JENNIFER EGAN reading at Emerson College

Critically acclaimed author Jennifer Egan will be reading at Emerson in the Bright Family Screening Room in the Paramount building.

Jennifer Egan is the author of A Visit From the Goon Squad, The Keep, Look at Me, The Invisible Circus, and the story collection Emerald City. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, GQ, Zoetrope, All-Story, and Ploughshares, and her nonfiction appears frequently in The New York Times Magazine. She lives with her husband and sons in Brooklyn. Her newest novel, Manhattan Beach, was published in October 2017 and was a New York Times bestseller.

Launch of GrubStreet’s Tell-All Reading Series

GrubStreet and GrubStreet’s Memoir Incubator Program invite you to attend the launch of TELL-ALL, the first Boston literary series devoted to all things memoir. The event features readings from Joan Wickersham, award-winning author of “The Suicide Index”; and emerging local writers Deborah Schifter, Beyazmin Jimenez, Angie Chatman, and Norman Belanger.

This event is free and open to the public.

Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith presents: Gabriela Alemán in conversation with translator Dick Cluster for POSO WELLS

Celebrated Ecuadorian author Gabriela Alemán’s first work to appear in English: a noir, feminist eco-thriller in which venally corrupt politicians and greedy land speculators finally get their just comeuppance. Read an excerpt of Poso Wells at Words Without Borders.

“Poso Wells is ironic, audacious, and fierce. But what is it, exactly? A satire? A scifi novel? A political detective yarn? Or the purest reality of contemporary Latin America. It’s unclassifiable–as all great books are.” – Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream

Gabriela Alemán, based in Quito, Ecuador, has played professional basketball in Switzerland and Paraguay and has worked as a waitress, administrator, translator, radio scriptwriter, and film studies professor. She received a PhD at Tulane University and holds a Master’s degree in Latin American Literature from Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. Her literary honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006; member of Bogotá 39, a 2007 selection of the most important up-and-coming writers in Latin America in the post-Boom generation; one of five finalists for the 2015 Premio Hispanoamericano de Cuento Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia) for her story collection La muerte silba un blues; and winner of several prizes for critical essays on literature and film. This is her first full-length work to appear in English.

Dick Cluster is a writer and translator living in Oakland, California. He is editor/translator of the recently released Kill the Ámpaya!: Best Latin American Baseball Fiction, and co-author with Rafael Hernández of History of Havana. His many published translations include fiction and poetry from the Caribbean, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, and Spain.  He’s the author of the novels Return to Sender, Repulse Monkey, and Obligations of the Bone.

SARAH SMARSH presents “Heartland”

SARAH SMARSH, reporter and essayist for such outlets as The Guardian and NewYorker.com, presents Heartland, her eye-opening and stunningly eloquent memoir of working-class poverty in the American Midwest.

Sarah will be In conversation with Linda K. Wertheimer, veteran journalist and award-winning author of Faith Ed, Teaching about Religion in an Age of Intolerance.

*Buy your copy of Heartland from Wellesley Books in order to meet Sarah and have her sign your book at the event.

Story Club Boston in Jamaica Plain

Story Club Boston is a storytelling/reading event where featured guests tell first-person, true stories either from memory or from the page. In addition, audience members can have the opportunity to tell their own story in our 5-minute open mic portion. This month’s theme: School. Stories about what you’ve learned, whether inside or outside that brick building.

Arlington Author Salon: Facing Fears, Pursuing Passions

The Arlington Author Salon is a free reading series with a twist: each author’s presentation includes something special to tickle the senses. Music, paintings, photographs, tasty treats, fabrics, even smells! Let yourself be transported with an immersive, literary experience.

October’s reading features author ALYSIA ABBOTT (Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father); novelist LEE HOPE (HorseFever); and writer CHERYL SUCHORS (48 Peaks: Hiking and Healing in the White Mountains).

Literary Death Match Boston

After three-and-a-half years away, Literary Death Match returns to Boston for a genius night of weirdness and literary triumph, with much comedy and much hijinks to boot! Plus, the lineup is out-of-control brilliant. Click here for the full lineup or preorder now!

What is Literary Death Match? Part literary event, part comedy show, part game show, Literary Death Match brings together four of today’s finest writers to compete in an edge-of-your-seat read-off critiqued by three celebrity judges, and concluded by a slapstick showdown to decide the ultimate champion.

JUDGES:
* Literary Merit: Min Jin Lee, Guggenheim Foundation fellow and author of Pachinko, a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction
* Performance: Bethany Van Delft, comedian (Comedy Central, 2 Dope Queens), MOTH StorySlam host
* Intangibles: Sean Sullivan, one of Boston’s fastest-rising comedy stars (so says the Boston Globe), listen to his album Song and Dance Man through Comedy Dynamics now!

READERS:
Round 1:
* Rachel Klein, humorist/essayist who’s written for McSweeney’s and The New Yorker’s Shouts and Murmurs
* Serina Gousby, poet/essayist and Dev. Assistant & Boston Writers of Color Group Coordinator at GrubStreet

Round 2:
* Nina MacLaughlin, writer, carpenter and author of Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter
* Jonathan Escoffery, award-winning short story writer and recipient of a 2018 Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award

Hosted by LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga (check out his debut novel Collision Theory today!)
Produced by Kirsten Sims

Show at 8pm, Doors at 7pm

Story Club Boston

Story Club Boston is a storytelling/reading event with featured guests telling true, first-person story es on the theme of the night. In addition, audience members chosen at random can tell their own 5-minute story from memory or from the page.

Write Down the Street: A Reading at JP Porchfest

Poets and writers from Write Down the Street creative writing classes will read fiction, poetry, and memoir from many experiences and perspectives. Readers include Lloyd Sheldon Johnson, Marjorie Saintil-Belizaire, Carmen-Isabel Belizaire, Zachary Saintil-Belizaire, Carolyn Jackson, and more!

Write Down the Street / Autores a la Vuelta is a partnership between GrubStreet, one of the nation’s largest literary arts centers, and Boston Public Library. These workshops create space for writing and discussion in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole and everything in between, with free creative writing classes at the Egleston Square, Mattapan, and East Boston library branches.

LESLIE CORMIER, PhD presents “Copley Square” at Wellesley Books

LESLIE CORMIER, PhD, architectural historian, presents Copley Square: History through Architecture, her fascinating new book about Boston’s Copley Square.

Buy your copy from Wellesley Books in order to meet the author and have her sign your book at the event.