Josh Weil and Valerie Fioravanti
Monday, Sept. 22 at 7:30 PM
SPC at 1719 25th Street
Host: Tim Kahl
Josh Weil is the author of the novel The Great Glass Sea, from Grove Atlantic, and the novella collection The New Valley (Grove Atlantic, 2009).
A New York Times Editors Choice, The New Valley won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the New Writers Award from the GLCA, and a “5 Under 35” Award from the National Book Foundation. Weil’s other fiction has appeared in Granta, Esquire, Agni and One Story, and he has written non-fiction for The New York Times, The Sun, Oxford American, and Poets & Writers. A recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, he has been the Tickner Writer-in-Residence at Gilman School, the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bowling Green State University, and the Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi.
Born in the Appalachian mountains of Southwest Virginia, he currently lives with his family in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, where he is at work on a collection of stories. A review of his novel The Great Glass Sea can be found in The New York Times here [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/books/review/the-great-glass-sea-by-josh-weil.html?_r=0]
Valerie Fioravanti is the heartbeat of the Sacramento fiction scene. No one works as hard or as smart as her to develop fiction in Sacramento and the outlying areas. She is the founder of Stories on Stage (now with outposts in both Sacramento and Davis) that features the reading of short fiction short stories with local actors from the theater community. It is consistently designated as the number literary hotspot in Sacramento by
She is the author of Garbage Night at the Opera, winner of the 2011 Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction from BkMk Press of the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Garbage Night at the Opera received the IPPY Bronze Medal in Short Fiction, was a finalist for Late Night Library‘s Debut-litzer Prize in Fiction, and was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Story Prize.
Valerie’s short stories have appeared in North American Review, Cimarron Review, Hunger Mountain, Night Train, and others. Her essays and prose poems have been published in Portland Review, Eclectica, Silk Road, r.kv.r.y, and others. She is finishing her second story collection, Bridge & Tunnel, a series of stories focused on Queens and the home/work life challenge.
Valerie received a Fulbright Fellowship in Creative Writing to work on a novel set in Italy, Bel Casino, which continues the story of Franca and Lina from Garbage Night at the Opera.
Valerie primarily works as a writing coach, providing one-on-one feedback and mentoring to other writers. She also teaches and facilitates workshops in Sacramento, Los Angeles, and online. At this point in her teaching and editing career, she is proudly independent, but she has taught for the UCLA & UC Davis Extension Writers Program, National University’s MFA program, and New Mexico State University. She has participated in craft lectures and panels at the Napa Valley Writers Conference, Litquake SF, and elsewhere.
Valerie was named a “Best Friend to Fiction Writers” by Sacramento News & Review in the 2011 Best of Sacramento issue. It remains one of her proudest accolades.
