our Face and Solstice. She is the recipient of a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship. She’s a member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop and is an associate professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Leticia Urieta is proud Tejana writer from Austin, TX. She works as a teaching artist in the Austin community. She is a graduate of Agnes Scott College and holds an MFA in Fiction writing from Texas State University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Cleaver, Chicon Street Poets Anthology, BorderSenses, Lumina, The Offing and others. She has recently completed her first mixed genre collection of poetry and prose and is currently at work completing her novel that tells the story of a Mexican soldadera caught up in the march to Texas during Texas’ war with Mexico.

Marilyse V. Figueroa is an unapologetic Scorpio just like Björk, and a proud queer femme Xicana – Puerto Riqueña from Oklahoma and Texas. Marilyse’s work has been published in Acentos Review, Southwestern American Literature, St. Sucia Zine, and many others. Marilyse has been the Director of the San Marcos, Texas Chapter of Barrio Writers Workshop since 2017, and she is currently the Artist-In-Residence at the Writing Barn in Austin. Her work embodies a fascination with hybridity–a mezcla of fiction, poetry, testimonio, sci-fi and fantasy. She is currently working on a collection of short stories and an experimental novella.

Britt Haraway has a short story collection Early Men which was published by Lamar University Literary Press. His stories have appeared in Natural Bridge, New Madrid, Great Weather for Media, Moon City Review, and elsewhere. His work was chosen for the Best Small Fictions 2016, guest edited by Stuart Dybek. He is an assistant professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and the fiction editor for riverSedge magazine. He lives in McAllen Texas with his family.

Desiree Morales is an educator, poet, and activist from Southern California, where she earned her BA in Creative Writing and Linguistics from Pitzer College. Since coming to Austin in 2010, she’s created and led programs that have served nearly 10,000 low income children in Travis County. She currently oversees a pilot project in Austin ISD offering entrepreneurial learning opportunities to students in South Austin and participates in the Cultural Proficiency and Inclusiveness initiative. Her work has appeared in What Rough Beast, Truck: I35 Creativity Corridor, and Conflict of Interest. Has yet to meet a coconut/non-dairy ice cream she doesn’t like, though chocolate is pretty great!

Join us for another installment of Novel Night, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. And we’ll also have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles. Also worth noting: we’re offering 20% OFF ALL FICTION TITLES during Novel Night (from 6pm till closing).

This month’s Novel Night guests are Barbara Ann Wright, Matthew Borgard, and Erin Kennemer.

Barbara Ann Wright writes fantasy and sci-fi. Her fiction has made Tor.com’s Reviewer’s Choice books of 2012 and BookRiot’s 100 Must-Read Sci-Fi Fantasy Novels By Female Authors. She has been a Foreword Review BOTYA Finalist as well as a Goldie and Lambda Award finalist. She’s won five Rainbow Awards.

Matthew Borgard is a writer and software engineer living in Cedar Park. His short fiction has appeared in several collections, including the Stoker-nominated Dark Tales of Lost  Civilizations, as well as Crowded Magazine. His nonfiction writing has appeared on Eleven-ThirtyEight and in Cheyenne’s hometown newspaper, the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle.

Erin Kennemer is a speculative fiction author of several short stories. She studied at Texas A&M and continues to owe them money to this day. You can find her elbow deep in the dirt outside on off days, either gardening or burying another body. If you want on her good side, bring hummus and veggies.

Austin Writers Roulette is an uncensored, theme-inspired spoken word and storytelling event. It features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who 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 “Eight Reasons To…”—why do you do what you do? An open mic follows the featured artists. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.

Join us for a night of broads reading chap(book)s and broad(side)s! Featuring Claire Bowman, Julie Howd, Vanessa Couto Johnson, Bridget Brewer, Stephanie Goehring, and Julie Poole.

Bridget Brewer (bottom left) is a writer, artist, performer, and educator based in Austin, TX. She earned her MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University in 2016, and currently serves as the Fiction Co-Editor for Nat Brut. Her work has appeared in FANZINE, Tarpaulin Sky Magazine, The Collagist, Awst Press, and elsewhere.

Join us in celebrating the recent launch of Laurie Filipelli’s new poetry collection, Girl Paper Stone. With musical guest flutist Marcela DeFaria Casaubon and a post-reading conversation led by author and composer Jan Bozarth.

In her luminous book, Filipelli remakes the constellations of a modern life. Her poems re-draw the lines between the parts of the world, helping us to see there are no divisions between planting a plumbago and watching the passage of hateful legislation, no space between grief for a lost father and the wonder of what he’s told the speaker: “the whale’s veins are so wide we could swim/ to her heart.” By looking so tenderly and incisively at the actual experience of a life, Filipelli makes us see our own differently. —Sasha West

Laurie Filipelli is the author of Elseplace (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2013) and Girl Paper Stone (Black Lawrence Press, 2018). Her essays and poems have appeared at apt magazine, The Rumpus, Salamander, Superstition Review and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a Yaddo fellowship and lives in Austin where she provides coaching and editing services through her business, Mighty Writing.

Join us in celebrating the launch of Austin: A Poem by Dave Oliphant (Alamo Bay Press). Dave will be joined by Kanya Lyons, who will share her video interview, “Dave Oliphant: Native Texas Poet.”

Written with knowledge and sympathy, the poem contains a delightful tangle of details. Lyndon Johnson, Elisabet Ney, Peter Flawn, Custer, O. Henry, and Joseph Jones (the sage of Waller Creek)—public figures and personal friends interact in the city of Oliphant’s imagination…. A lengthy proem, set at the grave of Stephen F. Austin in the State Cemetery, contains a brilliant passage about Austin in prison…. The oblique narration is kept on track with masterful transitions….[T]he language is carefully crafted, with interesting and often beautiful sound-play in virtually every line. —John Herndon, Austin American-Statesman

Dave Oliphant was born in 1939 in Fort Worth, Texas. Host Publications has published two of his collections of poetry, Memories of Texas Towns & Cities (2000) and Backtracking (2004). His Maria’s Poems (1987) won an Austin Book Award. Host has also published three books that he translated from the Spanish: Enrique Lihn’s Figures of Speech (1999); Oliver Welden’s Love Hound (2006), winner of best book of poetry at the 2007 New York Book Festival; and Nicanor Parra’s After-Dinner Declarations (2009), winner of the 2011 translation award from the Texas Institute of Letters. KD: A Jazz Biography, his verse biography of Texas trumpeter Kenny Dorham, was published in 2012 by Wings Press, and The Pilgrimage: Selected Poems, 1962-2012 appeared from Lamar University Press in 2013. The poetry collections The Cowtown Circle and María’s Book were published by Alamo Bay Press in 2014 and 2016 respectively. He was with the University of Texas at Austin for 30 years, as an editor and a senior lecturer.

Join us for an evening with Elliott Turner, who will be reading from The Night of the Virgin, his award-winning debut novel.

The Night of the Virgin is 80,000 words of literary fiction that starts as a sports narrative and twists into a piercing confessional about the immigrant experience in the U.S. as its undocumented protagonist pursues his dream. It’s a fascinating read, particularly in this political climate.

Turner’s . . . expert knowledge of [soccer] is evident throughout, and it gives the story a near-journalistic authenticity. The novel as a whole … is richly drawn—a moving bildungsroman and a thoughtful reflection on what it means to lack a settled sense of self. —Kirkus Reviews

Elliott Turner’s writing has appeared in The Guardian, VICE, Fusion, Transect Magazine, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and many other journals. The Night of the Virgin is his debut novel, and a finalist for the International Latino Book Award for First Fiction. He studied political science at Emory University, and lives in Houston, Texas with his wife and three children.

Join us in celebrating the recent release of Hazem Fahmy’s debut chapbook, Red//Jild//Prayer, winner of the 2017 Diode Editions Contest. Hazem will be joined by Jasmine C. Bell, Jordan Cooley, and Mark Cugini.

Hazem Fahmy is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated poet and critic from Cairo. He is currently pursuing his MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. His debut chapbook, Red//Jild//Prayer, won the 2017 Diode Editions Contest. A Watering Hole Fellow, his poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming in Apogee, HEArt, Mizna, and The Offing. His performances have been featured on Button Poetry and Write About Now. He is a reader for the Shade Journal, a poetry editor for Voicemail Poems, and a contributing writer to Film Inquiry.

Jasmine C. Bell (above left) is a poet and artist in Austin, Texas and currently attends the University of Texas in pursuit of her Master’s degree in Social Work. Jasmine has competed as part of the UT Spitshine CUPSI team from 2015-2017 and coached the team in 2018. She is Co-President of the only poetry organization on UT’s campus (Spitshine Poetry) where she leads workshops and organizes open mics. She was a 2017 Write Bloody Contest finalist and has been published or is forthcoming in Button Poetry, Write About Now, Vinyl, Bird’s Thumb, Kweli Journal, Nat. Brut, Monstering Magazine, and Apricity Magazine. She spends her time writing, studying, drawing, singing, and eating.

Jordan Cooley (above middle) is a writer and self taught artist in Austin, TX. She has work in or forth coming from Paper Darts, FIVE:2:ONE Press, Pressure Gauge Press, and others. When she isn’t writing, she’s doodling. She slings drinks for money, which is another way to say she loves to meet people and make things that those people enjoy.

Mark Cugini (They/Them/Theirs; above right) is a genderqueer poet, editor, and event curator from Staten Island, NY. They are the author of I’m Just Happy To Be Here (Ink Press, 2014) and have been published in Pen America, The Lifted Brow, Hyperallergic, Barrelhouse, and Noö. The founding editor of Big Lucks, they recently organized Whale Prom: An Alternative AWP Bookfair. They also really like whales.

Austin Writers Roulette is an uncensored, theme-inspired spoken word and storytelling event. It features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who 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 “Out of Tune,” when the prevailing logic is illogical. The featured artists, sharing their discordant narratives, include: SPENCER MIRABAL, STEPHANIE ELISE FRENO, SHLOMI HARIF, HOPE RUIZ, TERESA Y. ROBERSON, and THOM THE WORLD POET. An open mic follows the featured artists. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.

Everyone is welcome to attend the Austin Community College Creative Writing Department’s Literary Coffeehouse, hosted by John Herndon. An open mic follows the featured reader, so bring poems, stories, scripts, rants, raves or midnight confessions to share, or just come to listen and enjoy.

This month’s featured reader is Charlotte Gullick.

Charlotte Gullick is a novelist, essayist, editor, educator and Chair of the Creative Writing Department at Austin Community College. Charlotte’s first novel, By Way of Water, was chosen by Jayne Anne Phillips as the Grand Prize winner of the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards Program, and a special author’s edition was reissued by the Santa Fe Writers Project in November of 2013. Her other awards include a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship for Fiction, a Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry, a MacDowell Colony Residency, a Ragdale Residency, Faculty of Year from College of the Redwoods as well as the Evergreen State College 2012 Teacher Excellence Award.  She has taught in the Travis County Correctional Complex and organized classes and literary events for Veterans in the Austin Community.  Additionally, she has presented twice at the Associated Writing Programs Annual Conference (Washington, DC and Chicago, IL) on offering writing courses for Veterans. Charlotte’s work often explores the intersection of landscape, legacy, family, and identity, and she believes deeply in the power of story to create healing and coherence. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and daughter.

Join us for another installment of Novel Night, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. And we’ll also have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles. Also worth noting: we’re offering 20% OFF ALL FICTION TITLES during Novel Night (from 6pm till closing).

This month’s Novel Night is full of mystery (fiction)! Our guests are N. M. Cedeño, Meredith Lee, and Laura Oles.

N. M. Cedeño was born in Houston, grew up in the Dallas Metroplex, once lived in Amarillo, and currently lives near Austin, Texas. She writes mystery short stories and novels that are typically set in Texas. Her mysteries vary from traditional, to romantic suspense, to science fiction.

Meredith Lee is the pen name for the Austin-based writing team of Dixie Lee Evatt and Sue Meredith Cleveland. Their process includes research trips to foreign countries to sample wine and food and, when required, the occasional dramatic performance of a scene to make sure it “works.” Dixie Lee Evatt is a former political writer for the Austin American-Statesman. She later taught writing at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University. While there she published a book, along with colleagues, on the communication practices of small organizations, Thinking Big. Staying Small. When she teamed up with Sue to write fiction, they sold a screenplay treatment to a Hollywood producer. Although the movie was never made, they used the seed money to found ThirtyNineStars, their publishing company. They also produced a second screenplay based on the life of a Waco schoolteacher who was imprisoned in World War I because of his German heritage and his work with early radio broadcasting. That screenplay, Wireless, was a finalist for the Chesterfield Writer’s Film Project in 2003. Sue Meredith Cleveland is an award-winning artist who has worked in multiple media including oil, watercolor, and fiber. Her earliest publications include articles advocating childbirth education and humanizing hospital care. Shrouded, a mystery Sue collaborated on with Dixie, was a finalist in the 2017 Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest. Sue’s essays, literary memoir pieces, and short stories have been featured in award-winning literary journals, magazines, and blogs. Sue has written two pre-published Middle Grade novels: A Shadow Over Silver and Blue Water Over Dark Secrets.

Laura Oles’ debut mystery, Daughters of Bad Men, is an Agatha nominee, a Claymore Award finalist, and a Killer Nashville Readers’ Choice nominee. She is also a Writers’ League of Texas Award Finalist. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies, including Murder on Wheels, which won the Silver Falchion Award in 2016. She lives with her family in the Texas Hill Country.

In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world.

This month’s guest is Rinku Sen, author of The Accidental American and Stir It Up: Lessons on Community Organizing.

Rinku Sen is a writer and a political strategist. With over 30 years experience leading racial justice organizations in the United States, she has trained thousands of organizers, activists and agents of social change across the country. Rinku is currently Senior Strategist at Race Forward, having formerly served as Executive Director and as Publisher of their award-winning news site Colorlines. Under Sen’s leadership, Race Forward has generated some of the most impactful racial justice successes. One example is the groundbreaking 2011 Shattered Families report, which changed the immigration debate with investigative research on how record deportations of parents were leading to the placement of thousands of children in foster care, often separating them permanently and legally from their families. Sen was the architect of Drop the I-Word, a campaign for media outlets to stop referring to immigrants as “illegal,” resulting in the Associated Press, USA Today, LA Times, and many more outlets dropping the i-word, affecting millions of readers every day. Her books Stir it Up and The Accidental American theorize a model of community organizing that integrates a political analysis of race, gender, class, poverty, sexuality, and other systems. A key advisor in the philanthropy world, Rinku has worked with foundations like Novo, Open Society, Nathan Cummings and Kellogg. She is a devoted board member of numerous social justice organizations including Hedgebrook, a residency that supports visionary women writers to help achieve a just and peaceful world; the Ms. Foundation for Women, a public foundation building women’s collective power for social, economic and reproductive justice; and the Advancement Project, a multiracial civil rights organization dedicated to eliminating structural racism through high impact policy change. She also serves on the board of Maven, the largest independent media coalition in North America. A highly sought-after keynote speaker for colleges, Sen has spoken at Harvard, Brown, University of Michigan, Penn State, and was the Commencement Speaker at Antioch New England. She is a James O. Gibson Innovation Fellow at PolicyLink.

Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.

You’re invited to join us for the seventh Austin edition of the Why There Are Words reading series! This month’s readers are Jane Rosenberg LaForge, Bob Livingston, and Mary Helen Specht.

Founded in 2010 by Peg Alford Pursell, Why There Are Words is an award-winning literary reading series that takes place every second Thursday in the San Francisco Bay Area, and beginning in 2017, will take place at 5 more national locations: New York City, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Portland, and Austin. Each reading event presents a range of writers, including those who have published books and those who haven’t. All writers share the criterion of excellence. The guiding idea behind the series is that good work is timeless and needs to be heard regardless of marketing or commercial concerns. If you’re interested in reading or would like more information, please contact Alison: wtawaustin@gmail.com.

Jane Rosenberg LaForge is the author of a memoir, two full-length poetry collections, and four chapbooks of poetry. Her novel, The Hawkman: A Fairy Tale of the Great War, has been named by Publisher’s Lunch/BuzzBooks as a book to watch. Her 2012 chapbook was one of two winners of the Red Ochre Press chapbook award, and her short fiction and poetry have been nominated for a storySouth Million Writers Award; the Pushcart Prize; and the Best of the Net compilation. She lives in New York with her husband and daughter.

As a member of Austin’s legendary Lost Gonzo Band, Bob Livingston toured and recorded with such musical visionaries as Jerry Jeff Walker, Michael Martin Murphey, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and many more. The singer-songwriter played an integral role in helping to create the music that first earned Austin the designation of “Live Music Capital of the World.” Traveling since the 80s as a Music Ambassador for the US State Department, he has taken Texas music as far afield as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Africa, Vietnam, and the Middle East, demonstrating again and again the unique power that music has to build bridges between peoples of the world. These tours earned him the honor of being appointed Ambassador of Goodwill by the State of Texas and Austin’s International Music Ambassador by the City of Austin. His last CD, Gypsy Alibi, released in 2011 on New Wilderness Records, won Album of the Year at the Texas Music Awards 2011, and he was inducted into Texas Music Legends Hall of Fame in 2016. While playing over 180 shows a year, he is also managing to write a memoir for Texas Tech Press, play with a multi-cultural band from Texas and India called Cowboys & Indians, and is in the final mix on a new album on Howlin’ Dog Records called Up The Flatland Stairs.

Mary Helen Specht‘s debut novel, Migratory Animals, was an Editors’ Choice by the New York Times Book Review and the Austin American-Statesmen, an IndieNext Pick, and an Apple iBook selection. Migratory Animals also won the Texas Institute of Letters Best First Fiction Award and the Writers’ League of Texas Best Book of Fiction. A previous Fulbright Scholar to Nigeria and Dobie-Paisano Fellow, she is currently Associate Professor of Creative Writing at St. Edward’s University. Texas Monthly has named her one of “Ten Writers to Watch.”

Join us for a FREE monthly reading series, Malvern’s Multi-Verse, in which we explore the infinite possible (multi)verses of Austin’s boundless literary universe! Space-time might be flat and stretch out infinitely, but Malvern’s Multi-Verse is well-rounded, lasts for about an hour, and includes free cookies! Yes indeed, it’s the best of all possible worlds…

This month’s guest is Ken Fontenot.

Ken Fontenot is a poet and novelist who lives in Austin. He is author of four books of poetry, including In a Kingdom of Birds, which was named best book of poetry by the Texas Institute of Letters, and All My Animals and Stars, which won the Austin Book Award; and a novel, For Mr. Raindrinker. He has an MA in German from UT Austin and is currently putting together a book of his Collected Translations.

Join us in celebrating International Translation Day with a reading featuring renowned translators Marian Schwartz and Philip Boehm. Marian will be reading from her translation of Russian author Leonid Yuzefovich’s Horsemen of the Sands, and Philip will read from his translation of Polish author Hannah Krall’s Chasing the King of Hearts, which won the Soeurette Diehl Fraser award for translation given by the Texas Institute of Letters.

Also worth noting: all our books in translation will be 20% OFF on September 30th, International Translation Day!

Join us in celebrating the launch of a new book of poetry, Five Friends on Sunday Afternoons. With readings from David Jewell, John Lee, Bill Jeffers, John McElhenney, and Lyman Grant (left to right, below).

David Jewell is a poet, storyteller, author, actor and stream of consciousness visionary imagineer who chronicles the 21st century mind and its many idiosyncrasies. He and his writing have appeared in two Richard Linklater movies, Before Sunrise and Waking Life, and he’s shared shows with Laurie Anderson and Leon Redbone. His books are time bombs already detonating in another generation and hIs bio says he was “born in blank and lives in and.”

John Lee is the national best-selling author of The Flying Boy: Healing the Wounded Man and 20 other titles. He has taught Literature, Humanities, American Studies and Religious Studies at The University of Alabama, The University of Texas, Austin Community College, and Northeast Alabama Community College. While Lee is an internationally-recognized pioneer in The Men’s and Recovery Movements, thanks to his 22-year friendship and collaboration with the poet Robert Bly (audio On The Mountain of Tears and Laughter, poems by Robert Bly and John Lee), Lee has become a recognized poet in his own right giving readings in bookstores, online and at The Library of Congress. Lee has been published in several magazines and authored three chapbooks—Sleeping in Public, Too Much Talk and Too Little, and The Dragon’s Letters.

Bill Jeffers Has been writing words and reading them out loud in and around Austin for more than 40 years.

John McElhenney is an internationally recognized single-parent author and coach. His blog WholeParent.org has been syndicated widely and gets 15,000 reads a month. John lives in Austin, Texas with his two kids. Writer, coach, musician, tennis player, dad.

Lyman Grant teaches at Austin Community College as a adjunct online professor of English, Creative Writing, and Humanities. He also tutors and teaches at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is the author and editor of several books, including five volumes of poetry, the most recent being Old Men on Tuesday Mornings (Alamo Bay Press).

Everyone is welcome to attend the Austin Community College Creative Writing Department’s Literary Coffeehouse, hosted by John Herndon. An open mic follows the featured reader, so bring poems, stories, scripts, rants, raves or midnight confessions to share, or just come to listen and enjoy.

This month’s featured reader is Rachel Starnes, author of The War at Home.

At once a portrait of the devastating strains that military life puts on families and a meditation on what it means to be left behind, The War at Home is a brave portrait of a modern military family and the realities of separation, endurance, and love that overcomes.

“Rachel Starnes’s The War at Home navigates the joys, fears, compromises, and casualties that create the terrain of marriage. And if you are a military spouse, her memoir will reveal thoughts you never even knew you had. This is a wise and fearless book.” —Siobhan Fallon, author of You Know When the Men Are Gone

Featured reader Rachel Starnes is author of The War at Home, a painful and funny memoir of life as a Navy wife. She earned her MFA at California State University, Fresno, and has published essays in The Colorado Review, Front Porch Journal, and O Magazine. She lives in Georgetown.

Join us in celebrating the launch of Yuki Tanaka’s poetry collection Séance in Daylight, winner of the 2018 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. Featuring readings from Yuki, as well as Rachel Heng and Shangyang Fang.

Séance in Daylight is about desire, transformation, and dreams; it is also about intricate, yet light-footed sessions with the dead. The ever-present undertow of the poet’s sharp observations keeps these lush, yet lapidary lyrics from slipping into solipsism or sentimentality. ‘Back home, my body thin and healthy / cooling my feet on a crystal ball like a psychic out of business,’ says one speaker, returning from an imagined visitation. These poems remind us that at times, life’s very existence feels unbearably inexplicable, beautiful, perverse, moody, and touching. Yuki Tanaka connects these feelings with a spiritual intensity and a sweet wit. His images startle, ‘A bare white arm / disinfected. Plump, sizzling,’ and they pierce into our inwardness, ‘This pile of wood wished to be a stairway / but couldn’t. Will you pretend to climb it. —Sandra Lim

Yuki Tanaka is an MFA student at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas-Austin. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Best New Poets, Kenyon Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. His chapbook Séance in Daylight was the winner of the 2018 Frost Place Chapbook Competition.

Rachel Heng’s debut novel, Suicide Club, will be translated in nine languages worldwide and has been featured as a most anticipated summer read by ELLE, Gizmodo, Bitch Media, The Rumpus, NYLON and The Irish Times. Her short fiction has received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention and Prairie Schooner‘s Jane Geske Award, and has been published in Glimmer Train, The Offing, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. Rachel is currently a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers, UT Austin.

Shangyang Fang grew up in Chengdu, China. He majored in Civil Engineering as an undergrad. After knowing there is a higher employment rate in the field of poetry, he decided to pursue an MFA. He writes both in English and Chinese. Sometimes he writes poems first in Chinese to structure their skeletons, then translate them into English to add flesh and blood. He is now a poetry fellow at the Michener Center for Writers.

Join us for an evening with poets Ellen Doré Watson and Abe Louise Young (left to right, below).

Ellen Doré Watson is the author of five full-length collections of poems, most recently, pray me stay eager, from Alice James Books. Earlier works include Dogged Hearts, from Tupelo Press, This Sharpening, also from Tupelo, and two from Alice James Books, We Live in Bodies and Ladder Music, winner of the New England/New York award. Watson’s journal appearances include APR, Tin House, Orion, Field, Ploughshares and The New Yorker. Among her honors are a Rona Jaffe Writers Award, fellowships to the MacDowell Colony and to Yaddo, and a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship. She has translated nine volumes from Brazilian Portuguese, most notably the poetry of Adélia Prado, including The Alphabet in the Park (Wesleyan University Press), Ex-Voto (Tupelo), and, most recently The Mystical Rose, from the UK poetry publisher Bloodaxe Books. Watson serves as poetry and translation editor of The Massachusetts Review and core faculty at Drew University’s Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Poetry and Translation.

Abe Louise Young is a believer in the power of words, generosity and vulnerability to make meaningful change. She’s the author of three chapbooks of poetry, Heaven to Me (Headmistress Press, 2017), Ammonite (Magnolia Press Collective, 2011), and Poem for a Friend Growing Lighter and Lighter (forthcoming Spring 2019 from Dancing Girl Press). She’s also the author or editor of numerous guides for educators, including the free guide Queer Youth Advice for Educators: How to Respect and Protect Your LGBTQ Students (Next Generation Press, 2011) and Hip Deep: Opinion, Essays and Vision from American Teenagers (Next Generation Press, 2005). She was nominated as Best Activist in Austin 2017 by the Austin Chronicle for her work mobilizing hundreds of people to prevent homelessness by building personal resource-sharing networks with families displaced by Hurricane Harvey, an effort called Hurricane Love. Young holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James Michener Fellow in Writing, an MA from Northwestern University and a BA from Smith College.

Join us for another installment of Novel Night, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. And we’ll also have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles. Also worth noting: we’re offering 20% OFF ALL FICTION TITLES during Novel Night (from 6pm till closing).

This month’s Novel Night is a special edition—Political Science Professor Roy Casagranda will be launching his new novel, The Blood Throne of Caria.

Casagranda’s story is a bona fide page-turner that should have readers rooting for the tenacious Artemisia from beginning to end. A gripping, fast-paced adventure that delivers passionate writing. —Kirkus Reviews

The Blood Throne of Caria pushes back against the dominant misogynistic and racist portrayals of Artemisia I as a cruel and maniacal ruler. Casagranda reexamines the much-maligned queen to create an explicitly feminist portrait of ancient woman who must achieve to fulfill her ambitions and endure both familiar and extreme gender limits. Twenty-five centuries ago, the very mention of a woman’s name in public was taboo in Athens, yet despite this Artemisia assailed the ramparts of patriarchy to become one of the greatest rulers in human history.

Roy Casagranda got a GED and a BS in political science and went on to teach high school calculus, algebra, history, physics, and chemistry. Eventually he went back to school for a couple of graduate degrees and now teaches political science at a community college. Though he is obsessed with politics, he mostly hates it. And though he is obsessed with the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean he mostly loves it. Roy is especially interested in telling stories from the perspective of the loser, the forgotten, the unjustly villainized, and women with weapons.

Join us in celebrating the recent launch of Rachel Heng’s debut novel, Suicide Club: A Novel About Living. Featuring a reading from Rachel, as well as a Q & A hosted by Carrie Fountain.

Every month seems to bring some new health study promising an authoritative guide on how to get stronger, feel better, or live longer. Every month, we are left more confused than when we started. In Suicide Club: A Novel About Living, Heng’s characters live in a dystopian reality where immortality is possible, conforming to a shadowy health ministry is the new careerism, and no one seems to be happy. Along the lines of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, Suicide Club takes place in a science fiction reality that feels more real than we would like to admit.

Rachel Heng’s debut novel, Suicide Club, will be translated in nine languages worldwide and has been featured as a most anticipated summer read by ELLE, Gizmodo, Bitch Media, The Rumpus, NYLON and The Irish Times. Her short fiction has received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention and Prairie Schooner‘s Jane Geske Award, and has been published in Glimmer Train, The Offing, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere. Rachel is currently a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers, UT Austin.

Join author Amber Elby to celebrate the release of her new novel, Double Double Toil, the sequel to Cauldron’s Bubble. Enjoy a reading and Q&A session with Amber and special guest Nori Rose, as they explore new twists on old tales.

Amber Elby was born in Grand Ledge, Michigan but spent much of her childhood in the United Kingdom. She began writing when she was three years old and created miniature books by asking her family how to spell every, single, word. Several years later, she saw her first Shakespearean comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, in London. Many years later, she studied Creative Writing at Michigan State University’s Honors College before earning her Master of Fine Arts degree in Screenwriting at the University of Texas at Austin. She currently resides in Texas with her husband and two daughters and spends her time teaching, traveling, and getting lost in imaginary worlds.

Nori Rose is a writer, poet, multimedia artist, Witch, and unabashed Scorpio who draws inspiration from both sides of the Veil. She graduated with honors from Austin Community College in 2014 with an Associate of Arts in Creative Writing, and earned a BA in English & Creative Writing from the University of Texas in 2017. While at UT, she participated in the Digital Storytelling Workshop and published two theses: a critical examination of human-animal interdependency in Life Of Pi (basically, she spent a year writing 60 pages on why the tiger is really a person) and a creative writing thesis which included an excerpt of her forthcoming novel, The Dreaming Hour. Her work has been published in The Rio Review, Feminine Inquiry, Musings of a #LonelyFeminist, Hothouse, and online in Gingerbread House Literary Magazine and Corvid Queen. Her poem “Sluts” was featured at the 2015 Art As Activism showcase hosted by the Gender & Sexuality Center at UT Austin, and her poetry has been incorporated into an improv dance showcase. She was a 2016 Writers in New York participant at New York University, has lead workshops on Professional Writing and Dark Fantasy to Austin-area youth, and is currently working with other Witches and creatives to produce a zine for the times we’re upon. When not writing, making art and dismantling the patriarchy, she reads Tarot, collects tattoos, and bakes things with flowers. An eighth generation Texan, she lives in the Austin area with her husband, two rescue cats, a rescue dog, and a blue tongue skink.

Austin Writers Roulette is an uncensored, theme-inspired spoken word and storytelling event. It features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who 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 “Otherworldly Intrigues”… what in the WORLD do we have here? Our featured artists include: LARRY MAYFIELD, RG HOOK, TERESA Y ROBERSON, JOSH DAVIS, and THOM THE WORLD POET. An open mic follows the featured artists. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.

Join us for an evening with visiting poet Valerie Wallace, who will be reading from her collection House of McQueen, released in March of this year. Valerie will be joined by Simone Muench and Katy Chrisler.

Selected by Vievee Francis for the Four Way Books Intro Prize, Valerie Wallace’s House of McQueen is a glittering debut by an assured new voice. Inhabiting the life and work of Alexander McQueen, Wallace builds a fantastical world using both original language and excerpts drawn from interviews, supermodels, Shakespeare, and more. At turns fierce and vulnerable, here is a collection that leaps from runway to fairytale to street with wild, brilliant grace.

Wallace conducts a literary seance in her transcendent debut, serving as a scholar of and medium for the late iconic fashion designer Alexander McQueen (1969–2010). Devising her poems using an extensive array of sources, Wallace manages to encapsulate the “monstrous and magical” visions that defined McQueen’s oeuvre. —Publishers Weekly, starred review

Valerie Wallace is the author of House of McQueen (Four Way Books, 2018) and the chapbook The Dictators’ Guide to Good Housekeeping (dancing girl press, 2011). Her work was chosen by Margaret Atwood for the 2012 Atty Award, and she has received an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award and the San Miguel de Allende Writers Conference Award in Poetry. Her work has been supported by various grants and fellowships. She earned her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is Associate Director, Communications for the project Virtue, Happiness, & the Meaning of Life at the University of Chicago and teaches at Harold Washington College, the Newberry Library, and offers private workshops.

Simone Muench is the author of several books including Wolf Centos (Sarabande, 2014). Her recent, Suture, is a book of sonnets written with Dean Rader (Black Lawrence, 2017). She and Dean also edited They Said: A Multi-Genre Anthology of Contemporary Collaborative Writing (BLP, 2018). She is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship and the Meier Foundation for the Arts Achievement Award, and is professor of English at Lewis University where she teaches creative writing and film studies. She serves as a poetry editor for Tupelo Quarterly, the chief faculty advisor for Jet Fuel Review, and the organizer (with Beth McDermott) of the Danny’s Sunday Series.

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 in Tin House, Conflict of Interest, The Volta, The Seattle Review and Black Warrior Review. She currently lives and works in Austin, Texas.

BREAK FREE … and share words with us. Join us for an evening of enlightenment when Louisiana poets Bessie Senette and Clare L. Martin and Austin poet Robert Okaji share their work.

Louisiana native Bessie Senette has published her first book, Cutting the Clouds, a Bayou Mystic’s Poems, Musings, and Imaginings. Currently, she is finalizing Louisiana Pines, a chapbook manuscript. Senette is an author, healer, public speaker, and ordained interfaith minister. In September of 2018, she served as Artistic Director and featured performer of a multi-disciplined arts event celebrating the Sufi poet Rumi. Senette lives in Lafayette, Louisiana with her husband of 35 years. She has two sons, two daughters-in-law, four grand-pups and one cantankerous grand-cat.

The author of five chapbook collections, two micro-chapbooks and a mini-digital chapbook, Robert Okaji writes in his backyard shack in Texas. He once won a goat-catching contest, and his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Slippery Elm, Vox Populi, Panoply, Hamilton Stone Review, The New Reader and elsewhere.

Join us for an afternoon with authors A. R. Ashworth, K. P. Gresham, andHelen Currie Foster. All three will be sharing excerpts from recent novels.

A. R. Ashworth earned a degree in history and worked for over twenty years in high tech. Along the way he developed a lasting love for London, dark British-style mysteries and Scandinavian noir. Souls of Men, the first novel of the Elaine Hope series, was released in April 2017. Two Faced, the second Elaine Hope novel, was released in July 2018.

K.P. Gresham, author of the Pastor Matt Hayden Mystery series and Three Days at Wrigley Field, moved to Texas as quick as she could. Born Chicagoan, K.P. and her husband moved to Texas, fell in love with not shoveling snow and are 30+ year Lone Star State residents. She finds that her dual country citizenship, the Midwest and Texas, provide deep fodder for her award-winning novels. Her varied careers as a media librarian and technical director, middle school literature teacher and theatre playwright and director add humor and truth to her stories. A graduate of Houston’s Rice University Novels Writing Colloquium, K.P. now resides in Austin, Texas, where life with her tolerant but supportive husband and narcissistic Chihuahua is acceptably weird.

Helen Currie Foster writes the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series. She earned a BA from Wellesley College, an MA from the University of Texas, and a JD from the University of Michigan. Having grown up in Texas surrounded by books and storytelling, Foster taught high school English and covered politics and wrote features (prize-winning) for a weekly newspaper. After practicing law for more than thirty years as an environmental lawyer, she found the character Alice and her stories had suddenly appeared in her life. Married with two children, Foster lives north of Dripping Springs, Texas, supervised by three burros. She’s deeply curious about human history and how, uninvited, the past keeps crashing the party. Foster works in Austin and is active with Hays County Master Naturalists and Austin Shakespeare. She currently serves as president of the local Heart of Texas chapter of the national organization Sisters in Crime. Foster enjoys meeting with readers in book groups and libraries in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.

Join us in celebrating the launch of Alisar Eido’s new novel, Night Bound. With readings from Alisar, as well as Victoria Champion and Brennan Utley.

Alisar Eido is an Austin author whose work spans multiple genres from psychological thrillers to dark fantasy. Her new release, Night Bound, is book two of three in The Soulfire Series. The author’s inspiration stems from her many experiences with strange coincidences and unexplainable events.

Brennan Utley is an emerging author based in Austin who blends realist, fabulist, science fiction, and satirical traditions into his unique and often darkly funny stories and aspiring novels. He is currently working late into the night on a handful of new projects and teaches in Bastrop, Texas.

Victoria Champion is an author of dark fiction, horror, and dark fantasy. She met Alisar while in a Creative Writing class while pursuing her Creative Writing degree. She has published multiple short stories and a novel, Zombie Flood: Disaster of the Dead.

Join Bat City Review and Malvern Books for SILKEN SAD UNCERTAIN: A Haunted Reading & Open Mic! Featuring Daniel Eduardo Ruiz, Michelle Dominique Burk, KING MTN, Sarah Matthes, and others. Bring your spookiest poems and ghost stories for an all-ages open mic.

Costumes highly encouraged.

Join us for an evening with Danielle Sellers (left) and Traci Brimhall (right).

Danielle Sellers’ poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Subtropics, The Cimarron Review, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere. She is the author of two collections of poetry: Bone Key Elegies (Main Street Rag 2009) and The Minor Territories (Sundress publications 2018). She teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Trinity Valley School in Fort Worth, Texas.

Traci Brimhall is the author of Saudade (Copper Canyon), Our Lady of the Ruins (W.W. Norton), and Rookery (Southern Illinois University Press), as well as the forthcoming Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod (Copper Canyon). She’s an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Kansas State University.

Join us for another installment of Novel Night, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. Also worth noting: we’re offering 20% OFF ALL FICTION TITLES during Novel Night (from 6pm till closing).

This month’s Novel Night will be an evening of suspense, with readings from mystery writers Manning Wolfe, Billy Kring, and Mark Pryor.

Manning Wolfe, an award-winning author and attorney residing in Austin, Texas, writes cinematic-style, smart, fast-paced thrillers with a salting of Texas bullshit. Her series features Austin Lawyer Merit Bridges. As a graduate of Rice University and the University of Texas School of Law, Manning’s experience has given her a voyeur’s peak into some shady characters’ lives and a front row seat to watch the good people who stand against them.

Billy Kring is a writer and actor, and in another life, he was a Border Patrol Agent and a consultant on terrorism and international border issues. He has worked in Mexico, Central and South America, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pan Pacific. He is an eight-generation Texan, and lives in a small town in southwest Texas, an hour from the Mexican border, so it’s close enough to visit when he feels the need.

Mark Pryor is a former newspaper reporter from England, and now a prosecutor with the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, in Austin, Texas. He is the author of the Hugo Marston mystery series, set in Paris, London, and Barcelona. The most recent is The Sorbonne Affair, a “flawlessly constructed whodunit,” according to Booklist. His previous novel in the series was The Paris Librarian, which the Toronto Globe & Mail says “has it all… a finely structured plot that’s one of Pryor’s best books yet.” The first Hugo Marston novel, The Bookseller, was a Library Journal Debut of the Month, and called “unputdownable” by Oprah.com, and the series has been featured in the New York Times. Mark is also the author of the psychological thriller, Hollow Man, and its sequel, Dominic, published in January of 2018. He also created the nationally-recognized true-crime blog D.A. Confidential. As a prosecutor, he has appeared on CBS News’s 48 Hours and Discovery Channel’s Discovery ID: Cold Blood.

Join us for an evening with acclaimed poets Diane Seuss and John Fry.

Diane Seuss’s most recent collection, Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl, was released in 2018 by Graywolf Press. Four-Legged Girl, published in 2015 by Graywolf Press, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open won the Juniper Prize and was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2010. Seuss was raised in rural Michigan, which she continues to call home.

Join us for an evening with Kathleen Winter, Mong-Lan, and Jess Smith (left to right, below).

Kathleen Winter is the author of two poetry collections, I will not kick my friends (2018), which won the Elixir Poetry Prize, and Nostalgia for the Criminal Past, winner of the 2013 Texas Institute of Letters Bob Bush Memorial Award. Her poems have appeared in Tin House, The New Statesman, Agni, New Republic, Poetry London, The Texas Observer, Gulf Coast, and other journals. Winter was granted fellowships at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Dobie Paisano Ranch, Dora Maar House, James Merrill House and Cill Rialaig Project. She grew up in Texas and teaches writing at Sonoma State in Northern California.

Mong-Lan celebrates the publication of her new book of poems and artwork, Dusk Aflame: poems & art; her new chapbook, Tone of Water in a Half-Filled Glass; and her new tango CD, Perfumas de Amor, de Argentina y Viet Nam (Tango por Siempre). Writer, former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and Fulbright Scholar, Mong-Lan has published seven books of poetry and artwork and three chapbooks, and has won prizes such as the Juniper Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Awards, among others. Frequently anthologized in the Best American Poetry Anthology, she has finished a novel, with an excerpt in the North American Review. A former college professor with the University of Maryland in Tokyo, she left her native Viet Nam on the last day of the evacuation of Sai Gon. Also a musician and composer, she has released ten albums of jazz piano and tangos, which showcase her poetry. As a visual artist, her artwork has been exhibited in galleries in the US, in museums such as the Dallas Museum of Art, and in public exhibitions in Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok, Bali, and Buenos Aires. Mong-Lan as a dancer has studied ballet, jazz, and flamenco, and has specialized as a tango dancer, performer, and teacher, having over twenty years of tango dance experience, in Buenos Aires, San Francisco, New York City, Tokyo, Bangkok, Hanoi, and elsewhere. Mong-Lan’s new solo show, “Ocean of Senses: Dream Songs & Tangos—one woman’s journey from Sai Gon to Buenos Aires, via America,” blends original poetry, jazz piano, guitar, dance, story, and song.

Jess Smith is currently pursuing a PhD in English at Texas Tech University, where she curates the LHUCA Literary Series. Her work can be found in Prairie Schooner, Waxwing, 32 Poems, The Rumpus, and other journals. She has received scholarships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Vermont Studio Center.

Austin Writers Roulette is an uncensored, theme-inspired spoken word and storytelling event. It features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who 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 “Attitude of Gratitude”—have you hugged/honored a Veteran today? Our lineup of featured artists includes URSULA PIKE, HOPE RUIZ, STEPHANIE WEBB, STEPHANIE ELISE FRENO, JIM TENNY, TERESA Y. ROBERSON, and THOM THE WORLD POET. An open mic follows the featured artists. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.

Everyone is welcome to attend the Austin Community College Creative Writing Department’s Literary Coffeehouse, hosted by John Herndon. An open mic follows the featured reader, so bring poems, stories, scripts, rants, raves or midnight confessions to share, or just come to listen and enjoy.

This month’s featured reader is Gogi Hale.

Gogi Hale is President of the Board for Kallisto Gaia Press. She is a member of the Writers’ League of Texas (WLT), Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and 2016 Finalist for the SCBWI Cynthia Leitich-Smith Mentoring Award. Active in the writing community, Gogi volunteers for the WLT, and continues her education through Austin Community College, WLT courses, workshops and in-depth study at The Writing Barn. She has hosted a weekly writing critique group for the past four years. Writer of fiction, both short and long form, Gogi is deep at work on a thriller and a YA road trip novel. One of her proudest moments was when a fellow writer read her work and said, “Sometimes you scare me.” Her short story, “The Choosing,” was recently published in the horror journal, Jitterpress #7. When not working on scary stories, Gogi loves to travel and cook. Lately, she has been experiencing the challenge of boiling lots and lots of water.

Join us in celebrating the launch of the English translation of local Iranian poet Roja Chamankar’s poetry collection, Dying in a Mother Tongue, translated by Blake Atwood (UT Press).

Born in Borazjan in southern Iran in 1981, Roja Chamankar is a poet and filmmaker with an academic background in Dramatic Literature and Cinematography. She has published nine books of poetry in Iran, co-written three books for children, and translated two collection of poems from French into Persian. Her works have been translated into several other languages and have won a number of national and international awards, including the Greek Nikos Gatsos prize in 2016. Roja has participated in numerous poetry readings and festivals in Iran, France, Sweden, Austria, Malta, and the United States. A collection of her poems titled Dying in A Mother Tongue, translated by Blake Atwood, will be published in November 2018 by the University of Texas Press. She is currently residing in Austin, Texas.

Blake Atwood is an assistant professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Reform Cinema in Iran: Film and Political Change in the Islamic Republic.

Join us for a reading from participants of the Fall 2018 Free Minds writing workshop. Writers will share their original works of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. All are welcome to attend!

Members of the Free Minds writing workshop meet to produce and share writing in a supportive group environment. These workshops are founded on the principle that each person has a unique and powerful voice which deserves to be heard. Free Minds is a collaboration between Foundation Communities, UT Austin, and ACC which offers educational and creative opportunities to adults who have faced barriers to higher education. To learn more about our free community writing workshops or our two-semester college course in humanities, visit www.FreeMindsAustin.org or call 512.610.7961.

In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world.

This month’s guest is writer and educator Jack Kaulfus.

Jack Kaulfus is the author of the short story collection Tomorrow or Forever (Transgress Press, 2018). Their work has been published in A Cappella Zoo, Heavy Feather Review, and Off the Rocks, among other journals. Jack teaches high school English in Austin, Texas, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University in San Marcos. When all the grading is finished, Jack plays in the queer Americana band Brand New Key.

Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.

Join us in celebrating the launch of Sara Bawany’s (W)holehearted: A collection of poetry and prose. Hosted by CAIR-Austin.

Sara Bawany is a social worker, a writer, and a poet with a passion for bringing to light some of the most taboo issues in the South Asian community. A graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, Sara received her Master’s degree in Social Work and her Bachelor’s degrees in Biology and Islamic Studies. She currently serves as a social worker at the Muslim Community Center for Human Services, providing free mental health counseling and mental health education to the community. She has been writing since she was very young and she recently published her first poetry book. Some of the themes you can find in her work include femininity, spirituality, social justice issues, identity, mental health, and domestic violence. When she is not writing or working, you can find her baking cookies, traveling somewhere new, or cuddling with her two pet rabbits.

Join us for a meet and greet with authors Jaycie Morrison and Barbara Ann Wright, hosted by the Sapphic Reading Group. Everyone is welcome!

Jaycie Morrison is a second generation native Dallasite who is also in love with Colorado and now splits her time between the two. She lives with her wife of over two decades and their spoiled dog. As a youngster, Jaycie and her friends entertained themselves making up and acting out stories featuring characters from popular TV shows or favorite bands. As a voracious reader, she always wondered what it would be like to write a book. Once she started, it was almost impossible to stop. Jaycie’s debut novel, Basic Training of the Heart, (Bold Strokes Books, fall, 2016) and its sequel, Heart’s Orders (2017), are the first two in a series that combine her love of the written word and her fascination with history. “Weather or Not,” in The Lone Star Collection, is her first short story.

Barbara Ann Wright pens fantasy and science fiction novels and short stories when not adding to her enormous book collection or ranting on her blog. She says that her writing career can be boiled down to two points: when her mother bought her a typewriter in the sixth grade, and when she took second place in the Isaac Asimov Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing in 2004. One gave her the means to write and the other gave her the confidence to keep going. Believing in oneself, in her opinion, is the most important thing a person can do. Barbara’s short fiction has appeared twice in Crossed Genres Magazine and once made Tangent Online’s recommended reading list. She’s published ten novels with Bold Strokes Books. Her first novel, The Pyramid Waltz, was one of Tor.com’s “Reviewer’s Choice” books. It was also a “Foreword Review Book of the Year” award finalist, as well as a GCLS Goldie finalist. In addition, The Pyramid Waltz won the 2013 Rainbow Award for Best Lesbian Fantasy and made Book Riot’s “100 Must-Read Sci-Fi Fantasy Novels By Female Authors.” Barbara has been the recipient of four other Rainbow Awards, and her novel, Coils, was a finalist in the 2017 Lambda Awards. Her latest novel is The Tattered Lands. Barbara lives in the Austin area with a small army of pets, and she’s not afraid to sic them on her critics.

The Sapphic Reading Group of Austin, Texas, celebrates and promotes works of fiction by women that authentically express the historical, cultural, political, and interpersonal experiences of lesbians. The group serves as a forum for lovers of lesbian fiction to discuss good reads, exchange books, and share news concerning the LesFic literary community. We welcome readers, authors, editors, and publishers of lesbian fiction.

Join us in celebrating the launch of Texas State University MFA professor Steve Wilson’s new poetry collection. With readings and book signings from Steve and fellow Finishing Line Press and MFA poetry graduate Prudence Arceneaux.

Steve Wilson’s poems have appeared in journals and anthologies nationwide. He is the author of four collections of poetry, and editor of The Anatomy of Water: A Sampling of Contemporary American Prose Poetry. He teaches in the MFA program at Texas State University.

C. Prudence Arceneaux, a native Texan, is a poet who has taught English and Creative Writing at Austin Community College, in Austin, TX, since 1998. She earned a BA in English/ Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico, but even before finishing the degree realized “there’s no place like home.” Upon her return to Texas, she began work on an MFA in Creative Writing, which she received from the University-formerly-known-as-Southwest-Texas-State in 1998. Her work has appeared in various journals, including Limestone, New Texas, Clark Street Review, and Inkwell. Her chapbook, Dirt, was published by Finishing Line Press in 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!

Join us in celebrating the Austin launch of Isabella Ides’ White Monkey Chronicles.

A rogue order of nuns are raising an undocumented deity on the down-low in this contemporary fable. Expect a plague of Cardinals. A feminist insurgency. And divine monkeyshines.

Born under the Hollywood Sign, Isabella was abducted by life, packed in a suitcase and dropped off in Texas. She launched as a poet in Austin, then a playwright in Dallas. Now with the launch of White Monkey Chronicles, she is relishing her latest reincarnation as a novelist.

Join us in celebrating the release of the Fall 2018 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 in celebrating the launch of Gabino Iglesias’ new novel, Coyote Songs. With readings from Gabino and Max Booth III.

Constructed as a sort of literary mosaic, Coyote Songs takes place on either side of the US-Mexico border, the frontera in Spanish. Madness, magic, murder, sadness, loss, and love all dwell within the pages of Coyote Songs, forces struggling to reconcile the ugliness and beauty of life. In the opening chapter, a young boy witnesses a murder while on a fishing trip with his father. Later, witches and saints, goddesses and monsters, heroic criminals and villainous victims all play their parts in a story that owes as much to magical realism as noir. —TNB Book Review

Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist, professor, and book critic living in Austin. He is the author of Coyote Songs and Zero Saints. His words have appeared in venues like the New York Times, The Rumpus, The Los Angeles Times, and others. He is the book reviews editor for PANK Magazine and a columnist for LitReactor and CLASH Media.

Max Booth III is the Editor-in-Chief of Perpetual Motion Machine, the Managing Editor of Dark Moon Digest, and the co-host of Castle Rock Radio, a Stephen King-themed podcast. His new novel, Carnivorous Lunar Activities, will be published by Fangoria in February 2019 and is now available for pre-order.

Join over 25 nationally recognized Texas poets as they read their work from the 2019 Texas Poetry Calendar and celebrate the 21st Edition of this iconic journal / planner / calendar.

Featured poets include Christine Boldt, Hugh Burke, Sandra Cobb, Diana Conces, Chip Dameron, Charles Darnell, Terry Dawson, Nancy Fierstien, Christine Gilbert, Amy Greenspan, Barbara Gregg, Laura Guli, Betsy Joseph, Carie Juettner, Lauren Kinzie, Kimberley Lambright, Jim LaVilla-Havelin, Wade Martin, Robert Okaji, Frank Pool, Tina Posner, Margi McCreless Roe, Carol Coffee Reposa, Shubh Schiesser, Mary Louise Shack, Rie Sheridan Rose, Jan Spence, Dee Susong, Claire Vogel-Camargo, Christine Wenk-Harrison, Allyson Whipple, Steve Wilson, with 2019 Calendar editor, Cindy Huyser and Kallisto Gaia Press managing editor, Tony Burnett.

This event is supported in part by the city of Austin Economic Development Department Cultural Arts Division.

Austin Writers Roulette is an uncensored, theme-inspired spoken word and storytelling event. It features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who 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 “The End Is the Beginning”—you have to let go of some things to embrace new things. Our lineup of featured artists includes: LARRY MAYFIELD, URSULA PIKE, ASA MORRIS, HOPE RUIZ, JIM TENNY, STEPHANIE ELISE FRENO, TERESA Y. ROBERSON, and THOM THE WORLD POET. An open mic follows the featured artists. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.

Everyone is welcome to attend the Austin Community College Creative Writing Department’s Literary Coffeehouse, hosted by John Herndon. An open mic follows the featured reader, so bring poems, stories, scripts, rants, raves or midnight confessions to share, or just come to listen and enjoy.

This month’s featured reader is Cecily Parks (at right).

Featured reader Cecily Parks is the author of the poetry collections Field Folly Snow and O’Nights, and editor of the anthology The Echoing Green: Poems of Fields, Meadows, and Grasses. She teaches at Texas State University.

Join us for another installment of Novel Night, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. And we’ll also have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles. Also worth noting: we’re offering 20% OFF ALL FICTION TITLES during Novel Night (from 6pm till closing).

This month’s Novel Night features Rachael Sparks and Tamar Ben-Ur. Rachel will read from Resistant, a compelling hybrid of romance and science-based fiction; and Tamar will read from Oasis 2064, part one of a saga that begins in 2064, following a series of natural catastrophes that cause death, destitution, and the collapse of social systems.

Rachael Sparks was born in Waco, Texas. She graduated with a degree in microbiology from Texas A&M University. After a career in Austin, Texas, as a transplant specialist, she joined a startup fighting healthcare-acquired infections. She recently relocated with her husband, young daughter, and mother to Asheville, North Carolina, where she finally put her first novel onto the page. In her free time she serves on the board of the Asheville Museum of Science and loves to cook, brew, garden, and spend time with friends and family.

Tamar Ben-Ur retired from her position as a systems analyst and felt called to write a novel incorporating her grave concerns over climate change and social injustice. Her work intertwines her imagination with experiences such as twenty years of involvement in shamanic drumming sessions. She currently lives in Austin, Texas.

Get your cones ready for another round of Malvern Books’ FREE reading series, I SCREAM SOCIAL, hosted by Malvern’s own Annar Veröld & Schandra Madha. This month is our special annual holiday edition! Ugly sweaters strongly encouraged!

Featuring women-identified writers from the Austin community (and beyond!), this month’s I Screamers are Meg E. Griffitts, Meaghan Loraas, and Nicole Cortichiato.

Meg E. Griffitts is a poet and educator from Aurora, Colorado. Her work has appeared in White Stag, Crab Fat, Hypertrophic, BlazeVox, and others. She collects rocks, succulents, and cookbooks. Her favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate chip.

Meaghan Loraas is a third-year fiction student in the Texas State University MFA program. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, New South, subTerrain, and others. She is currently working on her first novel, and enjoys binge watching television and drinking IPAs that taste like trees. She also really likes to laugh. Her favorite ice cream flavor is chocolate peanut butter swirl.

If you ever attend an open mic in Austin, chances are you will see Nicole Cortichiato perform. She’s been a featured reader at Malvern Book’s “I Scream Social” and “Writer’s Roulette.” She is also a member of a band called, “Nicole and Eric’s Guide to a Meaningful Life” in which she plays theremin and gives life advice. Her favorite ice cream flavor is dark chocolate.

~7pm – Ice cream & Open Mic for women-identified and non-binary writers. We want a chance to hear everyone’s wonderful work, so please try to keep readings under 3 minutes.

~The featured reading begins after the open mic and will be followed by even more ice cream.

Can’t make it this time around? No worries. I Scream Social is every month ’til the end of time.

Join us in celebrating the launch of Vanessa Couto Johnson’s first full-length poetry collection, Pungent dins concentric (Tolsun Books).

Pungent dins concentric . . . is bounteous and exhilarating, even as it aces the heavy lifting of the book’s real and often startling wisdom. In the delectable world of these poems, “the properties of bellies are what lead us” in a “life, not fare, but air-letting. We all lung for.” With lightning quick “voracity veracity velocity” this book invites us to “laugh until full, until body itself is a world.” “Elegant in the mathematical sense,” wry but confident pronouncements amount to a love song to the pleasure and puzzlement of sentient sensuality, onomatopoetically delivering the very delight and savor these “polylingual spoon nutrients, crave and carve and cave of / deepening morphemes” describe.
—Susan Lewis

Propelled by extraordinary imaginative force, the poems of Vanessa Couto Johnson’s dazzling pungent dins concentric unfold in a sequence of evocations, each one summoning into view a moment of bustle in a specific but overloaded social space. The works are built of sentences, swirling syntactic image structures that seem to be the outcome of critical attention to the strangeness of the world around us. Linguistic wit and sassy irreverence partially veil Johnson’s dismay, but they cannot veil the poet’s ebullient joie de vivre.
—Lyn Hejinian

Vanessa Couto Johnson has written a tantalizing book, full of quick moves, wild associations, and linguistic flair. In pungent dins concentric, our world of dailiness is in considerable disarray: language calls out differences: seams don’t quite match and words lose their constancy (“I said celibate, not celebrate,” “no wrestling matte today.”) With meaning unstuck and liberty to disconnect or form new connections, the poems arrive at new truths, moments of hilarity and insight.
—Maxine Chernoff

Vanessa Couto Johnson’s first full-length book is pungent dins concentric (Tolsun Books, 2018). “Try the yen relish,” a sixteen-page prose poem sequence, was released in a first BoxSet from Oxidant | Engine in March 2018. Her chapbooks are speech rinse, winner of Slope Editions’ 2016 Chapbook Contest; rotoscoping collage in Cork City (dancing girl press, 2016); and Life of Francis, winner of Gambling the Aisle’s 2014 Chapbook Contest. Softblow, Thrush, Field, Blackbird, Cheat River Review, Cream City Review, and other journals and anthologies have featured her poetry. Most recently, four constraint-based erasure poems appeared in Surrealists and Outsiders 2018: I Wagered Deep On the Run of Six Rats to See Which Would Catch the First Fire (Thrice Publishing). A Brazilian born in Texas (dual citizen) and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she is currently a Lecturer at Texas State University, where she earned her MFA.

Join us for an afternoon with Dorothy Ellis Barnett, who will read from her poetry and short stories.

Dorothy Ellis Barnett landed in Austin, Texas after a hardscrabble childhood growing up on the riverbeds, campgrounds and roads of the Southwest. While at The University of Texas she obtained a B.A. in Anthropology, an M.A. in English and was awarded a James A. Michener Fellowship. Together with her Fellows, she founded Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, then went on to launch The Rio Review and Poetry at Round Top, leaving over 50 literary journals in print along the literary highway. These publications have promoted, encouraged, and inspired countless writers and artists. Dorothy subsequently earned her M.F.A. from Pacific Lutheran University. She is now Professor Emerita at Austin Community College where she founded and created the Creative Writing Department. She is a former Board Member of the Writers’ League of Texas and is currently on the organizational committee for Poetry at Round Top held at Festival Hill each Spring. While her path has left a legacy for the literary community that includes her own publications, it pales in comparison to her role as wife, mother, grandmother and friend.

Join us in celebrating the launch of Love&Wages, Jim Trainer’s fifth full-length collection of poetry and prose through Yellow Lark Press. With host Dave Julian and featured readers Nathan Hamilton, Christia Madacsi Hoffman, and Nicole Brissette.

Jim Trainer (above) publishes one collection of poetry and prose every year through Yellow Lark Press. Love&Wages is his 5th. He’s also a singer-songwriter, journalist and curator of Going For The Throat—a weekly publication of cynicism, outrage, correspondence and romance. Please visit his website for Love&Wages, his latest collection, and for music, film, and appearances. (Photo credit: Adam Glick Photography.)

Host Dave Julian, aka The Poetic Butcher was born and raised in the Big N.O. (Old New Orleans, Louisiana). He moved to Lexington, Kentucky a few days after Hurricane Katrina to live with his mother and stepfather. This formerly was his home aside from some occasional adventures, perhaps most notably his time in The Land of the Rising Sun, Japan. Now he resides in Austin, Texas.

Featured reader Nathan Hamilton (below, left) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Austin, Texas. As a singer/songwriter he has been performing professionally for more than 20 years. During that time he has released six albums on his own and two as a member of the Good Medicine Band (aka Sharecroppers). He was a winner of the 2000 Kerrville New Folk Award and a Top 5 Finalist in the 2008 Independent Music Awards. Nathan has toured internationally and in 2012 was selected as one of the official City of Austin Music Ambassadors to Oita, Japan as part of the Sister Cities Program. Nathan is a studied visual artist as well and has shown work in both group and solo shows. He employs a raw and loose-handed aesthetic along with a recycling sensibility. Using old doors, boards, dirt, rope, sticks, house paint, stones and other salvaged materials, Nathan turns these crudely textural elements into assemblages and paintings that take on a rough-hewn and contemplative elegance.

Featured reader Christia Madacsi Hoffman (below, center) grew up along the banks of the Mystic River in Mystic, Connecticut. Through her Austin-based company, CenterLight Media, Hoffman works as a marketing and editorial writer, graphic designer, and actor. Her early career adventures included antique furniture restoration and leading treks in the high Himalaya. With an accessible and insightful poetic voice, Hoffman’s poetry explores the universal themes of place, beauty, youth, and family. Her personal reflections reveal the depth in our everyday experiences and the significance of our intentions.

Featured reader Nicole Brissette (below, right) has a BFA in English. Her writing can be found in Austin Artmosphere Artists, Art World, and at Sybiljournal.com.

Join us for a reading from The Lumberjack’s Dove—and a shadow puppet crankie show—with visiting writer GennaRose Nethercott, and with special guest Sean Petrie.

In the ingenious and vividly imagined narrative poem The Lumberjack’s Dove, GennaRose Nethercott describes a lumberjack who cuts his hand off with an axe—however, instead of merely being severed, the hand shapeshifts into a dove. Far from representing just an event of pain and loss in the body, this incident spirals outward to explore countless facets of being human, prompting profound reflections on sacrifice and longing, time and memory, and—finally—considering the act of storytelling itself. The lumberjack, his hand, and the axe that separated the two all become participants in the story, with unique perspectives to share and lessons to impart. “I taught your fathers how to love,” Axe says to the acorns and leaves around her. “I mean to be felled, sliced to lumber, & reassembled into a new body.” Inflected with the uncanny enchantment of modern folklore and animated by the sly shifting of points-of-view, The Lumberjack’s Dove is wise, richly textured poetry from a boundlessly creative new voice.

GennaRose Nethercott’s book The Lumberjack’s Dove was selected by Louise Glück as a winner of the National Poetry Series for 2017. She is also the lyricist behind the narrative song collection Modern Ballads, and is a Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellow. Her work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies including BOMB, The Massachusetts Review, The Offing, and PANK, and she has been a writer-in-residence at the Shakespeare & Company bookstore, Art Farm Nebraska, and The Vermont Studio Center, among others. A born Vermonter, she tours nationally and internationally composing poems-to-order for strangers on a 1952 Hermes Rocket typewriter.

Sean Petrie is a founding member of “Typewriter Rodeo,” whose poetry book came out earlier this year. He has 6 short books coming out in 2019 as part of Fountas & Pinnell’s “Leveled Books” series. He also teaches legal writing at UT, and thinks Buffy is the best show ever.

In the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, emerging and established writers and artists talk with host Chaitali Sen about the power of words and the role of art in reflecting and changing our world.

This month’s Borderless features a conversation between writer and curator Lise Ragbir (left, below) and esteemed visual artist Deborah Roberts (right, below) about the connection between text, literature, visual art, and social justice.

Lise Ragbir is a writer, curator and Director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2017, she was Jack Jones Literary Art’s Tiphanie Yanique Fellow. In 2015, she was an invited participant in Callaloo’s Creative Writing Workshop, in Barbados. Her essays about arts and culture, race, and immigration have appeared in The Guardian, Hyperallergic, Time Magazine, and USA Today, among other outlets. She was born and raised in Montreal, and now makes her home in Austin, Texas.

Deborah Roberts (American, b. 1962) is a mixed media artist whose work challenges the notion of ideal beauty. Her work has been exhibited internationally across the USA and Europe. Roberts’ work is in the collections of Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York; LACMA, Los Angeles, California; Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey; and The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, New York. Roberts is the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2016) and Ginsburg-Klaus Award Fellowship (2014). She received her MFA from Syracuse University, New York. She lives and works in Austin, Texas. Roberts is represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.

Chaitali Sen is a writer and educator based in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky, and numerous stories and essays which have appeared or are forthcoming in Catapult, Colorado Review, Ecotone, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, New Ohio Review, and other journals. She is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice.

Join us in celebrating the release of All That is Evident is Suspect, the first collection in English to offer a life-size picture of the OuLiPo in its historical and contemporary incarnations. Featuring a reading from Daniel Levin Becker (below, right).

Since its inception in Paris in 1960, the OuLiPo—ouvroir de littérature potentielle, or workshop for potential literature—has continually expanded our sense of what writing can do. It’s produced, among many other marvels, a detective novel without the letter e (and a sequel of sorts without a, i, o, u, or y); an epic poem structured by the Parisian métro system; a story in the form of a tarot reading; a poetry book in the form of a game of go; and a suite of sonnets that would take almost 200 million years to read completely.

Lovers of literature are likely familiar with the novels of the best-known Oulipians—Italo Calvino, Georges Perec, Harry Mathews, Raymond Queneau—and perhaps even the small number of texts available in English on the group, including Warren Motte’s Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature and Daniel Levin Becker’s Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature. But the actual work of the group in its full, radiant collectivity has never before been showcased in English. (“The State of Constraint,” a dossier in issue 22 of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, comes closest.)

Enter All That is Evident is Suspect, the first collection in any language to represent all of its members (numbering 41 as of April 2018 ). Combining fiction, poetry, essays and lectures, and never-published internal correspondence—along with the acrobatically constrained writing and complexly structured narratives that have become synonymous with oulipian practice—this volume shows a unique group of thinkers and artists at work and at play, meditating on and subverting the facts of life, love, and the group itself. It’s an unprecedentedly intimate and comprehensive glimpse at the breadth and diversity of one of world literature’s most vital, adventurous presences.

Daniel Levin Becker is an American critic, editor, and translator who joined the Oulipo in 2009. He is the author of a book about the Oulipo, Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature, and has translated work by Georges Perec, Éric Chevillard, Thomas Clerc, and Paul Griffiths among others.

Join us for an evening with Tatiana Ryckman and Adeena Reitberger.

Tatiana Ryckman (left) is the author of the novella, I Don’t Think of You (Until I Do) and two chapbooks of prose. She is the editor of Awst Press and has been a writer in residence at Yaddo, Arthub, and 100W. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Lithub, Paper Darts, Barrelhouse, and other publications. Tatiana can be found on airplanes or at tatianaryckman.com.

Adeena Reitberger’s fiction and nonfiction have been published in Black Warrior Review, Mississippi Review, Cimarron Review, Nimrod International Journal, Third Coast, NANO Fiction, SmokeLong Quarterly, Sierra Nevada Review, and other magazines, and her work has been listed as notable in the Best American Series. She teaches creative writing at Austin Community College and works the editor of American Short Fiction.

Join us for a reading with William West, Lily Lewis, and Ruby Montalvo.

William West grew up in Texas, attended UT and graduated from the University of Houston. West has lived in other places such as Santa Barbara, Traverse City, Maui, and Chicago, but he returned to Texas to enjoy his home State and to write. He always held a deep interest in human behavior which found a place in his debut novel, Evolution of a Young Man in Love.  West currently lives in Austin with his wife and their two dogs.

Nothing is normal in Austin. A fast-paced debut, William West’s Evolution of a Young Man in Love elicits sentiments of uncertainty and rebirth. As high school English teacher Joseph Hawking works through the death of his lover in the face of a new one, we begin to uncover the story’s true nature. For a first novel, West has a knack for characterization, weaving complicated strands of soft-hearted care and intellectual determination through Joseph that holds steady throughout a truly terrifying serial killer plot line and the delicate web that is a new relationship. With help from long-time friend David, a cantankerous live-how-you-want side-kick, we are transported into a deep hole of investigation and self-discovery through realized superhero meets noiresque narrative. —Rebecca Baumann 

Lily Lewis is a warrior against ignorance and injustice both in the classroom and in the community. Three extraordinary children and four luminescent grandchildren inspire her to be a better human. The deep blue sea remains her place of power and wonder. She is a survivor, living one day at a time, with her soul partner and two cats, Sophie and Sylvester. Her novel, The Last Mermaid Princess, is a semi-autobiographical account of an unusual set of circumstances and events that will resonate with all people because we all struggle with the same things in different ways. The protagonist, Lily Chaidee, was never at home with herself, her family, or her geography as a rare Asian hybrid growing up in the Texas Panhandle during the 1960’s. Amarillo was an inhospitable place for an ethnically diverse family, and to make matters worse, there were numerous difficulties from mental instability to addictions to sexual predation to racism and objectification and other dysfunctional elements that marked Lily’s childhood and changed the trajectory of her life. Lily will inevitably evoke mixed emotions. You will love her, empathize with her, and champion her while feeling disappointed, angry, and absolutely disgusted by her inability to keep herself on a positive path. It’s a wild ride from Thailand to Texas—one you will not soon forget.

Ruby Montalvo was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She graduated with a degree in English from The University of Texas at Austin and has had many jobs over the years—proofreader, graphic artist, customer service representative, executive complaints clerk, corporate trainer, corporate content writer, English teacher, ESL teacher, elementary school librarian, and blogger, but what she always wanted to do was write a novel. And when she was in her mid-50’s that’s exactly what she did. In May 2018 Ruby published her first novel, A Song for Jessica, just before her 56th birthday. On her website Ruby blogs about starting a new career later in life and strives to encourage others, just as others encouraged her, to believe it’s never too late to do what you’ve always wanted to do. Ruby is proof that it’s never too late to follow your dreams. She run/walks a solid twelve-minute mile and lives in San Antonio, Texas with her husband and two dogs.

Join us for a reading and exhibit to celebrate the launch of the latest issue of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review. The keynote poet is J. Scott Brownlee, and the featured artist is Alyssa Surabian. Other readers include John Fry and Katelin Kelly, and Cindy Huyser will also read and discuss the career of Debra Winegarten.

Bring friends – join the celebration! The event is free of charge and open to everyone.

Borderlands is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.

J. Scott Brownlee is a poet-of-place from Llano, Texas. His poems appear in The Kenyon Review, Narrative Magazine, Hayden’s Ferry Review, West Branch, Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. He is the author of the chapbooks Highway or Belief, Ascension, and On the Occasion of the Last Old Camp Meeting in Llano County. Honors for these collections include the 2013 Button Poetry Prize, 2014 Robert Phillips Poetry Prize, and 2015 Tree Light Books Prize. His first full-length collection, Requiem for Used Ignition Cap, was a finalist for the National Poetry Series and 2015 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award and selected by C. Dale Young as the winner of the 2015 Orison Poetry Prize. It also won the 2016 Bob Bush Memorial Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters. He currently lives in Austin, Texas and teaches for Brooklyn Poets as a core faculty member.

Alyssa Surabian’s work is currently available at the Bent Tree Gallery in Wimberley, TX. She is an active member in the Wimberley Vallery Art League where she is often accepted into juried shows, sometimes winning awards. Born in Boston, Alyssa now lives and works in Wimberley, TX. She earned her MS in Occupational Therapy from Tufts University in Boston.

Join us for an evening with Barbara Henning, Maureen Owen, and Ashley Smith Keyfitz (left to right, below).

Barbara Henning is the author of four novels and seven collections of poetry. Most recent books are a novel, Just Like That, and a book of poetry, A Day Like Today. She is also the editor of a book of interviews, Looking Up Harryette Mullen, and The Collected Prose of Bobbie Louise Hawkins. Barbara lives in Brooklyn, has taught for Naropa, and presently teaches for Long Island University and writers.com.

Maureen Owen’s most recent book is Edges of Water, Chax Press. Other books include: Erosion’s Pull, Coffee House Press, finalist for the Colorado Book Award; American Rush: Selected Poems, finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize; and AE (Amelia Earhart), Before Columbus American Book Award. She was the publisher of Telephone Magazine/Telephone Books. Maureen lives in Denver and has taught for Naropa University. Her readings can be found on PennSound.

Ashley Smith Keyfitz (Ash Smith) is the author is Water Shed, Come Such Frequency, Pigeon of Tears & (forthcoming from Xexoxial Editions) Park of Unwired Asking. Formerly a publisher for LRL magazine & book series, she lives in Austin where she does web design, graphic, and community outreach work.

Join us for a poetry reading with Steve Bellin-Oka, Raye Hendrix, and Lisa L. Moore (left to right, below). Sponsored by the Poets & Scholars reading series from UT-Austin’s Poetry & Poetics Interest Group.

Steve Bellin-Oka earned his MFA from the University of Virginia and his PhD from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers. He is the author of two chapbooks, O Frankenstein (Blue Trouser Press, 2003) and Dead Letter Office at North Atlantic Station (Seven Kitchens Press, 2017). His first book, Instructions for Seeing a Ghost, is forthcoming in 2020. The recipient of a 2019 Tulsa Artist Fellowship, he has also received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and the Virginia Center for the Arts. His poems have appeared in Tar River Poetry, Nimrod, and Valparaiso Poetry Review, among other publications, and his interviews with other poets appear in Adroit and Mississippi Review. He lives in Portales, New Mexico.

Raye Hendrix is a poet from Middle-Of-Nowhere, Alabama, who loves cats, crystals, and classic rock. Raye is the Online Content and Web Editor for Bat City Review and is pursuing her MFA at the University of Texas at Austin. Her recent work can be found in Southern Indiana Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Shenandoah, The Pinch, and elsewhere.

Lisa L. Moore is the author of the chapbook 24 Hours of Men (Dancing Girl, 2018). Her writing has been recognized with the Art/Lines Poetry Prize and the Lambda Book Award. She is Director of the LGBTQ Studies Program at The University of Texas at Austin.

Austin Writers Roulette is an uncensored, theme-inspired spoken word and storytelling event. It features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who 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 “Laugh at My Love Life”—you’ll either find this funny or at least be happy this didn’t happen to you. Our line up of featured artists includes: RG HOOK, SUSAN MACK, BROOKE AXTELL, LARRY MAYFIELD, TERESA Y. ROBERSON, and THOM THE WORLD POET. An open mic follows the featured artists. Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information.

Everyone is welcome to attend the Austin Community College Creative Writing Department’s Literary Coffeehouse, hosted by John Herndon. An open mic follows the featured reader, so bring poems, stories, scripts, rants, raves or midnight confessions to share, or just come to listen and enjoy.

This month’s featured reader is Sasha West.

Sasha West’s first book, Failure and I Bury the Body, won the National Poetry Series and the Texas Institute of Letters First Book of Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review Online, West Branch, Southern Review, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. Her awards include a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Fellowship, Inprint’s Verlaine Prize, Rice University’s Parks Fellowship, and a Houston Arts Alliance grant. 

Join us for another installment of Novel Night, a monthly celebration of all things prose! Here’s how it works: published authors will read from their books and there’ll be an audience Q & A. And we’ll also have “Book Talk,” in which an intrepid Malvern staff member will introduce you to one of our favorite prose titles. Also worth noting: we’re offering 20% OFF ALL FICTION TITLES during Novel Night (from 6pm till closing).

This month’s Novel Night features a book launch for Scott Semegran’s new novel, To Squeeze a Prairie Dog: An American Novel, and Larry Brill will be reading from his latest novel, the romantic comedy Déjà vu All Over Again.

Scott Semegran lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, four kids, two cats, and a dog. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in English. He is an award-winning writer and a cartoonist. 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.

Larry Brill grew up in San Jose, California with three goals: To become a broadcast journalist; to write a hit novel; and to pitch for a major league baseball team. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. He spent 25 years as a television news anchor, ten of those here in Austin, picking up numerous awards along the way. After leaving the business, Larry wrote his first novel, Live At Five, using his experiences to lampoon TV news from the inside out. His second comic novel The Patterer, imagines what broadcast news would be like if Ben Franklin invented it in 18th century London. His latest novel has nothing to do with TV news, but Déjà vu All Over Again has received starred reviews from IndieReader, ForeWord and BlueInk Reviews, described as “A fun, satisfying romantic comedy—a rom-com that is more com than rom.”

Join Newfound journal contributors and chapbook winners for a reading… everyone is welcome! Featuring M.J. Gette, Rodney Gomez, Catherine Pikula, and Octavio Quintanilla (left to right, below). Gette and Quintanilla will incorporate visual poetics in their readings, and chapbooks and the latest print issue will be for sale.

Megan Jeanne (M.J.) Gette’s work explores ecological relationships within a postcolonial discourse of translation, dislocation and hybridity. Her winning chapbook was developed out of a residency with Arquetopia, Oaxaca, and the Marcella DeBourg Fellowship. She is twice recipient of FLAS fellowships to study the Kaqchikel language in Guatemala with Oxlajuj Aj’, a language revitalization and decolonization project through Tulane University. She has worked as a translator and researcher for various NGOs and nonprofits in the Americas since 2010, and has performed her work in both academic and local settings as a species of poetic theory—thought that is relative to the linguistic borders that aim to purify, hide, or package it. Her winning chapbook, The Walls They Left Us, was published by Newfound in spring of 2016.

Rodney Gomez is the author of the forthcoming collection Citizens of the Mausoleum (Sundress Publications, 2018). His chapbooks include Mouth Filled with Night (Northwestern University Press, 2014), winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize, and A Short Tablature of Loss (Seven Kitchens Press, 2017), winner of the Ran Arroyo Chapbook Prize. His poetry has appeared in Poetry, Rattle, Pleiades, Denver Quarterly, Barrow Street, Blackbird, and RHINO, where it won the Editors’ Prize. Born and raised in Brownsville, Texas, he earned a BA from Yale and an MFA from the University of Texas–Pan American. He has been awarded residencies to the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Santa Fe Art Institute. He has also served on the board of Migrant Health Promotion, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of migrants, immigrants, and related populations. He edits the accompanying anthology to El Retorno, an annual event honoring Gloria E. Anzaldúa held at the University of Texas-Pan American. He works as an urban planner in Weslaco, Texas. His winning chapbook, Spine, was published by Newfound in spring of 2015.

Catherine Pikula is a glorified secretary by day and writer all of the time. She studied literature and philosophy at Bennington College and poetry at NYU. Her chapbook I’m Fine. How Are You? was selected by Chloe Caldwell as winner of the 2018 Newfound Prose Prize. You can find her poetry online in places like Poor Claudia and Cosmonauts Avenue. Currently, she is researching relationship anarchy and the porn industry’s effects on learned perceptions of gender and sexuality expression.

Octavio Quintanilla is the author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014) and the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of San Antonio, TX. His poetry, fiction, translations, and photography have appeared, or are forthcoming, in journals such as Salamander, RHINO, Alaska Quarterly Review, Pilgrimage, Green Mountains Review, Southwestern American Literature, The Texas Observer, and others. His visual work has been featured in the AllState Almaguer Art Gallery in Mission, TX, and an exhibit is forthcoming at The Weslaco Museum. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and is the regional editor for Texas Books in Review. He teaches Literature and Creative Writing in the M.A./M.F.A. program at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas.

Join us for an afternoon with award-winning author Michael Blumlein.

Varying widely in theme and subject matter, the stories in All I Ever Dreamed showcase the breadth and power of Michael Blumlein’s vision and once again reveal him to be one of the most original and fascinating of contemporary writers. They are stories that skirt the boundaries of fantasy, science fiction and horror, existing in a genre uniquely the author’s own. This volume brings together all the short fiction published by Blumlein in the three decades since the original appearance of his award-winning collection The Brains of Rats (1989), including two stories published here in book form for the first time.

Michael Blumlein is the author of four novels and three story collections, including the award-winning The Brains of Rats. His most recent publications, both in 2018 are: All I Ever Dreamed, containing three decades worth of fiction, and Thoreau’s Microscope, part of PM Press’ celebrated “Outspoken Authors” series. He has twice been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and twice for the Bram Stoker. He has been short-listed for the Tiptree. The Brains of Rats was awarded Best Collection of the Year. He has written for both stage and film, including the award-winning independent film Decodings. His novel X,Y was made into a feature-length movie. Until his recent retirement Dr. Blumlein taught and practiced medicine at the University of California in San Francisco.

Join us in celebrating the launch of the fourth issue of Kallisto Gaia Press’ literary journal, The Ocotillo Review, which features over 100 pages of literary genius by award-winning writers from around the world and superb new pieces by writers from underserved communities.

Featured reader Cynthia White (above right), winner of the Julia Darling Memorial Poetry Prize, will be flying in from Santa Cruz to share her poetry! Other readers include Diana Conces, Charles Darnell, Terry Dawson, Geoffrey Hall, Bobby Horecka, and Frank Pool, among others to be announced.

Cynthia White (Santa Cruz CA) has poems appearing in Poet Lore, ZYZZYVA, New Letters and CALYX, among others. She’s been both finalist and semi-finalist for Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Prize.