On Tuesday, April 17th, The Ordinary Evening Reading Series proudly presents two fiction writers, New Haven native Chandra Prasad and O. Henry-award winning novelist Sheila Kohler. As always, the reading will start at 7 PM in the Mermaid Room, downstairs at the Anchor Bar, 272 College St. in New Haven.
Chandra Prasad's writing explores themes of identity and belonging. Inspired by lore and legend, her book Death of a Circus is a dark tale that centers around a young man who dreams of making a name for himself as a high-wire walker. Tom Perrotta says it is “narrated with Dickensian verve, a keen eye for historical detail, and lots of heart.” Prasad is the editor of—and a contributor to—Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience (W.W. Norton), which features original work by Danzy Senna and Ruth Ozeki, among others. She is also the author of Outwitting the Job Market as well as dozens of articles on diversity and the workplace. Her novel On Borrowed Wings, about a girl who attends Yale University in the 1930s in the guise of a boy, will be published by Atria (Simon & Schuster) in June. Chandra lives in Connecticut with her husband, son, and an iguana named Green Bean.
Sheila Kohler has just published Bluebird or the Invention of Happiness (Other Press, April 2007), an account of an 18th century French noblewoman who left Revolutionary France and became a successful dairy farmer in Massachusetts. She is the author of five other novels: The Perfect Place,(Knopf,1989) The House on R Street, (Knopf, 1994) Cracks (Zoland,1999) Children of Pithiviers, (Zoland, June, 2001) and Crossways(The Ontario Review Press, October 2004), and three collections of short stories: Miracles in America,(Knopf, 1990) One Girl (Helicon Nine, 1999) and Stories from Another World (2003, Ontario Review Press).
Kohler has been awarded the O.Henry, (1988), the Open Voice Award(1991), The Willa Cather Prize for One Girl(1998), the Smart Family Foundation prize (October, 2000) and the Antioch Review Prize, (2004). She was a fellow at the Cullman Center at the New York Public Library in 2003/4 and teaches at Bennington and Brooklyn College.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Monday, March 05, 2007
Sandi Kahn Shelton and Joyce Peseroff Read on March 27th
The Ordinary Evening Reading Series welcomes novelist/humorist Sandi Kahn Shelton and poet Joyce Peseroff to the Anchor Bar on Tuesday, March 27th at 7 PM.
Sandi Kahn Shelton's second novel, A Piece of Normal, has just appeared in paperback. Sandi, a transplant to the New Haven area, always meant to move back to California but instead discovered she could live without the Pacific Ocean much more easily than she could do without clam apizza, snow days, and all the writers who live in this little 19-square mile area. Although by the age of five, she envisioned a smooth-running literary career for herself after she sold a story to her neighbors for 20 cents (the cost of a banana popsicle), she's discovered since then that the writing life, while mostly fun, isn't just about acquiring frozen desserts. She is the author of three non-fiction humor books about parenting--books that boast of offering absolutely NO viable parenting advice except "just try to make it from day to day." A feature writer and former humor columnist for the New Haven Register, she's the author of two novels, What Comes After Crazy and A Piece of Normal, and is currently at work on a third. She also maintains a blog at her website, www.sandishelton.com.
Joyce Peseroff's four books of poems are The Hardness Scale, A Dog in the Lifeboat, Mortal Education, and Eastern Mountain Time (Carnegie Mellon University Press). She is the editor of The Ploughshares Poetry Reader, Robert Bly: When Sleepers Awake, and, most recently, Simply Lasting: Writers on Jane Kenyon. Recent poems and reviews appear in Margie, Memorious, Ploughshares, Salamander, Slate, and The Women's Review of Books. She has received grants for her poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, as well as a Pushcart Prize. She is Director of Creative Writing and the new MFA Program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Sandi Kahn Shelton's second novel, A Piece of Normal, has just appeared in paperback. Sandi, a transplant to the New Haven area, always meant to move back to California but instead discovered she could live without the Pacific Ocean much more easily than she could do without clam apizza, snow days, and all the writers who live in this little 19-square mile area. Although by the age of five, she envisioned a smooth-running literary career for herself after she sold a story to her neighbors for 20 cents (the cost of a banana popsicle), she's discovered since then that the writing life, while mostly fun, isn't just about acquiring frozen desserts. She is the author of three non-fiction humor books about parenting--books that boast of offering absolutely NO viable parenting advice except "just try to make it from day to day." A feature writer and former humor columnist for the New Haven Register, she's the author of two novels, What Comes After Crazy and A Piece of Normal, and is currently at work on a third. She also maintains a blog at her website, www.sandishelton.com.
Joyce Peseroff's four books of poems are The Hardness Scale, A Dog in the Lifeboat, Mortal Education, and Eastern Mountain Time (Carnegie Mellon University Press). She is the editor of The Ploughshares Poetry Reader, Robert Bly: When Sleepers Awake, and, most recently, Simply Lasting: Writers on Jane Kenyon. Recent poems and reviews appear in Margie, Memorious, Ploughshares, Salamander, Slate, and The Women's Review of Books. She has received grants for her poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, as well as a Pushcart Prize. She is Director of Creative Writing and the new MFA Program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
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