A monthly prose reading series hosted by English department faculty Vikram Chandra and Melanie Abrams, and featuring distinguished prose writers from the Bay Area and beyond.
Thursday, 5 - 6 pm Admission Free
Rabih Alameddine, 09.09.10 | David Sheff, 10.14.10 | Laurie King, 11.04.10 | Gene Yang, 12.02.10 | Chris Adrian, 02.10.11 | Yiyun Li, 03.10.11 | Maxine Hong Kingston, 04.14.11 | Student Reading, 05.05.11

Elena Seibert photo
September 9, 2010
Rabih Alameddine
Morrison Library, 5 – 6 pm
Alameddine grew up in Kuwait and Lebanon. He holds degrees from UCLA and the University of San Francisco and received a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in 2002. He is the author of Koolaids, I, the Divine, The Perv, and, most recently, The Hakawati. His pieces have appeared in Zoetrope, The Los Angeles Times, The Evening Standard, Corriere Della Sera, and Al-Hayat, among others. He divides his time between San Francisco and Beirut.
Watch Rabih Alameddine on YouTube

October 14, 2010
David Sheff
Morrison Library, 5 – 6 pm
Sheff is the author of Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction, a New York Times #1 bestseller. It was named Best Nonfiction Book of 2008 by Entertainment Weekly and won the 2009 Barnes and Noble Discover Award. In 2009, Sheff was named to Time Magazine's list of the world's most influential people. He has written for the New York Times, Playboy, and Wired, among others. His books include Game Over, China Dawn, and All We Are Saying.

Red Bat Photography
November 04, 2010
Laurie King
Morrison Library, 5 – 6 pm
Laurie R. King is a third generation Californian with a background in theology, whose first crime novel A Grave Talent (1993) won the Edgar and Creasey awards. Her yearly novels range from police procedurals and stand-alones to a historical series about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, beginning with The Beekeeper's Apprentice. Her books have won the Edgar, Creasey, Wolfe, Lambda, and Macavity awards, and appear regularly on the New York Times bestseller list.

Gene Yang
December 2, 2010
Gene Yang
Morrison Library, 5 – 6 pm
Yang began publishing comic books in 1996 and received the Xeric Grant for Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks in 1997. American Born Chinese was the first graphic novel nominated for a National Book Award and the first to win the Printz Award. It also won an Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album. The Eternal Smile, a collaboration with Derek Kirk Kim, was also nominated for an Eisner. In 2010, Yang released two new graphic novels: Prime Baby and Animal Crackers.

February 10, 2011
Chris Adrian
Morrison Library, 5 – 6 pm
Chris Adrian is the author of two novels, Gob's Grief and The Children's Hospital and a collection of short stories, A Better Angel. His third novel, The Great Night, will be published by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux in the spring of 2011. In 2010, Adrian was named to The New Yorker's "20 under 40" list of fiction writers worth watching. He is currently a Fellow in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the University of California San Francisco.

Randi Lynn Beach photo
March 10, 2011
Yiyun Li
Morrison Library, 5 – 6 pm
Li is author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and The Vagrants. A Beijing native and graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she has received numerous awards. In 2007, Granta named her one of the best young American novelists under 35, and in 2010, The New Yorker named her one of the top 20 writers under 40. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker and The Best American Short Stories among others. She teaches writing at UC Davis.

April 14, 2011
Maxine Hong Kingston
Morrison Library, 5 – 6 pm
Maxine Hong Kingston is the author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey, and The Fifth Book of Peace, among other works. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the presidentially conferred National Humanities Medal, and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. An emeritus faculty member at UC Berkeley, she lives in California.
Watch Maxine Hong Kingston on YouTube
May 5, 2011
Student Reading
Morrison Library, 5 – 6 pm
Story Hour in the Library celebrates the writers in our campus community with an annual student reading. The event will feature short excerpts of work by winners of the year’s biggest prose prizes, Story Hour in the Library interns, and faculty nominees.
Watch the Student Reading on YouTube