Who’s Reading Next

The eleventh consecutive Pen Parentis Literary Salon season comes to a close with an evening of reading and discussion featuring three acclaimed novelists: Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, author of The Effects of Light and Bittersweet, which publishes the day of the salon, Andre Dubus III, author of the bestsellers House of Sand and Fog and The Garden of Lost Days, and, most recently, Dirty Love, and Alexi Zentner, author of Touch and the forthcoming The Lobster Kings. Each author will read from their work and then participate in an informal, salon-style roundtable about their writing and parenting lives. It’s sure to be an insightful, lively evening, and we hope that you will join us.

May 13th’s Literary Salon features:

Miranda Beverly-Whittemore is the author of Bittersweet (Crown, 2014); Set Me Free (Warner Books, 2007), which won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for the best book of fiction by an American woman published that year, and The Effects of Light (Warner Books, 2005). Her short story Pertussis won the Crazyhorse Fiction Prize. Camera Obscura (2010), the short film adaptation of The Effects of Light, which she co-wrote and co-produced, starred Mary Lynn Rajskub. She lives and works in Brooklyn.

Andre Dubus III is the author of six books, including The New York Times bestsellers House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie. Mr. Dubus has been a finalist for the National Book Award, and has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, The National Magazine Award for Fiction, two Pushcart Prizes, and is a 2012 recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. He teaches full-time at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and he lives north of Boston with his wife, Fontaine, a modern dancer, and their three children. His latest book, Dirty Love, was published in the fall of 2013.

Alexi Zentner is the author of the novels, Touch, and The Lobster Kings. He has been shortlisted for The 2011 Governor General’s Literary Award, The Center for Fiction’s 2011 Flahery-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the 2012 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and the 2011 Amazon.caFirst Novel Award, and longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the 2013 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His short fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, Tin House, Glimmer Train, Narrative, and many other magazines, and he is the winner of both the O. Henry Prize and the Narrative Prize, and has been shortlisted for the Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prize. Alexi is an Assistant Professor at Binghamton University and a member of the faculty in the Sierra Nevada College low-residency MFA program. Before becoming a writer, Alexi was a stay-at-home-dad. He lives in Ithaca, NY with his wife and two daughters. www.alexizentner.com

The reading takes place on Tuesday, May 13th at the elegant Hotel Andaz at 75 Wall Street, which graciously provides happy hour specials on beer on wine. The night kicks off at 7:00 pm, and admission is free. RSVP is recommended, but not required—the Pen Parentis Literary Salon is open to adults over the age of 21. The authors’ books are available for purchase from The Park Slope Community Bookstore.

Transportation info: Take the 2/3/4/5/J/M to Wall Street. The Salon takes place in the soaring lobby of the Andaz Hotel, at 75 Wall Street.

SAVE THE DATE:

Our 12^th season kicks off on September 9^th, 2014 with David Gilbert (&Sons), Julia Fierro (Cutting Teeth), and Mira Jacob (The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing), and will also include the presentation of the 2014-2015 Pen Parentis Writing Fellow.