Lori Ostlund

And one more author for January: Lori Ostlund!

Her first book, a story collection entitled "The Bigness of the World," won the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Award, the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, the California Book Award for First Fiction and was a Lambda finalist. Stories from it appeared in the Best American Short Stories and the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. Scribner will reissue the collection in early 2016. Lori has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award and a fellowship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Most recently, her work has appeared in ZYZZYVA, The Southern Review, and the Kenyon Review. She is a teacher and lives in San Francisco with her wife and two cats. 

Lori's newest work, "After the Parade," tells the story of 41-year-old Aaron Englund, who leaves his partner of 20 years and moves to San Francisco, where he spends his days walking around the city and teaching ESL at a shoddy language school in the Richmond and his nights listening to his landlords argue above him. In learning to live alone for the first time, he realizes that he must confront the secrets of his childhood in small-town Minnesota. The book deals with several themes, including bullying, loneliness, and the need to connect with others.

"After the Parade" has already garnered many accolades and has been chosen as one of the Great Reads of 2015 by the NPR Book Concierge. Hurray!

Andrew Demcak

Another of our January readers to be featured at "New Year, New Books" is Andrew Demcak, an award-winning poet and novelist whose work has been widely published and anthologized both in print and on-line, and whose books have been featured by The American Library Association, Verse Daily, The Lambda Literary Foundation, The Best American Poetry blog, The Nervous Breakdown, and Poets/Artists. 

His new work, "A Little Bit Langston" has already been receiving rave reviews, and we can't wait to hear him discuss it with us in January. Here's a synopsis:

Being different is a challenge, especially for James Kerr. He’s no average teenager. James begins to channel a dead writer’s poetry and then discovers he has the power to manipulate electricity. At the same time, romantic feelings for his best friend, Paul Schmitz, make him realize he’s gay. But he has little time to explore the drastic changes in his life before heartbreak strikes at the hands of Paul’s violent father. James is sent to The Paragon Academy, an institute specializing in juvenile paranormal research. There he meets Lumen Kim, the mysterious daughter of a famous Korean actress. Lumen’s psychic ability might just be the thing that helps James unlock the secrets of both his poems and the origins of his supernatural talents.

https://www.facebook.com/events/987587217965660/

Poster in the window!

The poster for our first event is now up in the window!