Pen Parentis Literary Salon Announces Spring Events

Pen Parentis Salons feature readings and panels by authors who have a successful literary career despite the demands of parenthood. Wine is always available at the events, as are books for signings (vendor: Bluestockings).

Tuesday, March 13th, 7pm
LITERARY ROCK STARS

Eleanor Henderson

Myfanwy Collins

Suzzy Roche
Bios:

Eleanor Henderson was born in Greece, grew up in Florida, and attended Middlebury College and the University of Virginia, where she received her MFA in 2005. Her stories and essays have appeared in Agni, North American Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Ninth Letter, Poets & Writers, The Wall Street Journal, and on NPR. Her story “The Farms” was selected by Alice Sebold for The Best American Short Stories 2009, and Ecco published her first novel, Ten Thousand Saints, in June 2011. An assistant professor at Ithaca College, she lives in Ithaca, New York, with her husband Aaron, three-year-old son Nico, and new baby Henry.

Myfanwy Collins was born in Montreal, Canada, grew up in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, and now lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts with her husband and son. Her work has been published in The Kenyon Review, AGNI, Cream City Review, Quick Fiction, and Potomac Review. Her debut novel, Echolocation, is forthcoming from Engine Books in March 2012. A collection of her short fiction, I AM HOLDING YOUR HAND, is forthcoming from PANK Little Books in August 2012. She and her husband, Allen, have been married for nine years and have one son, Henry, who is 4, and a geriatric dog who is almost 14. Learn more about Myfanwy at her author site, www.myfanwycollins.com.

Suzzy Roche is a singer/songwriter/performer/writer and founding member of the singing group The Roches. She has recorded over fifteen albums, written music for TV and Film, and toured extensively for thirty years all across the U.S. and Europe. Zero Church: an unusual collection of prayers (a collaboration with Maggie Roche) which was developed at Harvard’s Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue was originally staged at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, and has been staged around the country. Suzzy has been an associate member of The Wooster Group; the experimental theater company based in New York City, and performed with them off and on for years throughout Europe. Her children’s book How To Be In A Band (Random House) will be published in January 2013. Wayward Saints (Hyperion/Voice) is her first novel.

Tuesday, April 10th, 7pm
HARD-HITTING WOMEN

Ann Napolitano

Deborah Copaken Kogan
Bios:

Ann Napolitano is the author of the novels A Good Hard Look and Within Arm’s Reach. A Good Hard Look was published in July 2011, and was an Indie Next Pick, an Okra Pick and spent several weeks on the Southern independent bestseller list. Her nonfiction has been published in Poets & Writers and The Millions. She received her MFA from New York University, and lives in New York City with her husband and two sons.

Deborah Copaken Kogan is the author of Shutterbabe, the bestselling memoir of her years as a warp hotographer; the novel Between Here and April, an Elle Reader’s Prize finalist; and Hell is Other Parents, a forthcoming book of humorous essays. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Paris Match, Newsweek, Time, Elle, Géo, L’Express, and PHOTO, and on ABC News, Dateline NBC, and CNN. She lives in New York with her husband and three children

Tuesday, May 8, 7pm

PRIZE WINNING AUTHORS CLOSE OUR 7th SEASON

Josh Rolnick

Christine Schutt

Anna Solomon
Bios:

Josh Rolnick’s short stories have won the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize and the Florida Review Editors Choice Prize. They have also been published in Harvard Review, Western Humanities Review, Bellingham Review, and Gulf Coast, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best New American Voices. A reporter, editor, and journal publisher, he grew up in New Jersey, spent summers camping his way through Upstate New York, and has lived in Jerusalem, London, Philadelphia, Iowa City, Washington, D.C., and Menlo Park. He lives with his wife and three sons in Akron, Ohio."

Christine Schutt is the author of two short story collections, Nightwork and A Day, a Night, Another Day, Summer. Her first novel, Florida, was a National Book Award finalist; her second novel, All Souls, a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. A third novel, Prosperous Friends, is forthcoming from Grove/Atlantic in fall of 2012. She has published fiction in such magazines as Harper’s, The Alaska Quarterly Review, and The Kenyon Review. Among other honors, Schutt has twice won the O.Henry Short Story Prize, as well as Pushcart and Mississippi Review fiction prizes. She is the recipient of NYFA and Guggenheim Fellowships. Schutt is a senior editor of NOON, a literary annual, and lives and teaches in New York.

Anna Solomon’s fiction has appeared in One Story, The Georgia Review, Harvard Review and elsewhere. Her stories have twice been awarded the Pushcart Prize, have won The Missouri Review Editor’s Prize, and have been nominated for a National Magazine Award. Her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, Slate’s Double X, and Kveller.

Anna holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop and has taught writing at the Sackett Street Writers Workshop and Manhattanville College. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island with her husband and daughter.

For more info please contact: info@penparentis.org or visit www.penparentis.org