This Wednesday, May 27, I will be sharing a story or two and answering questions over Zoom as a part of the brand new BunkerLit reading series. I would love to see you there at 5 pm Pacific / 8 pm Eastern — join the live meeting here.
Category: Readings
I’m going to #AWP20 in San Antonio!
A conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs is coming up in March, hosted this year at the Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. I have three events as a part of this conference:
Thursday, March 5, 10:35 am
Room 211, Henry B. González Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
A Panel, High Style and Misdemeanors: The Virtues and Vices of Elevated Prose. (Lauren Alwan, Anita Felicelli, Olga Zilberbourg, Lillian Howan, Aatif Rashid) The hallmarks of high style—elevated voice, obsession with the pictorial, self-consciousness, and poetic devices—are rooted in Flaubert and European realism. Can writers whose work concerns immigration and displacement embrace a stylistic approach that has historically been disengaged and apolitical? Authors of fiction that centers on immigration, intergenerational stories, and belonging, read their work and discuss the intersection of elevated prose and socially and politically engaged work.
Thursday, March 5, 6 pm
Jokesters 22 Pub n Grub, 713 S. Alamo St.
A Reading, WTAW Press and Friends: Join WTAW Press & Friends for readings from Angela Mitchell, Anita Felicelli, Annie Kim, Lillian Howan, Olga Zilberbourg & Sarah Stone. Peg Alford Pursell will emcee.
RSVP on Facebook event page
Friday March 6, 2:30 pm
Bookfair is 2045, located in the Henry B. González Convention Center, San Antonio, TX.
Book signing! Come say hi please!
Reading at Zuri, December 10
Tuesday, December 10 @ 7:00pm
ZURI: 1902 Fillmore Street
I’m participating in this reading at the Zuri storefront that features a culinary theme. Please bring a canned food donation for the SF-Marin Food Bank.
Rochester, New York: Two Olgas and One Genrikh: Russian Poems, Stories, & Shirts
When: Saturday, November 9, 2019 at 7 PM – 10 PM EST
Where: Java’s Cafe, 16 Gibbs St, Rochester, New York 14604
Join us for a lively evening of stories, poems, and performance art by nonconformist writers from the former Soviet Union, in English.
Olga Livshin‘s book A LIFE REPLACED braids together poems on immigration in America with translations from Anna Akhmatova and our contemporary Vladimir Gandelsman, winner of Russia’s highest award for poetry, the Moscow Reckoning. Many poems are responses to these two voices; some are stand-alone works. Maggie Smith comments: “Livshin, who immigrated to the US from Russia as a child, acknowledges the two Americas she knows firsthand: the one that fears and demonizes, and the one that welcomes. A LIFE REPLACED is astonishingly beautiful, intelligent, and important.”
A graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology, Olga Zilberbourg will introduce her English-language short story collection LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES. “The thread connecting these tales,” Anna Kasradze writes for The Moscow Times (ed. Michele Berdy), “is each protagonist’s attempt to come to terms with an identity that is always in flux, transitioning between various contexts such as emigration, motherhood, partnership, and employment.” Olga is the author of three Russian-language books (the latest of which “Хлоп-страна,” Издательство Время, 2016). She has published fiction and essays in Alaska Quarterly Review, Scoundrel Time, Narrative Magazine, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, the San Francisco Chronicle, and elsewhere. She co-moderates the San Francisco Writers Workshop.
Opening for the two Olgas is a poetry performance by translator Dmitri Manin. Avant-garde sonnets by Genrikh Sapgir will be presented on shirts, worn by both Olgas and Dmitri. Sapgir (1928-1999), a hugely acclaimed poet in Russia, first presented his philosophical and funny Sonnets on Shirts–on actual men’s shirts–in 1975. His performance made a sensation amidst an atmosphere of official, staid, highly traditional, print-only Soviet literature. Manin revives his work and re-enacts it in English, using contemporary bodies and presences to channel Sapgir.
Java’s–a ten-minute walk or three-minute Lyft drive from the Floreano Convention Center–will have food and drink for us to regale us into the night with literature and pleasure.
Upcoming Events: Heading to New York!
I’ve loved seeing so many friends come out to my events in the Bay Area, and I am delighted to be heading to New York State this weekend. I’ll be participating in two events:
November 3rd, New York City, 6 pm at the Bowery Poetry Club — I’ll be appearing as a part of Why There Are Words event featuring five other excellent readers. I’m particularly excited to reconnect with Melissa Valentine, a recent transplant from the Bay Area. Get tickets here.
November 9th, Rochester, New York, 7:30 at Java’s Cafe downtown — I’ll be introducing my book alongside to celebrating the publication of Olga Livshin’s hybrid book of translated and original poetry and also featuring Dmitri Manin’s translations from avant-garde writer Genrikh Sapgir. I’m expecting this to be very festive!
Upcoming Reading: Lit Crawl San Francisco
My next reading with fellow authors and friends of WTAW Press is coming up this Saturday! I’ll be reading a short (and probably funny) piece from LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES.
Saturday October 19, 2019 6:30pm – 7:30pm
Third Haus 455 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT HAS HAD TO BE RELOCATED FROM THE VENUE LISTED IN THE PHYSICAL PROGRAM AND ON THE MAP.
Online Lit Crawl Schedule has the right information!
In Conversation with Nancy Au
Please join Olga Zilberbourg and Nancy Au, authors of LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES and SPIDER LOVE SONG AND OTHER STORIES, who will be in conversation about their new books recently launched by WTAW Press and Acre Books. Q&A and signing to follow.
E.M. Wolfman General Interest Small Bookstore, Oakland, CA
7:00 PM, Saturday, October 5, 2019
Event Announcement: Two Olgas and One Genrikh: Russian Poems, Stories, & Shirts
When: Saturday, November 9, 2019 at 7 PM – 10 PM EST
Where: Java’s Cafe, 16 Gibbs St, Rochester, New York 14604
Join us for a lively evening of stories, poems, and performance art by nonconformist writers from the former Soviet Union, in English.
Olga Livshin‘s book A LIFE REPLACED braids together poems on immigration in America with translations from Anna Akhmatova and our contemporary Vladimir Gandelsman, winner of Russia’s highest award for poetry, the Moscow Reckoning. Many poems are responses to these two voices; some are stand-alone works. Maggie Smith comments: “Livshin, who immigrated to the US from Russia as a child, acknowledges the two Americas she knows firsthand: the one that fears and demonizes, and the one that welcomes. A LIFE REPLACED is astonishingly beautiful, intelligent, and important.”
A graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology, Olga Zilberbourg will introduce her English-language short story collection LIKE WATER AND…
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Book Events
The publication date for my debut English-language book LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES is approaching on September 5. If you are in the Bay Area, please come to the book party on September 12, 7 pm at Studio 333, Sausalito, CA. We will be celebrating my book together with Anita Felicelli’s novel CHIMERICA. Peg Alford Pursell, our publisher and the author of A GIRL GOES INTO THE FOREST, will host the event that will include a reading, a conversation, wine and cake.
I’m particularly delighted that, as a part of my book tour, I’ll be able to return to Rochester, New York, where I first landed when I came to the US in 1996. I look forward to visiting RIT and catching up with old friends as a part of this adventure. My Rochester event is scheduled for November 9th, 7:30 pm at Java’s in downtown Rochester — more information about that soon.
Below are two more upcoming Bay Area readings. More events are in the works, and I will update you as the book tour comes together!
On October 5 at 7 pm, I will be in conversation with Nancy Au, author of SPIDER LOVE SONG AND OTHER STORIES, at E.M. Wolfman General Interest Small Bookstore, Oakland, CA
On October 7 at 7 pm, I will participate in Odd Mondays reading series at Folio Books, San Francisco, CA
Thank you for all of you who have pre-ordered my book — you should be receiving it soon. If you’d like to pre-order your copy of LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES, you can do it here.
