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.

ANNE RAEFF and MIRA T. LEE

Friday, February 23 at the Auditorium at CLARA

1425 24th Street, Sacramento

Doors open at 7, readings begin at 7:30

a $10 donation is suggested

Anne Raeff’s second novel, Winter Kept Us Warm, will be published February 13 by Counterpoint Press and has already earned praise from Kirkus Reviews for its “haunting events and slow-burning passions.”  Anne is a child of immigrants, and much of her writing, including this novel,  draws on her family’s history as refugees from war and the Holocaust. Her short story collection, The Jungle Around Us won the 2015 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, was named a finalist for the California Book Award, and appears on The San Francisco Chronicle’s 100 Best Books of 2017 list. Her stories and essays have appeared in New England Review, ZYZZYVA, and Guernica among other places. Her first novel, Clara Mondschein’s Melancholia, was published in 2002 (MacAdam/Cage.  Anne is a high school teacher, working primarily with recent immigrants, and she lives in San Francisco with her wife and two cats.

Mira T. Lee’s debut novel, Everything Here is Beautiful,  published in January, was selected by the American Booksellers Association as one of Winter/Spring 2018’s Top 10 Debut titles. “An evocative and beautifully written debut,” says Kirkus Reviews, and from O Magazine: “Not a false note to be found, and everywhere nuggets to savor…”  Mira T Lee’s short fiction has appeared in journals such as the Southern Review, the Gettysburg Review, the Missouri Review, Triquarterly, Harvard Review, and American Short Fiction, and has twice received special mention for the Pushcart Prize. She was awarded the Peden Prize for Best Short Story by The Missouri Review (2010), and an Artist’s Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council (2012). In her previous lives, Mira has also been known as a graphic designer, a pop-country drummer, a salsa dancing fanatic, and a biology grad school dropout. Mira is an alum of Stanford University, and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachuetts

Readers for this event will be Allyson Finn and Yuri Tajiri.

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.

About Stories on Stage Sacramento 

Entering 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.

One young, with a new daughter.

One at the end of his life.

Two tales of love, two devastating secrets.

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

m McCann,  and whose new short story collection The Age of Perpetual Light, published by Grove Atlantic,  has been praised, in a starred Kirkus review, as “rich, often dazzling.”  We’ll feature an excerpt from one of those stories, “The Point of Roughness,” read by Stories on Stage Sacramento favorite Blair Leatherwood.

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.

Friday, October 27 at the Auditorium at CLARA

1425 24th Street, Sacramento

Doors open at 7, readings begin at 7:30

a $10 donation is suggested

about  our authors and readers:

Josh Weil’s novel The Grat Glass Sea  ws a New York Times Editor’s Choice and Powell’s “Indiespensible” selection, won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the GrubStreet National Book Prize, and the Library of Virginia’s Literary Award in Fiction, and was short-listed for The Center for Fiction’s Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel.  His new story collection The Age of Perpetual Light,  (September 12, 2017) has already earned a starred Kirkus review (“A rich, often dazzling collection of short stories linked by themes while ranging widely in style from Babel-like fables to gritty noir and sci-fi,”)  and praise from Publisher’s Weekly. Called “one of the most gifted writers of his generation” by Colum McCann, Weil’s  short fiction has won a Pushcart Prize and appeared in Granta, Esquire, Tin House, and One Story, among others. He has written non-fiction for The New York Times, The Sun, Poets & Writers and Time.com. A recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, he has been the Tickner Writer-in-Residence at Gilman School, the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bowling Green State University, and the Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, and has taught in the graduate programs at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, and Bennington College. Born in the Appalachian mountains of Southwest Virginia, he currently lives with his family in Nevada City.

Peggi Wood is familiar to Stories on Stage Sacramento attendees as our fabulous Casting Director, adept and skillful at selecting actors to read the diverse short prose featured at the event. Peggi is equally adept as a minimalist writer, burgeoning screenwriter and lush storyteller who performs at local venues.  Resurrection Theatre produced Peggi’s short play, Demerol Dreams, in their 10×10 Original Play Festival, where she also directed two plays. She has a Masters in Public and Political Communication from CSUS with awards for her rhetorical analyses of inequality and power as well as guilt, shame and redemption, issues that inform her creative work.

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.

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 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.

Winding up its eighth season, Stories on Stage Sacramento is proud of our 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 new home, the auditorium at CLARA, the E Claire Raley Studio for the Arts. 

The dates for our 2018 season – our 9th – 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.

We’re happy to say that Josh’s heart surgery was successful, and that he’s currently writing and teaching in San Francisco, where he lives with his wife and young daughter.

In addition to rave reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times, the memoir was praised by Kirkus Reviews as “entirely candid, compelling memoir of addiction and the long, fraught road of recovery…raw and tender, this book not only chronicles a man’s literary coming-of-age. It also celebrates the power of love while offering an uncensored look at the frailties that can define—and sometimes overwhelm—people and their lives.” Prior to Sirens, Mohr published five novels, including the much-praised All This Life, which won the California Book Award, Damascus, which the New York Times called “Beat-poet cool,”  Some Things that Meant the World to Me, one of O Magazine’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San Francisco Chronicle best-seller, and Termite Parade , an Editors’ Choice in The New York Times.

Appearing with Josh will be local writer James Cooper, with a reading from “The Sages of West 47th Street.” James is a practicing psychologist, which profession, he says, has “shaped him to lean in unexpected winds, to hold fast or be swept away in wonder. There is always context, amplified or subdued, a language in the hands, in posture, in the pauses between words.” But in his twenties, he drove a taxi in New York City, and the story of that experience earned him the honor of being first runner-up in the current Story Quarterly non-fiction contest.

James has received recent honors in fiction, non-fiction and poetry – in addition to the Story Quarterly recognition, he won the Tupelo Quarterly Prose Open Prize, judged by Pulitzer Prize winner Adam Johnson, 2016, and his first collection of poetry, An Ocean Large Enough, was published this spring. His short stories and poetry have appeared in The Manhattan Review, Oberon Poetry Magazine, Gold Man Review, and in other journals and anthologies.

Our readers this month are Stories on Stage Sacramento veterans Matt Rives, Ethan Ireland and Eric Baldwin. 

Now in its eighth season, Stories on Stage Sacramento continues to bring the best in literary fiction, read by actors,  to a growing Sacramento audience.  Our 2017 events will be held bi-monthly on the following dates: February 24, April 28, June 30, August 25, and October 27 at our new home, the auditorium at CLARA, the E Claire Raley Studio for the Arts. In addition, a special program featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 29.

and

readings by Lori Russo and Ethan Ireland

Friday, April 28

at the Auditorium at CLARA (The E Claire Raley Studios)

1425 24th Street, Sacramento

Doors open 7:00 – readings begin 7:30

 A $10 donation is suggested

This month’s featured writer, Deborah Willis, is the author of two collections of short stories about 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

Our “emerging” writer, Robert Dorjath, is a welcome new addition to the Sacramento writing scene. A native Chicagoan and a fiction writer, Dorjath received his MA from Northwestern University and taught creative writing at Columbia College and Elmhurst College. He was a member of the AstonRep Theatre Company, and his plays have appeared at Mary-Archie Theatre, Sense of Urgency Stage, The Hemingway Museum, and elsewhere. He is currently working on a novel of late-1950’s Chicago, a chapter of which, “A Parable of Fausto Bruzzesi,” was named a finalist in the Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize in Fiction awarded by The Missouri Review. Robert moved to the Sacramento area last year, and lives in El Dorado Hills with his wife Susan and son Samuel.

Reading “The Ark” from The Dark and Other Love Stories is Sacramento actor Lori Russo. Lori is an alumni of the USC BFA program in Los Angeles. She has performed in New York, Broadway touring companies and Internationally with Andy Williams in his America the Beautiful Tour. She staged & choreographed New York premiers of Captain’s and Courage, The Unwritten Song and The Bus To Buenos Aires. She has been a company member and resident choreographer with SRT, performing in Lend Me A Tenor, Guys and Dolls, Comedy of Errors and A Streetcar Named Desire. She has performed at Capital Stage in Superior Donuts and Good People. Lori received an Elly award for best actress in Love Isadora with California Stage. She has staged and choreographed work for California Stage, Big Idea Theater and Capital Stage. Lori also teaches Movement for the Actor Workshops.

Ethan Ireland will read an excerpt from Robert Dorjath’s short story “A Parable of Fausto Bruzzesi”  Ethan 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. His most recent Sacramento appearances include 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.

Now in its eighth season, Stories on Stage Sacramento continues to bring the best in literary fiction to a growing Sacramento audience.  We are happy to announce a new and larger home for the readings – the auditorium at CLARA, the E Claire Raley Studios. In addition, our 2017 events will be held bi-monthly on the following dates: February 24, April 28, June 30, August 25, and October 27. A special program featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 29.

at the Auditorium at CLARA

(The E Claire Raley Studios) 

1425 24th Street, Sacramento

Doors open 7:00 – readings begin 7:30 

 A $10 donation is suggested

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.

Reading “Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched” by Steve Almond  is Blair Leatherwood

Deborah Meltvedt is a writer and high school teacher who loves to blend medical science and art in both the classroom and in her own creative writing.  She has been published in the American River Literary Review, Susurrus, Under the Gum Tree,Tule Review, and the Creative Non-Fiction Anthology:What I Didn’t Know:  True Stories of Becoming a Teacher.  Deborah lives in Sacramento, California with her husband Rick and their cat, Anchovy Jack.

Jessica Laskey will read “It Was So Hot,” a Glimmertrain contest finalist, by Deborah Meltvedt.

Now in its eighth season, Stories on Stage Sacramento continues to bring the best in literary fiction to a growing Sacramento audience.  We are happy to announce a new and larger home for the readings – the auditorium at CLARA, the E Claire Raley Studios. In addition, our 2017 events will be held bi-monthly on the following dates: February 24, April 28, June 30, August 25, and October 27. In addition a special program featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 29.

at the Auditorium at CLARA

(The E Claire Raley Studios) 

1425 24th Street, Sacramento

Doors open 7:00 – readings begin 7:30 

 A $10 donation is suggested

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.

Reading “Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched” by Steve Almond  is Blair Leatherwood

Deborah Meltvedt is a writer and high school teacher who loves to blend medical science and art in both the classroom and in her own creative writing.  She has been published in the American River Literary Review, Susurrus, Under the Gum Tree,Tule Review, and the Creative Non-Fiction Anthology:What I Didn’t Know:  True Stories of Becoming a Teacher.  Deborah lives in Sacramento, California with her husband Rick and their cat, Anchovy Jack.

Jessica Laskey will read “It Was So Hot,” a Glimmertrain contest finalist, by Deborah Meltvedt.

Now in its eighth season, Stories on Stage Sacramento continues to bring the best in literary fiction to a growing Sacramento audience.  We are happy to announce a new and larger home for the readings – the auditorium at CLARA, the E Claire Raley Studios. In addition, our 2017 events will be held bi-monthly on the following dates: February 24, April 28, June 30, August 25, and October 27. In addition a special program featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 29.

We’re rested, rejuvenated and ready to plunge into the 8th season of Stories on  Stage Sacramento. We’ve got a new location, a new schedule, a new tradition we are continuing, workshops,  the best national, regional, and local writers of fiction (and occasionally, non-fiction), and the best audience – you!

New location –

The Auditorium at CLARA (the E Claire Raley Studios for the Performing Arts) 1425 24^th Street, Sacramento 

We’re thrilled to make this wonderful space our new home, and remain very, very grateful to the Sacramento Poetry Center for its support and help, and to Verge Center for the Arts for partnering with us on some memorable events.

New schedule – 

in 2017, Stories on Stage will be held bi-monthly. Mark these dates:

Friday, February 24 – Featuring Steve Almond. With Deborah Meltvedt.

Friday, April 28 – Deborah Willis, prize winning author of The Dark and Other Stories

Friday, June 30 – San Francisco Chronicle columnist and short-story writer Vanessa Hua. With Josh Barkan.

Friday, August 25 – TBA

Friday, October 27 – Author of The Great Glass Sea Josh Weil , with a reading from his new short story collection.

AND Friday, September 29 – Special Event – continuing our collaboration with the literary magazines of the Los Rios Community Colleges, we will feature the best short stories from this year’s issues of Susurrus, The American River Review, The Cosumnes River Journal, and the creative writing department at Folsom Lake College.

Workshops

Master Teacher workshop with Steve Almond. Friday, February 24 from 11-5, and Saturday, February 25 from 9-Noon. Limited to 10 participants, who may submit fiction manuscript of no more than 4000 words to be critiqued. $325.  Steve’s workshops are legendary – he’s a transformative teacher. If you’ve ever wanted to work with him, now’s your chance!

If interested, please e-mail Sue Staats at [email protected]

As we begin our eighth season, Stories on Stage Sacramento continues to be proud of the quality of the literary fiction we have presented to a growing Sacramento audience. 2015’s featured writers included Tobias Wolff, Elena Mauli Shapiro, Sharma Shields, Ann Packer, Karen Bender, Kathryn Ma, T. Geronimo Johnson, Bonnie ZoBell, Adam Johnson, and Naomi Williams. In 2016,  we presented Anthony Marra, Vendela Vida, Kim Stanley Robinson, Lori Ostlund, Mary Volmer, Jodi Angel, Bonnie Jo Campbell, and, in a new partnership with the Los Rios Community Colleges,  created an evening devoted to the best writing from their prize-winning literary magazines. As a completely volunteer organization, supported by donations, we’re inspired by the fine writers we’ve brought to Sacramento, some of them for the first time, and excited to continue to present more fine writing read by actors to Sacramento lovers of literature.

Flannery won’t be with us when Bonnie Jo appears as the featured writer on Friday October 28 at Stories on Stage Sacramento, but she is bringing something just as fun – comics! The graphic artist Monica Friedman, a former student of Bonnie Jo’s (as am I – full disclosure) created six-panel versions of all sixteen stories in Mothers Tell Your 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.

What else about Bonnie Jo?  Nearly too much to report, and that’s just about her writing. Mothers Tell Your Daughters recently won the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association’s Great Lakes, Great Reads Award for Adult Fiction. She is also author of the novel Q Road and its prequel, the New York Times best-seller Once Upon A River.  Her previous short story collection American Salvage was a finalist for the National Book Award AND the National
Book Critics Circle Award. Her first story collection, Women and Other Animals, won the AWP Award for Short Fiction. She’s a Guggenheim Fellow. She’s won a Pushcart Prize, the Eudora Welty Prize, and the 2009 CBA Letterpress Chapbook Award for her poetry collection  Love Letters to Sons of Bitches. She teaches in the Low-Residency Program at Pacific University, and next spring, she will serve as the Mary Rogers Field and Marion Field-McKenna Distinguished University Professor of Creative Writing at DePauw University. When she’s not writing or teaching or making appearances or giving readings 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.

 It’s always a pleasure when a former “emerging” writer becomes a featured writer, and 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

Our readers this month are two Stories on Stage audience favorites: Kelley Ogden and Tara Henry.

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.

Back for the 4th time at Stories on Stage, Tara Henry is a familiar face to local theatre-

goers. Recent performances include roles in Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and The Fantasticks at Sacramento Theatre Company; Emma in The Behavior of Broadus at Capital Stage, and Dromio in A Comedy of Errors at the Sacramento Shakespeare Festival, among many other Shakespeare productions. She also appeared as a Fantasy Festival 28 cast member with the B Street Theatre.

Our featured writer for October

Bonnie Jo Campbell

author of Mothers, Tell Your Daughters

with Kristin Fitzpatrick

readings by Kelley Ogden and Tara Henry

Friday, October 28, 7:30 PM at the Auditorium at CLARA

(The E Claire Raley Studios for the Performing Arts)

a $10 donation is suggested

As we end our seventh season, Stories on Stage Sacramento continues to be proud of the excellence in literary fiction we have presented to a growing Sacramento audience. Last year’s featured writers included Tobias Wolff, Elena Mauli Shapiro, Sharma Shields, Ann Packer, Karen Bender, Kathryn Ma, T. Geronimo Johnson, Bonnie ZoBell, Adam Johnson, and Naomi Williams. This year we presented Anthony Marra, Vendela Vida, Kim Stanley Robinson, Lori Ostlund, Mary Volmer, Jodi Angel, Bonnie Jo Campbell, and, in a new partnership with the Los Rios Community Colleges,  created an evening devoted to the best writing from their prize-winning literary magazines. As a completely volunteer organization, supported by donations, we’re elated by the fine writers we’ve brought to Sacramento, some of them for the first time, and excited to continue to present more fine writing read by actors to Sacramento lovers of literature.

Maybe you think community college is just a place to hang out for a couple of years while you train for a career or gather enough credits to transfer to a four-year school.  What you may not know – but will if you come to our reading on Friday September 30 –  is that the Los Rios Community Colleges are a rich incubator for literary talent. Writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry,  have found the four Los Rios campuses to be a treasure trove of first-rate writers and teaching talent as well as home to four beautifully produced, national-award-winning literary magazines. For many writers, publication in one of these journals is the first time their work appears in print. In our first collaboration with  the community colleges, we are thrilled to present a selection the best fiction from the recent issues of the prize-winning literary magazines of the Los Rios District – Sacramento City College (Susurrus,) American River College (American River Review,)  Cosumnes River College (Cosumnes River Journal,) and Folsom Lake College (the machine.)

Fiction from John Adkisson, Bojana Anglin, Rachel Gardner and Molly Stuart

Readings by Jessica Laskey and Pano Roditis

Friday, September 30

Stories on Stage Sacramento

at Verge Center for the Arts, 625 S Street, Sacramento

Doors open at 7PM, Readings begin at 7:30.

A $10 donation is suggested ($5 for students with i.d.)

Thanks to volunteer extrordinaire Laurie Rivlin Heller for coordinating the selection of stories with the faculty advisors to these publications – Josh Fernandez (the machine,) Marci Selva (Susurrus,) Michael Spurgeon (American River Review,) and Heather Hutcheson (Cosumnes River Journal.)  Thanks for all your hard work, and we hope this is the first of many collaborations to come.

About our writers:

Bojana (Bonnie) Anglin – Cosumnes River Journal
When she isn’t botanizing in the wilderness of the Western United States, Bojana Anglin lives in Sacramento with her husband and just-born baby boy. Alaska inspired her more than any other landscape in which she’s lived or travelled. She dreams of returning with her son, when he is old enough to appreciate the journey.
John Adkisson – Susurrus
John Adkisson is a retired Sacramento civil rights attorney, lecturer and political consultant. He began writing short fiction last year. He has studied the short story craft with writers Jodi Angel, Stacey Swann & Rusty Dolleman. His first four submitted pieces were published in 2016: “As American as Apple Pie,” “The Hill,” “How She Presented Herself,” and the piece chosen for this stage presentation, “How to Learn to Wrap for Christmas.” John is currently preparing a short story collection. He is married to Anne Stausboll and is the father of two

Rachel Gardner – American River Review
Rachel Gardner has been published in nearly every edition of the American River Review since 2009. She recently graduated with 3 AA’s and a publishing certificate. She lives and writes in East Sacramento.

Molly Stuart – the machine
Molly Stuart is a lawyer by training and works with organizations and individuals moving through significant change-including business development for artists and Conversations About Death, a program that helps people consider their own dying. She has been a hospital volunteer for over 30 years in the Emergency Department and the ICU. She lives in Sacramento.

Our readers:

Jessica Laskey is happy to be back in her hometown after spending 2014-5 in Paris while 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.

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