Writing

Aaron Philip Clark (’08 MFA Writing) will read and discuss his work. Clark is a native of Los Angeles.

Fernando A. Flores will read and discuss his work. Born in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, Flores grew up in South Texas. He is the author of the short story collections Valleyesque and Death to the Bullshit Artists of South Texas, and the novel Tears of the Trufflepig, which was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and named a best book of 2019 by Tor.com.

Nicky Beer will read and discuss her work. She is the author of Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes. She is a bi/queer writer, and the author of two other collections of poems, The Octopus Game and The Diminishing House, both winners of the Colorado Book Award.

Myriam Gurba will read and discuss her work. Gurba is a writer and artist from Santa Maria, California. She is the author of the memoir Mean, a New York Times editors’ choice, and the story collections Painting Their Portraits in Winter and Dahlia Season, winner of the Edmund White Award. Gurba is also the author of the poetry collections, Wish You Were Here and Sweatsuits of the Damned. Her essays and criticism have appeared in the Paris Review, TIME.com, The Believer, and elsewhere.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah will read and discuss his work. He is a New York Times bestselling author of the story collection Friday Black. He received his M.F.A. from Syracuse University.

Alexandra Kleeman will be reading and discussing her work. She is the author of the novels Something New Under the Sun and You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine, as well as Intimations, a story collection. The winner of a Rome Prize, Berlin Prize, and the Bard Fiction Prize, her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, and n+1, among others. She is an Assistant Professor at the New School and lives in Staten Island.

Tiana Clark will read and discuss her work. She is the author of the poetry collection, I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood, winner of the 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and Equilibrium, selected by Afaa Michael Weaver for the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition.

Qian Julie Wang will read and discuss her writing. She is a New York Times best-selling author of the memoir Beautiful Country. A graduate of Yale Law School and formerly a commercial litigator, she is now managing partner of Gottlieb & Wang LLP, a firm dedicated to advocating for education and civil rights. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Shonda Buchanan will read and discuss her work. Literary editor of Harriet Tubman Press, Buchanan is an award-winning poet and educator. She is the author of the memoir Black Indian. Her collections of poetry include Who’s Afraid of Black Indians? and Equipoise: Poems from Goddess Country. She edited the anthologies Voices from Leimert Park and Voices from Leimert Park Redux. Buchanan is a Writing Arts Sundance Institute Fellow, a Jentel Artist Fellow, and PEN USA Emerging Voices Alum.

Halley Sutton will read and discuss her work. She received her MFA in Writing from Otis College of Art and Design. Her debut novel, The Lady Upstairs, is a feminist noir forthcoming from Putnam. She is a Pitch Wars mentor and her work has appeared in CrimeReads, LitHub, Monday Night, and elsewhere.