ELIZABETH TALLENT with BOB SYLVA
Friday, April 27at the Auditorium at CLARA
1425 24th Street, Sacramento
Doors open at 7, readings begin at 7:30
a $10 donation is suggested
Elizabeth Tallent’s work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Best American Essays, and The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, The New Yorker, Esquire, and Harper’s Magazine, among many others. Her latest short story collection, Mendocino Fire, was published in 2015 to lavish praise from The New York Times, which called the collection “enchanting” and singled our her “ability to create characters who force us to withhold judgment and leave us gasping at their absolute, solid reality.” Tin House described it as “driving, furious, erotic, gilded, the sentences flying at you like arrows.” Mendocino Fire was a finalist for the 2016 Pen/Faulkner Award, and includes the story “Tabriz,” which won a Pushcart Prize and will be read by Eric Baldwin at the Stories on Stage Sacramento event. Previous published collections include In Constant Flight, Time with Children, and Honey, as well as the novel Museum Pieces. Her memoir, Perfectionism, will be published this year by Harper’s
She has taught since 1989 in Stanford’s Creative Writing Program and lives with her wife, an antiques dealer, on the Mendocino coast.
Bob Sylva’s name will be familiar to Sacramento Bee readers: he enjoyed a long career at the newspaper, where, well before the era of farm-to-fork, he wrote seasonal features and a column which showcased the city’s then-unheralded diversity. Today, he continues to write, struggles to acquire a primitive French, and spends hours in his Japanese-inspired garden, imagining what-would-Isamu Noguchi do, while divining the whims of large rocks. The King of Karaoke is his debut collection of short stories, many drawn from his experience as a journalist in the Sacramento Valley, a “world inhabited by struggling souls who, despite all, exhibit virtues of optimism, ambition, resilience, and conviction.” The title story of the collection will be read by Matt Rives.
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. We’ve had a continuing uptick in attendance since we moved to our beautiful new home, the auditorium at CLARA, the E Claire Raley Studio for the Arts.
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.
Allyson Finn has appeared in short films from the Art Institute of Sacramento and as an Elf in Morgan and the Magical Christmas Train, and as the reader for the Stories on Stage/Community of Writers event featuring the novelist Janet Fitch. She’ll be seen at a variety of venues this spring, including Freefall Stage (4 Deaths and a Wedding,) EMH Productions (Fragile Things) and ComedySportz. When not stepping into the spotlight, Allyson consults and coaches business clients through her home based business, Business Mastery by Finn.
Yuri Tajiri‘s past favorite roles have included the Narrator in The Rocky Horror Show (Green Valley Theatre) and Linda in Evil Dead The Musical (Sutter Street Theatre). Yuri holds a BA in Theatre Arts from CSU Sacramento and works as a photographer and model when not onstage.
This month at Stories on Stage Sacramento, we are thrilled to welcome Josh Weil, called “one of the most gifted writers of his generation” by Colu
Appearing with Josh will be Peggi Wood. Peggi is known to Stories on Stage Sacramento attendees as our casting director, and now you’ll meet her as a lyric and powerful writer. We’re excited to debut her new short story “A Viewing,” which will be read by Ethan Ireland.
Blair Leatherwood counts more than a dozen literary journeys in his many readings at Stories on Stage Sacramento – including sojourns through the Cold War, Chinese restaurants, forest fires, Sasquatch land, and most recently the cutthroat world of competitive poker. He has over forty years of experience in the theater, in addition to numerous film and commercial credits. He recently worked on Spike Lee’s “Livin’ Da Dream”, a segment of the NBA 2K16 video game. He also has years of experience with the Standardized Patient program at UCD Medical Center and is one of the audio describers for blind and visually impaired patrons of California Musical Theatre.
with sixteen years as a working professional in both performance and technical roles. The son of noted “lit noi”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 also performed at Now Hear This: A Story and Music Performance Series produced by Atim Udoffia.
When Joshua Mohr was thirty-eight, doctors discovered a hole in his heart, which explained the three strokes he’d sustained – but not the out-of-control-drinking, the drug use, the failed marriages and the tangled, stop-and-go-life. Surgery, getting clean, and the memoir Sirens followed. This month, we’re featuring non-fiction at Stories on Stage Sacramento, and we’re excited to welcome Josh and bring you a reading from Sirens, a complex and compelling tale which The Rumpus called “poetic, touching, inspiring and deeply empathetic.”
love, in all its dark and varied aspects. Among her many glowing reviews is this from Alice Munro about Willis’ first collection, Vanishing, and Other Stories – “the emotional range and depth of these stories, the clarity and deftness is astonishing.” Called “a major new voice in Canadian fiction” by the Toronto Star, Willis gained a US publisher with her second collection, The Dark and Other Love Stories, published by WW Norton in February 2017, and simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Random House. Her fiction has appeared in The Walrus, The Virginia Quarterly, The Iowa Review, Lucky Peach, and Zoetrope. Vanishing and Other Stories was named one of the best books of 2010 by NPR, was selected as one of the Globe and Mail’s Best Books of 2009, and was nominated for the Governor General’s Award. Willis lives in Calgary, Canada
Short story writer and essayist Steve Almond is the award-winning author of eight books of fiction and non-fiction, most recently the New York Times bestseller Against Football:One Man’s Reluctant Manifesto. His short stories have appeared in the Best American and Pushcart anthologies, and he has published more than 150 stories in magazines such as Tin House, Playboy, Zoetrope, and Ploughshares. His story “Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched” was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2010 and has been optioned for film. His journalism has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, GQ, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. Almond co-hosts the podcast Dear Sugar Radio with Cheryl Strayed. He lives outside Boston with his wife and his children, and is a frequent teacher at Grub Street in Boston and the Tin House Writer’s Conference. Almond’s appearance in Sacramento will include a writing workshop.
Friday, February 24 – Featuring Steve Almond. With Deborah Meltvedt.
Friday, June 30 – San Francisco Chronicle columnist and short-story writer Vanessa Hua. With Josh Barkan.
reading from his new short story collection.
I’ll begin with an early warning: I can’t be objective about Bonnie Jo Campbell. I’m a fan. I love her dark, twisted, often funny stories and how she’s willing to take them as far as they will go, and then, even further. I love the sunny, ever-optimistic way she lives her life. I’m in awe of how she’s very serious and disciplined about her writing, but playful when it comes to presenting herself as a writer, despite her burgeoning reputation as a leading author of what’s been called “rural America’s postindustrial
landscape.” What other writer, compared to the great Flannery O’Connor, would show up at appearances for her short story collection Mothers, Tell Your Daughters with Flannery herself at her side, or rather a lifesize, cardboard version of Flannery?
Daughters, and we’ll have copies of the entire book at the event. “Daughters of the Animal Kingdom” is the story we’ve selected to be read, and here’s the graphic interpretation.
she tends to her two donkeys, Jack and Don Quixote, raises chickens, practices martial arts, rides her bike long distances, brings in the hay on her mother’s farm and makes an exemplary elderberry wine. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with her husband, Christopher. www.bonniejocampbell.com.
this month we are very happy to welcome back Kristin Fitzpatrick. Her first short story collection, My Pulse is an Earthquake, was published in 2015 by West Virginia University Press. Her work has appeared in Colorado Review, The Southeast Review, Best of Gival Press Short Stories, Epiphany, and Ventura County Star. Her writing has also been chosen for the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize and The New Short Fiction Series. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Jentel Artist Residency Program and The Seven Hills School. Originally from Michigan, she now lives in California and teaches writing at CSU Channel Islands. There’s more at her website www.kristinfitzpatrick.com
Kelley Ogden is an accomplished performer, director and producer whose work has been seen throughout the area. Co-founder of acclaimed fringe theater company, KOLT Run Creations, Kelley has performed with Capital Stage (most recently in How to Use A Knife and The Totalitarians,) Sacramento Shakespeare Festival, Main Street Theatre Works and Theater Galatea among others. Kelley earned her BFA in Performance from The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago.
Bojana (Bonnie) Anglin – Cosumnes River Journal
her playwright husband, p joshua laskey, earned his Masters’ Degree in Translation. As an Equity actress, Jessica’s favorite roles include Sally Bowles in Cabaret (UC Berkeley), Mae in Reefer Madness (Artistic Differences), Jenny in Threepenny Opera (California Stage) and several productions with the Sacramento Theatre Company. Jessica is also a freelance writer for Inside Publications—for which she wrote the newly released book, Inside Sacramento: The Most Interesting Neighborhood Places in America’s Farm-to-Fork Capital—as well as for Sacramento Magazine and The Sacramento Bee.
Pano Roditis is a Theatre and Computer Science double major currently attending California State University Sacramento. He has appeared in the CSUS productions of Avenue Q as “Trekkie Monster,” played multiple roles as member of the ensemble in The Producers, and will appear as Nathan Detroit in their upcoming production of Guys and Dolls. 
