READINGS
  Upcoming Readings
Hosted by Lisa McLaughlin Mondays at 8:00 p.m.

Monday, May 19th, 8:00 p.m.
N.S. KöENINGS reads from her book
"THEFT"

Losing something is never easy - Whether it's luggage, love, or the dream of something better - but it's even harder when someone takes it from you. These five seductive tales, rendered with striking grace and subtlety, travel across continents to show men and women striving to regain what has been stolen.

In "Setting Up Shop" a young woman is courted by a local entrepreneur who promises to leave his other wives for her. But will she rob others of their happiness to ensure her own? In "Sisters for Shama", a woman's sister who disappeared mysteriously years before - did she steal away or was she stolen? - continues to cast a shadow over her life and her imagination. In the title story, suitcases taken from a bus in an East African city make unlikely allies of a local bus tout and a first-time tourist from Philadelphia.

Writing with keen insight and wit, Köenings paints her settings and characters in gorgeously vivid color. This remarkable collection, showcasing her vibrant voice, is sure to astound.


Photo by Tomoso Nonaka
N.S. Köenings holds a B.A. in African Studies from Bryn Mawr College and a Ph.D. in socio-cultural anthropology from Indiana University, where she also completed her M.F.A. in fiction. She currently teaches at Hampshire College.

"This exuberant story collection by N. S. Köenings resembles her first novel, The Blue Taxi, in its irreverent, hilarious and frequently moving take on postcolonial life - and the human condition in general." -- The New York Times

Surprising and inventive -- the collection's richness and complexity prove Köenings to be a skillful and imaginative storyteller.
-- Publishers Weekly

Five short stories set around the world, from the author of The Blue Taxi (2006). "Pearls to Swine" is a comic gem ... Köenings demonstrates an incisive yet generous understanding of human behavior that is reminiscent of A.S. Byatt and Iris Murdoch, and, like those authors, she is willing to entertain mystery without dissecting it. ... the best entries are outstanding. -- Kirkus Reviews

  2008 Readings
Stefan Merrill Block
"The Story of Forgetting"

Joseph Caldwell
The Pig Did It

Rachel Cline
My Liar

Michael Patrick MacDonald
Easter Rising: A Memoir of Roots and Rebellion

Solon Timothy Woodward
Cadillac Orpheus

Sol Yurick
"The Warriors"

  2007 Readings

Rich Blake
The Day Donny Herbert Woke Up

Daniel Cassidy
How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads

Bryan Charles
Grab On to Me Tightly as if I Knew the Way

Peter Duffy
The Killing of Major Dennis Mahon, A Mystery of Old Ireland

John J. Finucane
When the Bronx Burned

Charles J. Hynes
Triple Homicide

John Kearns
Dreams and Dull Realities Tom Kitts
Ray Davies: Not Like Everybody Else

Shelley Jackson
Half Life

Matt Marinovich
Strange Skies

Jeff Somers
The Electric Church