Announcing a new prose reading series hosted by English department faculty Vikram Chandra and Melanie Abrams, and featuring distinguished prose writers from the Bay Area.
Thursday, 5 - 6 pm • Admission Free
Oakley Hall, with Michael Chabon, 01.24.08 | Vikram Chandra, 02.21.08
Daniel Mason, 03.20.08 | Melanie Abrams, 04.17.08
January 24, 2008
Oakley Hall, with Michael Chabon
Morrison Library, 5 – 6 pm
A celebrated California novelist and Berkeley alum, Oakley Hall has authored more than twenty works, most notably the recent Ambrose Bierce series, and Warlock, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Love and War in California was published in 2007, and like much of his work, focuses primarily on the historical American West. Hall was director of the writing program at the UC Irvine for twenty years, and in 1969 co-founded the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. Among his many honors are lifetime achievement awards from the PEN Center and induction into the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Hall will read from his work and be interviewed by Michael Chabon, whose most recent work is The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.
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February 21, 2008
Vikram Chandra
190 Doe Library, 5 – 6 pm
Vikram Chandra’s best-selling Sacred Games was published in 2007. His previous works include Love and Longing in Bombay and Red Earth and Pouring Rain. The New York Times has praised “the Dickensian sweep” of his depictions of life in Mumbai, and Kirkus Reviews raves, “Chandra's writing is so elegant and so irresistible, it elevates the classic cops-and-robbers story to new heights.” He is the winner of the Crossword Prize for English Fiction, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (Eurasia region) and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, the David Higham Prize, and the Paris Review Discovery prize. He currently divides his time between Mumbai and Berkeley, California, where he teaches creative writing at the University of California.
Watch the complete webcast
This digital collection is produced and housed by webcast.berkeley Events and Educational Technology Services
March 20, 2008
Daniel Mason
LOCATION CHANGE: Reading has been moved to 190 Doe (across from the
Morrison Library), 5 – 6 pm
Daniel Mason lives in California, where he received a medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco. His first novel, The Piano Tuner, published in 2002 and translated into 28 languages, was adapted as an opera and a play, and is currently in production as a film. Reviews across the country have lauded its sensuous lyricism, and its intelligent exploration of topics as wide-ranging as history, medicine, nature, and politics. In 2005, he was a Townsend Fellow at UC Berkeley. He has had short stories on prize-fighting and art and mental illness published in Harper's Magazine. His second novel, A Far Country, was published in 2007.
Morrison Library), 5 – 6 pm
Watch the complete webcast
This digital collection is produced and housed by webcast.berkeley Events and Educational Technology Services
April 17, 2008
Melanie Abrams
LOCATION CHANGE: Reading has been moved to 190 Doe (across from the
Morrison Library), 5 – 6 pm
Melanie Abrams' novel, Playing, is forthcoming from Grove/Atlantic in April 2008, and has already been acquired for translation in three different languages. Howard Norman says, "In her arresting debut novel Melanie Abrams is disturbingly expert at exhibiting how erotic obsession makes a courtship a dangerous game indeed. Unpredictable and unforgettable. A stunning writer." Melanie received her M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She currently teaches creative writing at UC Berkeley.
Morrison Library), 5 – 6 pm
Watch the complete webcast
This digital collection is produced and housed by webcast.berkeley Events and Educational Technology Services
For more information or to be added to the Story Hour mailing list, please email storyhour(at)berkeley.edu
Support for this series is provided by the University Library and the Department of English.