Maggie Shen King, author of The Excess Male,
with
Scott Alumbaugh, author of the short story “San Andreas Fault”
Friday, June 28, at the auditorium at CLARA, 1425 24th Street, Sacramento
Doors open at 7PM, readings begin at 7:30
A $10 donation is suggested
about our writers
Novelist and short story writer Maggie Shen King’s dystopian novel An Excess Male was named one of The Washington Post’s 5 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels of 2017 and was both a James Tiptree, Jr. and Lambda Literary Award Finalist. She was the Goodreads September 2017 Debut Author the Month. Her short stories have appeared in the The New York Times, Ecotone, ZYZZYVA, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and more. Her manuscript Fortune’s Fools, won Second Prize in Amazon’s 2012 Breakthrough Novel Award. Maggie grew up in Taiwan and attended both Chinese and American schools before moving to Seattle at age sixteen.
She lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area
Scott Alumbaugh is the author of the novella Will Kill for Food, a winner of the 2014 Black Hill Press Summer Writing Project. He has published fiction in StoryQuarterly and in Hunger Mountain Review, where his story “Fire Illness” was runner-up for the 2017 Howard Frank Mosher Short Fiction Prize. His essays have appeared in Los Angeles Lawyer and Bay Crossings. Scott currently runs Sea Dog Designs, a web, print, and graphic design business, which he founded in 2000. His wide-ranging career has included working as an attorney and teaching legal writing, and he’s also been a sailing instructor, radio producer and host, theater manager, stage crew for a traveling Gilbert and Sullivan repertory company, ESL instructor in Japan, and, as he says, “a number of other jobs not worth mentioning.”
He’s an avid cyclist and lives in Davis with his family
about our readers
We’re pleased to welcome Matthew Hanjoong to Stories on Stage Sacramento. Matthew is a graduate of California State University Sacramento and with a major in Theatre, and recently completed an apprenticeship with Capitol Stage, where he was featured in the Apprentice Showcase and Playwrights’ Revolution, a showcase of new work. He’s appeared in productions at Sac State, American River College, and Fair Oaks Playhouse.
Ethan Ireland is a multidisciplinary veteran of the film, television and theater trade, with sixteen years as a working professional in both performance and technical roles. The son of noted ‘lit noir’ author Patrick Ireland, Ethan is a writer & director of several short films, and has worked as a voice actor and a performer for both stage and screen since 1995. Most recently he appeared in EMH’s productions of After Hours and An Almost Perfect Person. He has performed at Now Hear This: A Story and Music Performance Series produced by Atim Udoffia.
About Stories on Stage Sacramento
For ten years, Stories on Stage Sacramento has brought you the best in literature, read by actors, and this year we’re celebrating this big milestone by returning to our full, ten-event season.
We’re proud of our record, as an all-volunteer, donation-based organization, of bringing the best in literary fiction, read by actors, to a growing Sacramento audience. Our six 2017 events featured work by Steve Almond, Deborah Willis, Josh Barkan, Vanessa Hua, Joshua Mohr, the Los Rios Writers, and Josh Weil, as well as several of Sacramento’s notable emerging writers.
Our 2018 season featured the writers Anne Raeff, Mira T. Lee, Elizabeth Tallent, Bob Sylva, Kirstin Chen, Tommy Orange, Vanessa Hua, Melissa Yancy and Dana Johnson. The dates for our 2018 season are: February 23, April 27, June 29, August 24, and October 26. In addition, our annual showcase featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 28.
in 2019, we welcome Tom Barbash, Karen E Bender (a National Book Award finalist) Sharma Shields, Janet Fitch, Maggie Shen King and exciting new writers Sarah Stone, Devi Lasker, Fred D’Aguiar, Simeon Mills, Christine O’Brien., and Jen Alandy Trahan. And we’ll welcome back the Los Rios Writers. Plus outstanding work by local writers.
]]>
It’s been a terrific run. I’ve had the honor to work with Pulitzer Prize winners, nationally known writers, and local writers whose work had its first audience at our event. But after six years, it’s time for new leadership. So, after the 2019 season, I’ll be stepping down as Coordinator for Stories on Stage Sacramento.
This does not mean the event will end.
Because after ten years of presenting the best of short fiction read by the best of actors, the Volunteer Committee is convinced that SoSS is a valuable and necessary resident of Sacramento’s literary community. We’re determined that it will continue.
But we need your help.
We need new volunteers, especially those with skills in social media, event management, and knowledge of writers and writing. We’ll also be looking for a new Casting Director to find the actors to read the work, replacing Peggi Wood, who is also stepping down after this season.
So if you’re interested in becoming involved
at any level, and in helping guide Stories on Stage Sacramento toward the future, please email me at [email protected]
This is an evolution, not a demise. I’ll continue to contribute to Stories on Stage Sacramento, just not in the same position. And I invite you to become part of the event, to insure that electrifying prose and crackling theatre remains part of the Sacramento arts scene for many, many years to come.
With gratitude,
Sue
Sue Staats, Coordinator, Stories on Stage Sacramento
]]>
Just a few of the reasons that Stories on Stage Sacramento is thrilled to welcome back Sharma Shields, with a reading from her new novel, The Cassandra, and to welcome for the first time her husband Simeon Mills, with a reading from his debut novel The Obsoletes. Both novels plunge us into twisty real worlds: The Cassandra is a modern re-telling of the Cassandra myth, set in the Hanford nuclear research center during World War II, and The Obsoletes imagines two robot brothers trying to pass for human in a small, robot-phobic Midwestern town.
readings by Carissa Meagher and Ian Hopps
Friday, May 31, 2019 at the auditorium at CLARA, 1425 24th Street
doors open at 7PM, readings begin at 7:30
A $10 donation is suggested
about our writers
Sharma Shields…
is the author of a short story collection, Favorite Monster, and two novels, The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac and The Cassandra. Sharma’s short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Electric Lit, Catapult, Slice, Fairy Tale Review, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, Fugue, and elsewhere and have garnered such awards as the 2016 Washington State Book Award, the Autumn House Fiction Prize, the Tim McGinnis Award for Humor, a Grant for Artist Projects from Artist Trust, and the A.B. Guthrie Award for Outstanding Prose. She received her B.A. in English Literature from the University of Washington (2000) and her MFA from the University of Montana (2004). Sharma has worked in independent bookstores and public libraries throughout Washington State and lives in Spokane with her husband, writer Simeon Mills, and two children.
Simeon Mills…
is a writer, cartoonist, and teacher. His debut prose novel The Obsoletes was published May 14 by Skybound Books. His graphic novel Butcher Paper received a 2012 Artist Trust grant. Chapters of Butcher Paper have appeared in The Florida Review, RiverLit, Rock & Sling, The Pinch Journal, and Okey-Panky. He majored in architecture at Columbia University and received his MFA in fiction from the University of Montana. Mills teaches drawing at Eastern Washington University and middle school English in Spokane, Washington, where he lives with his wife, writer Sharma Shields, and two children.
about our readers
Carissa Meagher
Making her Stories on Stage Sacramento debut with a reading from Sharma Shields’ The Cassandra, Carissa is a familiar face to Sacramento theatergoers, who have enjoyed her performances in Antigone (Big Idea Theatre); Brilliant Traces (Ovation Stage); An Octoroon and Anna Karenina (Capital Stage) and Steel Magnolias (Sacramento Theatre Company.) She’s also appeared in The Little Prince and Henry IV at The Theater at Monmouth in Maine, and in Dutchman and Dying City at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where she earned her BFA in Acting. Carissa holds an MFA
In Playwriting from Ireland’s RADA affiliate school, The Lir Academy. Next up you can catch Carissa’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey at Sacramento Theatre Company.
Ian Hopps
We’re thrilled to welcome Ian Hopps back to Stories on Stage Sacramento. A familiar face to Sacramento and Davis audiences, since his 2016 move to Sacramento from the Bay Area he’s appeared in leading roles with Capital Stage (Luna Gale, Stupid F***ing Bird,) the Sacramento Theatre Company (Midsummer Night’s Dream, as Puck: Macbeth, The Tempest) and Big Idea Theatre (The Rover, An Ideal Husband, The 39 Steps.) He’s the associate producer and marketing director of the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble and has appeared in numerous productions there. He studied Theatre Arts at San Francisco State University, and in addition to acting, he writes for indie comics and podcasts, and produces his own music.
About Stories on Stage Sacramento
For ten years, Stories on Stage Sacramento has brought you the best in literature, read by actors, and this year we’re celebrating this big milestone by returning to our full, ten-event season.
We’re proud of our record, as an all-volunteer, donation-based organization, of bringing the best in literary fiction, read by actors, to a growing Sacramento audience. Our six 2017 events featured work by Steve Almond, Deborah Willis, Josh Barkan, Vanessa Hua, Joshua Mohr, the Los Rios Writers, and Josh Weil, as well as several of Sacramento’s notable emerging writers.
Our 2018 season featured the writers Anne Raeff, Mira T. Lee, Elizabeth Tallent, Bob Sylva, Kirstin Chen, Tommy Orange, Vanessa Hua, Melissa Yancy and Dana Johnson. The dates for our 2018 season are: February 23, April 27, June 29, August 24, and October 26. In addition, our annual showcase featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 28.
in 2019, we welcome Tom Barbash, Karen E Bender (a National Book Award finalist) Sharma Shields, Janet Fitch, and exciting new writers Sarah Stone, Devi Lasker, Fred D’Aguiar, Simeon Mills and Christine O’Brien. And we’ll welcome back the Los Rios Writers. More will be announced: watch this space!
]]>
Devi Laskar
author of The Atlas of Reds and Blues
Fred D’Aguiar
author of Children of Paradise
readings by Bridggett Bess and Angel Rodriguez
Friday, April 26, 2019 at the auditorium at CLARA
1425 24th Street, Sacramento
Doors open at 7PM, readings begin at 7:30
A $10 donation is suggested.
about our writers
Fred D’Aguiar
Inspired by the events at Jonestown, Children of Paradise is Fred D’Aguiar’s sixth novel. A poet, novelist and playwright whose work has been translated into a dozen languages, D’Aguiar’s first novel, The Longest Memory, won the Whitbread First Novel Award and was made into a film by Channel 4 (UK). A number of his essays have appeared in Harper’s, Wasafiri, Callaloo, Best American Essays, and elsewhere. His play A Jamaican Airman Foresees His Death was staged at the Royal Court Theatre. His BBC-commissioned radio plays Days and Nights in Bedlam and Mr. Reasonable were broadcast in 2005 and 2015 respectively. His sixth poetry collection, Continental Shelf (2009) was a UK Poetry Book Society Choice and was shortlisted for the UK’s T.S. Eliot Prize 2009. His most recent poetrycollection, Translations From Memory (Carcanet, UK) appeared in 2018. Born in London and brought up in Guyana, he teaches in the Department of English at UCLA .
Devi Laskar
In The Atlas of Reds and Blues, her first novel, Devi S. Laskar draws on her personal experience to create a “searing, powerful and beautiful” tale of what it means to be a woman of color in America. A native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Devi holds an MFA from Columbia University. In addition to The Atlas of Reds and Blues, she has published two poetry chapbooks and her work has appeared in Tin House and Rattle, among other publications. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and is an alumna of The OpEd Project and VONA. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area
about our readers
Angel Rodriguez
Angel previously appeared at Stories on Stage Sacramento reading an excerpt from Tommy Orange’s There There, and we’re thrilled to have him back to read a selection from Fred D’Aguiar’s novel Children of Paradise. Angel is an actor and director from the Sacramento region. He holds a BA in Theatre from Sacramento State, is currently performing the lead rold in the CSUS production of In The Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda He has been in many other CSUS’s productions including “James and the Giant Peach” as James, “Darskide” as The Boy and “Gypsy” as Tulsa. He has also been in many Latinx projects through Teatro Espejo and Latino Center of Arts and Culture including the roles of Rene in “Lydia” and Juan in “La Pastorela de Sacramento.”
Bridggett Bess
We’re delighted to welcome Bridggett Bess to Stories on Stage Sacramento. She’ll be reading an excerpt from The Atlas of Reds and Blues by Devi Laskar. A singer, actor, and dancer, Bridggett’s career has taken her all over the world. Locally, you may have seen her in lead roles in Adoration of Dora at Kolt Run Creations and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Magic Circle in Roseville. She’s had supporting roles on the TV shows Rescue Me and Trauma, and has appeared in many independent films, including the starring role of “Dacia” in the PCS Film Festival film Three Words for Dacia, which won Best Film, Producers Choice, and Audience Favorite. Bridggett earned a BFA in Professional Theater Acting from North Carolina A&T State University. Among the many fun facts about Bridggett is that she’s also an award-winning belly dancer!
About Stories on Stage Sacramento
For ten years, Stories on Stage Sacramento has brought you the best in literature, read by actors, and this year we’re celebrating this big milestone by returning to our full, ten-event season.
We’re proud of our record, as an all-volunteer, donation-based organization, of bringing the best in literary fiction, read by actors, to a growing Sacramento audience. Our six 2017 events featured work by Steve Almond, Deborah Willis, Josh Barkan, Vanessa Hua, Joshua Mohr, the Los Rios Writers, and Josh Weil, as well as several of Sacramento’s notable emerging writers.
Our 2018 season featured the writers Anne Raeff, Mira T. Lee, Elizabeth Tallent, Bob Sylva, Kirstin Chen, Tommy Orange, Vanessa Hua, Melissa Yancy and Dana Johnson. The dates for our 2018 season are: February 23, April 27, June 29, August 24, and October 26. In addition, our annual showcase featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 28.
in 2019, we welcome Tom Barbash, Karen E Bender (a National Book Award finalist) Sharma Shields, Janet Fitch, and exciting new writers Sarah Stone, Devi Lasker, Fred D’Aguiar, and Christine O’Brien. And we’ll welcome back the Los Rios Writers. More will be announced: watch this space!
]]>
Tim Foley is way too modest to label himself a renaissance man, but I don’t share his reluctance. Just take a look at this bio – he’s an attorney (degree from Harvard, works with the State Public Defender’s office, teaches at UC Davis) a writer and playwright (numerous publications here and in Britain, recent production of his play Special Request at Theatre One in Sacramento) a publisher (the late lamented Farallon Review, 2008-2015.) Rumor is that he was even in a band, once upon a time. In an exchange of emails, I asked him about how he juggled his professional and writing life, and if his law specialty (he’s the attorney for the defendant in death penalty appeal cases) shows up in his writing.
Q. From your bio, it looks as if your career path has been focused on law. Yet you’ve earned an MFA, had a play produced, founded a literary journal. When and where did the writing bug bite you? And, if you could, would you be a full-time writer?
Tim: “I’ve always written creatively, an endeavor inspired by a love of reading and books. I published a couple of short stories when I was in law school, and tried to write a novel when I was in my twenties. I enjoy my career in the legal field, and I like teaching as well, but I do have a creative side and the muse must be honored when she sees fit to visit.”
Q. ‘she.’ Hmm. What writers/writing inspires you most?
Tim: “Any good writing inspires me. My particular favs include Poe and Bierce for fantasy, Orwell and Steinbeck for social commentary. I like certain genre writers like Raymond Chandler and Shirley Jackson. Beckett and Isherwood for their fearlessness. Alistair MacLeod and George Mackay Brown for the rustic beauty of their prose. Kazuo Ishiguro and Russell Banks for technique.”
Q. Does your law practice, and its focus on death penalty cases, inform your writing?
Tim: “I write as a break from my casework. There is some emotional spillover, I suppose, but the legal work exists separately.”
Q. You’ve been published a lot in the UK. They seem to love you! Why do you think this is?
Tim: “I spent a semester at Durham University in northeastern England when I was in college and have maintained some connections with Britain ever since. English editors tend to like my stuff, for whatever reason.”
Q. What was the inspiration for the story being read at SoSS, “Nineteen-sixty-five Ford Falcon?”
Tim: “It is a story about longing and loss within a ghost story format, with some suspense and a dash of humor. I wanted to explore the way that certain physical things seem to soak up the energy and emotions of their owners. And it is a bit of a homage to a friend I had who owned a sixty-five Falcon. Great car.”
It is indeed. Worthy of a photo.
Sarah Stone
author of Hungry Ghost Theater
and The True Sources of the Nile
with Tim Foley
readings by Katie Rubin and Matt Rives
Friday, March 22, 2019 at the auditorium at CLARA
1425 24th Street, Sacramento
Doors open at 7PM, readings begin at 7:30
A $10 donation is suggested.
about our writers
Sarah Stone
Sarah Stone’s novel, Hungry Ghost Theater (WTAW Press) appeared on the Millions Most Anticipated list for October 2018 and LitHub’s “21 Books You Should Read This October.” The San Francisco Chronicle said, “Prepare to be seduced straightaway by the sensuous beauty and penetrating wisdom of Sarah Stone’s second novel….” Her previous novel, The True Sources of the Nile, was a BookSense 76 selection, has been translated into German and Dutch, and was included in Geoff Wisner’s A Basket of Leaves: 99 Books That Capture the Spirit of Africa. She’s the coauthor, with her spouse Ron Nyren, of Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in Scoundrel Time, The Millions, Ploughshares, StoryQuarterly, The Believer, and The Writer’s Chronicle, among other places. She’s written for and taught on Korean television, reported on human rights in Burundi, and looked after orphan chimpanzees at the Jane Goodall Institute. She received an MFA in Fiction from the University of Michigan and teaches creative writing for Stanford Continuing Studies and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
Tim Foley
Tim Foley’s dark fiction and critical essays have appeared in such 
periodicals as Wormwood, Supernatural Tales, West Marin Review, All Hallows, Dark Hollow, and anthologies published by Flame Tree Press. His play, “Special Request,” was recently staged by Theater One in Sacramento. He earned an MFA in fiction from the University of San Francisco, and founded, and served as the editor of, The Farallon Review from 2008 to 2015. The story being read at this month’s event, “Nineteen-Sixty-Five Ford Falcon,” was published in the anthology Murder Mayhem Short Stories (2016) from Flame Tree Press. He is currently an attorney with the Office of the State Public Defender and teaches a seminar in constitutional law at U.C. Davis
about our readers
Katie Rubin
Reading an excerpt from Hungry Ghost Theater is Katie Rubin, who is thrilled to be making her Stories on Stage Sacramento debut. She earned an MFA in acting from the University of California, Davis and a BA in theatre from Amherst College. Katie is a regional theatre, voiceover, and commercial actress. Additionally, she tours the country as a solo performer (with five solo works under her belt), a stand-up comic, and writing and acting coach. Katie currently teaches writing classes online as well as acting and improvisation classes for Stanford University, American Conservatory Theater, and Capital Stage Company. Recent acting credits include The Heir Apparent (Aurora Theatre Company), Transitions (Theatre Rhinoceros), The Taming of the Shrew (Marin Shakespeare Company), and The North Plan, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, and Hunter Gatherers (Capital Stage Company). Look for her recent Xfinity Bacon Box commercial and listen for her voice as several characters in the fabulous and wildly over the top video game Sunset Overdrive.
Matt Rives
Matt Rives will be reading “Nineteen-Sixty-Five Ford Falcon” by Tim Foley. Matt is an actor, musician, and stand-up comedian. In addition to several Stories on Stage Sacramento readings, Matthew has played lead roles in Noises Off and A Comedy of Errors and has performed by invitation at Laughs Unlimited, The Sacramento Comedy Spot, and Luna’s Café. His notable roles include “Franz Liebkind” in The Producers and “Buck Barrow” in Bonnie and Clyde with Runaway Stage Productions. Matthew also played the role of “The Captain” in the world premier of Frankenstein with Resurrection Theatre. Most recently, he played the role of Tom/Narrator in Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, Mr. Aarons in Bridge to Terabitihia, and Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.
About Stories on Stage Sacramento
For ten years, Stories on Stage Sacramento has brought you the best in literature, read by actors, and this year we’re celebrating this big milestone by returning to our full, ten-event season.
We’re proud of our record, as an all-volunteer, donation-based organization, of bringing the best in literary fiction, read by actors, to a growing Sacramento audience. Our six 2017 events featured work by Steve Almond, Deborah Willis, Josh Barkan, Vanessa Hua, Joshua Mohr, the Los Rios Writers, and Josh Weil, as well as several of Sacramento’s notable emerging writers.
Our 2018 season featured the writers Anne Raeff, Mira T. Lee, Elizabeth Tallent, Bob Sylva, Kirstin Chen, Tommy Orange, Vanessa Hua, Melissa Yancy and Dana Johnson. The dates for our 2018 season are: February 23, April 27, June 29, August 24, and October 26. In addition, our annual showcase featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 28.
in 2019, we’ll welcome Tom Barbash, Karen E Bender (a National Book Award finalist) Sharma Shields, Janet Fitch, and exciting new writers Sarah Stone, Devi Lasker, Fred D’Aguiar, and Christine O’Brien. And we’ll welcome back the Los Rios Writers. More will be announced: watch this space!
]]>
Karen E Bender
author of Refund and The New Order
with Valerie Fioravanti
author of Garbage Night at the Opera
readings by Kelley Ogden and Tara Henry
Friday, February 22, 2019 at the auditorium at CLARA
1425 24th Street, Sacramento
Doors open at 7PM, readings begin at 7:30
A $10 donation is suggested.
About our Writers
Karen E Bender
Karen E Bender returns to Stories on Stage Sacramento with The New Order, her latest collection of short stories. Recently longlisted for The Story Prize, The New Order has been singled out in over a half-dozen “best of 2018” lists and won praise from The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and National Book Review, among others. Booklist, in a starred review, praises the collection for its “…literary virtuosity, psychological authenticity, and breath-catching insight. Bender dramatizes gripping personal dilemmas compounded by a new order of social tyranny.” Bender’s previous collection, Refund, was a finalist for the National Book Award and a Los Angeles Times bestseller. Previous titles include the novel Like Normal People, which was a Los Angeles Times bestseller, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and A Town of Empty Rooms. Her short fiction has appeared The New Yorker, Granta, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, Story, The Yale Review, Electric Literature, Narrative, The Harvard Review, Guernica, and The Iowa Review. Her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, and New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best and have won two Pushcart prizes. Her tales “Eternal Love” and “The Fourth Prussian Dynasty” have been read in the Selected Shorts program on NPR. Karen is the Visiting Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Hollins University in Roanoke, VA and lives with her husband, the writer Robert Anthony Siegel, in Wilmington, North Carolina
Valerie Fioravanti
Valerie Fioravanti, the founder of Stories on Stage Sacramento, is the author of the linked collection of Brooklyn stories Garbage Night at the Opera from BkMk Press, which won the Chandra Prize for Short Fiction. Her fiction has appeared in many literary journals, including North American Review, Cimarron Review, and Hunger Mountain. She has received eight Pushcart Prize nominations for her work and a Fulbright Fellowship to Italy.
About our Readers
Kelley Ogden
A frequent reader at Stories on Stage Sacramento, Kelley Ogden is an actress, writer, director and producer, who was most recently seen onstage in the Capital Stage production of Sweat. In addition to working with Sacramento Shakespeare Festival, Main Street Theatre Works and Theater Galatea, Ogden co-founded KOLT Run Creations, a local fringe theater company. She earned a BFA in performance from The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago. She will read “The Cell Phones” from Karen E Bender’s The New Order
Tara Henry
Highlights of Tara Henry‘s past roles include: Titus in Titus Andronicus (RTAA), Emma/Ensemble in The Behavior of Broadus (Capital Stage), Fanny Dashwood/Charlotte Palmer in Sense & Sensibility (Sacramento Theater Company), Cassandra in Vanya, Sonia, Masha & Spike (Main Street Theatre Works), Charlotte/Mrs.Gardner in Pride & Prejudice (Sacramento Theatre Company), Both Dromios in Comedy of Errors (Sac Shakespeare Festival), Goneril in King Lear (TAAC). Tara is appearing next in Angels in America as Angel/Nurse Emily in July at the Roseville Theatre Arts Academy. She will read “Falla’s Boys” from Valerie Fioravanti’s upcoming short story collection Bridge and Tunnel.
About Stories on Stage Sacramento
For ten years, Stories on Stage Sacramento has brought you the best in literature, read by actors, and this year we’re celebrating this big milestone by returning to our full, ten-event season.
We’re proud of our record, as an all-volunteer, donation-based organization, of bringing the best in literary fiction, read by actors, to a growing Sacramento audience. Our six 2017 events featured work by Steve Almond, Deborah Willis, Josh Barkan, Vanessa Hua, Joshua Mohr, the Los Rios Writers, and Josh Weil, as well as several of Sacramento’s notable emerging writers.
Our 2018 season featured the writers Anne Raeff, Mira T. Lee, Elizabeth Tallent, Bob Sylva, Kirstin Chen, Tommy Orange, Vanessa Hua, Melissa Yancy and Dana Johnson. The dates for our 2018 season are: February 23, April 27, June 29, August 24, and October 26. In addition, our annual showcase featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 28.
in 2019, we’ll welcome Tom Barbash, Karen E Bender (a National Book Award finalist) Sharma Shields, Janet Fitch, and exciting new writers Sarah Stone, Devi Lasker, and Fred D’Aguiar. And we’ll welcome back the Los Rios Writers. More will be announced: watch this space!
]]>
Tom Barbash
author of Stay Up With Me and The Dakota Winters
with Shelley Blanton-Stroud
Readings by Ian Hopps and Jessica Laskey
Friday, January 25 at the auditorium at CLARA
1425 24th Street, Sacramento
Doors open at 7PM, readings begin at 7:30
A $10 donation is suggested.
For ten years, Stories on Stage Sacramento has brought you the best in literature, read by actors, and this year we’re celebrating this big milestone by returning to our full, ten-event season. We’re beginning the series with excerpts from two novels, each threaded with the theme of the damage – and the gifts – parents bring to their grown children
About our Writers
Tom Barbash
Tom Barbash was previously featured at Stories on Stage Sacramento with a reading from his bestselling short story collection, Stay Up With Me, and he’s back with his new novel The Dakota Winters, an evocative and wildly absorbing tale about the Winters, a family living in New York City’s famed Dakota apartment building. It’s a family drama, a page-turning social novel, and a tale of a critical moment in the history of New York City in the year leading up to John Lennon’s assassination. It isn’t giving anything away to say that John Lennon himself is one of the main characters in the novel, along with such Seventies luminaries as Johnny Carson and the Kennedys, Teddy and Joan. Tom Barbash’s first novel, The Last Good Chance, won the California Book Award, and Stay Up With Me was nominated for the Folio Prize. His nonfiction book, On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11: A Story of Loss and Renewal, was a New York Times bestseller. His stories and articles have been published in Tin House, McSweeney’s, VQR, and other publications, and have been performed on National Public Radio for their Selected Shorts Series. He teaches in the MFA program at California College of the Arts. He grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and currently lives in Marin County.
Shelley Blanton-Stroud
Shelley Blanton-Stroud is a Sacramento writer, teacher, editor, and writing coach whose stories have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Brevity, This Side of the Divide: Stories of The American West, and Aethlon, A Journal of Sports Literature, among others. She teaches English and writing at California State University, Sacramento, and is currently revising two novels.
About our Readers
This is Ian Hopps’ first appearance at Stories on Stage Sacramento but he’s a familiar face to Sacramento and Davis audiences: since his 2016 move to Sacramento from the Bay Area he’s appeared in leading roles with Capital Stage (Luna Gale, Stupid F***ing Bird,) the Sacramento Theatre Company (Macbeth, The Tempest) and Big Idea Theatre (The Rover, An Ideal Husband, The 39 Steps.) He’s the former associate producer and marketing director of the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble and has appeared in numerous productions there. He studied Theatre Arts at San Francisco State University, and in addition to acting, he writes for indie comics and podcasts, and produces his own music.
Jessica Laskey is very happy to be back at Stories on Stage! As an Equity actress, she has performed for Sacramento Theatre Co., Capital Stage, and California Stage and she’s the co-founding Artistic Director of Theater Galatea. Laskey is a freelance writer for Inside Publications, Sacramento Magazine, Sactown Magazine, Comstock’sand The Sacramento Bee and is the founding co-publisher of Indomita Press. She is also on the board of sister series Stories on Stage Davis.
About Stories on Stage Sacramento
Now in its tenth season, Stories on Stage Sacramento is proud of its record, as an all-volunteer, donation-based organization, of bringing the best in literary fiction, read by actors, to a growing Sacramento audience. Our six 2017 events featured work by Steve Almond, Deborah Willis, Josh Barkan, Vanessa Hua, Joshua Mohr, the Los Rios Writers, and Josh Weil, as well as several of Sacramento’s notable emerging writers.
Our 2018 season featured the writers Anne Raeff, Mira T. Lee, Elizabeth Tallent, Bob Sylva, Kirstin Chen, Tommy Orange, Vanessa Hua, Melissa Yancy and Dana Johnson. The dates for our 2018 season are: February 23, April 27, June 29, August 24, and October 26. In addition, our annual showcase featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 28.
in 2019, we’ll welcome Tom Barbash, Karen E Bender (a National Book Award finalist) Sharma Shields, and exciting new writers Sarah Stone, Devi Lasker, and Fred D’Aguiar. And we’ll welcome back the Los Rios Writers. More will be announced: watch this space!
]]>
Dana Johnson
and Melissa Yancy
Friday, October 26 at the auditorium at CLARA, 1425 24th Street, Sacramento
Doors open at 7PM, readings begin at 7:30
readings by Ruby Sketchley and Lori Russo
The event is free: a $10 donation is suggested.
About our Writers
Dana Johnson
Winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for her short story collection Break Any Woman Down, twice nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Dana Johnson’s most recent collection In The Not Quite Dark was described in the Los Angeles Review as “stunning…triumphantly portraying the complexities of womanhood, race, and Los Angeles.” In a starred review, Publishers Weekly praised the book’s “masterly, morally engaged storytelling.” Dana Johnson’s novel Elsewhere, California was one of the nominees for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, along with Break Any Woman Down. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Callaloo, The Iowa Review and Huizache, among others, and anthologized in Watchlist: 32 Stories by Persons of Interest, Shaking the Tree: A Collection of New Fiction and Memoir by Black Women, and California Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century. Born and raised in and around Los Angeles, she is a professor of English at the University of Southern California.
Melissa Yancy
Melissa Yancy’s stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, One Story, Prairie Schooner, Zyzzyva, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. Her story collection Dog Years was selected by Richard Russo as winner of the 2016 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was published by University of Pittsburgh Press in fall 2016. She is the recipient of a 2016 NEA Literature Fellowship.
Her stories “Dog Years” and “Consider this Case” received Special Mention in the 2016 Pushcart Prize XL. “Consider this Case” was also winner of The Missouri Review 2013 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize and the short story “Teeth Apart” was first-place winner of the 2011 Glimmer Train Fiction Open. She is a graduate of the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California, where she received an Edward Moses Award and Phi Kappa Phi Award. She lives in Los Angeles and works in the non-profit world.
About our Readers
Ruby Sketchley
Ruby Sketchley has performed locally at Sacramento Theatre Company, Capital Stage, Big Idea Theatre, KOLT, MSTW, and as an 1850’s tour guide in Old Sacramento. She’s a former company member of Big Idea Theatre and a former board member of the Capital Film Arts Alliance.
She and her husband own Tiny Octopus Productions, which produced the award winning documentary In The Parlor. She’s excited to be returning to Stories on Stage Sacramento.
Lori Russo
Lori is an alumni of the USC BFA program in Los Angeles. She has performed in Broadway touring companies of 42nd St. and Meet Me in St. Louis. Lori staged & choreographed New York premiers of Captains and Courage, The Unwritten Song and The Bus To Buenos Aires, and has staged and choreographed work for California Stage, Big Idea Theater and Capital Stage.. She has been a company member and resident choreographer with Sierra Repertory Theatre, performing in Lend Me A Tenor, Guys and Dolls, Comedy of Errors, A Streetcar Named Desire and most recently The Glass Menagerie and Vanya, Sonia, Masha & Spike. She appeared in Capital Stage’s productions of Superior Donuts and Good People, and in the Sacramento Theatre Company’s production of Mothers and Sons. Lori received an Elly award for best actress in Love Isadora with California Stage. She also teaches Movement for the Actor Workshops.
About Stories on Stage Sacramento
Now in its ninth season, Stories on Stage Sacramento is proud of its record, as an all-volunteer organization, of bringing the best in literary fiction, read by actors, to a growing Sacramento audience. Our six 2017 events featured work by Steve Almond, Deborah Willis, Josh Barkan, Vanessa Hua, Joshua Mohr, the Los Rios Writers, and Josh Weil, as well as several of Sacramento’s notable emerging writers.
Our 2018 season has featured, or will feature, the writers Anne Raeff, Mira T. Lee, Elizabeth Tallent, Bob Sylva, Kirstin Chen, Tommy Orange, Vanessa Hua, Melissa Yancy and Dana Johnson. The dates for our 2018 season are: February 23, April 27, June 29, August 24, and October 26. In addition, our annual showcase featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 28.
]]>Andrew Blaisdell, Kelilah Thomas,
Kamea Pascua, and Patti Santucci
with readings by Imani Mitchell and Sam Jones
Friday, September 20 at the auditorium at CLARA, 1425 24th Street, Sacramento
Doors open at 7PM, readings begin at 7:30
The event is free: a $10 donation is suggested. Students $5, or whatever you can give.
About our Writers
Andrew Blaisdell (Sacramento City College, Susurrus) holds a BA in Art (photography) from San Francisco State University. After a brief stint as a professional photographer, he began a 25-year career as a professional writer, crafting marketing materials for technology companies in the San Francisco Bay area. He’s currently revisiting his passion for the fine arts: ceramics, photography, and literary fiction. “The Light of Charles Bukowski” is his first fictional short story..
Kelilah Thomas (Cosumnes River College, Cosumnes River Journal) is a second-year student, majoring in English. She works on campus as a student assistant for the English Department, and plans to transfer to either UC Santa Cruz or UC Riverside after the 2018-2019 academic year. She hopes to work for a publishing company, and, of course, become a bestselling author!
Kamea Pascua (Folsom Lake Community College, The Machine) is a twenty-year-old English major. She is an honors student and contributes to the school’s newspaper as well as the literary magazine. “Keep Your Mouth Shut” is the first piece she has had published in The Machine. She is grateful to creative writing teacher David Lacy, in whose class she was inspired to collect her written thoughts into the story, and to Josh Fernandez for including it in the publication.
Patti Santucci (American River College, American River Review) Patti Santucci earned her AA degree then started a business with her husband in 1988. After the birth of their daughter, she became a stay-at-home mom, volunteering at her child’s school. When her daughter left for college, she went back to school and consumed every creative writing course available at ARC. Patti has been published in American River Review, RePlay Magazine, Piker Press, and Literally Stories.
About our Readers
Actor and writer Imani Mitchell received her Associate’s degree in Theater Arts from Sacramento City College. Recently, she was featured in Capital Stage’s production of The Nether as Morris, and has appeared in leading roles with B Street Theatre, Capital Stage Company, Celebration Arts and Big Idea Theatre.
Sam Jones is an actor, dancer and musician. Recent appearances 
have included Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Davis Shakespeare Festival, and roles in Man of La Mancha, The Donner Party, and The Tempest with the Sacramento Theatre Company. He’s a recent graduate in theatre and dance from Christopher Newport University in Virginia, and has trained at the Manhattan Film Institute and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
About Stories on Stage Sacramento
Now in its ninth season, Stories on Stage Sacramento is proud of its record, as an all-volunteer organization, of bringing the best in literary fiction, read by actors, to a growing Sacramento audience. Our six 2017 events featured work by Steve Almond, Deborah Willis, Josh Barkan, Vanessa Hua, Joshua Mohr, the Los Rios Writers, and Josh Weil, as well as several of Sacramento’s notable emerging writers.
Our 2018 season has featured, or will feature, the writers Anne Raeff, Mira T. Lee, Elizabeth Tallent, Bob Sylva, Kirstin Chen, Tommy Orange, Vanessa Hua, Melissa Yancy and Dana Johnson. The dates for our 2018 season are: February 23, April 27, June 29, August 24, and October 26. In addition, our annual showcase featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 28.
]]>