Check out our May 28 performance:
NANCY JOHNSON | THE KINDEST LIE
Performed by NEKETIA HENRY
Tod Goldberg | THE LOW DESERT - GANGSTER STORIES
June 25, 5:00 pm | LIVE via ZOOM | Register today!
Performed by Philip Jacques
Tod Goldberg is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books, including The Low Desert, Gangsterland (a finalist for the Hammett Prize), Gangster Nation, The House of Secrets (which he co-authored with Brad Meltzer), Living Dead Girl (a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize), and the popular Burn Notice series. His books have been published in a dozen languages and around the world and were twice named a finalist for the VN international Thriller of the Year Award.
His short fiction has been collected in three volumes — Simplify, which won the Other Voices Book Prize and was a finalist for the SCBA Award, Other Resort Cities, and his latest book, The Low Desert: Gangster Stories — and has been widely anthologized. His essays, journalism, and criticism have appeared in numerous publications, including the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and theWall Street Journal, among countless other publications and anthologies, and have earned five Nevada Press Association Awards for excellence, while his essay “When They Let Them Bleed” was selected for Best American Essays. For his body of work, Tod was honored with the Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.
In addition to his work on the page, Tod is also the cohost of the podcast Literary Disco, along with Julia Pistell & Rider Strong, which has been named a top podcast by the Washington Post, The Guardian, Mashable, and even Good Housekeeping (among many others).
He is also the co-host, along with essayist Maggie Downs, of Open Book on KCOD Coachella FM, the leading public radio station in the Coachella Valley. Tod Goldberg holds an MFA in Creative Writing & Literature from Bennington College and is a Professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside where he directs the Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. He lives in Indio, CA with his wife, the beauty writer Wendy Duren.
Check out Sue Staats' interview with Tod for great insights on crime fiction and so-called "literary" fiction, crazy neighbors and more!
Tod Goldberg is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books, including The Low Desert, Gangsterland (a finalist for the Hammett Prize), Gangster Nation, The House of Secrets (which he co-authored with Brad Meltzer), Living Dead Girl (a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize), and the popular Burn Notice series. His books have been published in a dozen languages and around the world and were twice named a finalist for the VN international Thriller of the Year Award.
His short fiction has been collected in three volumes — Simplify, which won the Other Voices Book Prize and was a finalist for the SCBA Award, Other Resort Cities, and his latest book, The Low Desert: Gangster Stories — and has been widely anthologized. His essays, journalism, and criticism have appeared in numerous publications, including the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and theWall Street Journal, among countless other publications and anthologies, and have earned five Nevada Press Association Awards for excellence, while his essay “When They Let Them Bleed” was selected for Best American Essays. For his body of work, Tod was honored with the Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.
In addition to his work on the page, Tod is also the cohost of the podcast Literary Disco, along with Julia Pistell & Rider Strong, which has been named a top podcast by the Washington Post, The Guardian, Mashable, and even Good Housekeeping (among many others).
He is also the co-host, along with essayist Maggie Downs, of Open Book on KCOD Coachella FM, the leading public radio station in the Coachella Valley. Tod Goldberg holds an MFA in Creative Writing & Literature from Bennington College and is a Professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside where he directs the Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. He lives in Indio, CA with his wife, the beauty writer Wendy Duren.
Check out Sue Staats' interview with Tod for great insights on crime fiction and so-called "literary" fiction, crazy neighbors and more!
Philip Jacques, Actor
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Philip Jacques is an 11-year veteran of Placer Community Theater who has been recognized by the Sacramento Area Regional Theatre Alliance (SARTA) as a Best Actor Nominee for his comedic role in Rumors as Lenny Gantz. Most recently, he received a SARTA Outstanding Achievement Award for his dramatic turn as Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Jacques will be performing Tod Goldberg's story The Salt, which begins with these lines: Beneath the water, beneath time, beneath yesterday, is the salt. The paper says that another body has washed up on the north shore of the Salton Sea, its age the provenance of anthropologists. |
About The Low Desert | Gangster Stories
Raymond Carver meets Elmore Leonard in this extraordinary collection of contemporary crime writing set in the critically acclaimed Gangsterland universe, a series called “gloriously original” by The New York Times Book Review.
With gimlet-eyed cool and razor-sharp wit, these spare, stylish stories from a master of modern crime fiction assemble a world of gangsters and con men, of do-gooders breaking bad and those caught in the crossfire. The uncle of an FBI agent spends his life as sheriff in different cities, living too close to the violent acts of men; a cocktail waitress moves through several desert towns trying to escape the unexplainable loss of an adopted daughter; a drug dealer with a penchant for karaoke meets a talkative lawyer and a silent clown in a Palm Springs bar.
Witty, brutal, and fast-paced, these stories expand upon the saga of Chicago hitman-turned-Vegas-Rabbi Sal Cupertine–first introduced in Gangsterland and continued in Gangster Nation–while revealing how the line between good and bad is often a mirage.
Raymond Carver meets Elmore Leonard in this extraordinary collection of contemporary crime writing set in the critically acclaimed Gangsterland universe, a series called “gloriously original” by The New York Times Book Review.
With gimlet-eyed cool and razor-sharp wit, these spare, stylish stories from a master of modern crime fiction assemble a world of gangsters and con men, of do-gooders breaking bad and those caught in the crossfire. The uncle of an FBI agent spends his life as sheriff in different cities, living too close to the violent acts of men; a cocktail waitress moves through several desert towns trying to escape the unexplainable loss of an adopted daughter; a drug dealer with a penchant for karaoke meets a talkative lawyer and a silent clown in a Palm Springs bar.
Witty, brutal, and fast-paced, these stories expand upon the saga of Chicago hitman-turned-Vegas-Rabbi Sal Cupertine–first introduced in Gangsterland and continued in Gangster Nation–while revealing how the line between good and bad is often a mirage.
“Forget Chinatown, Jake: Tod Goldberg’s The Low Desert finds noir in L.A.’s far outskirts…The Low Desert has plenty of tight, flinty, noir-y sentences…But his style, in the best stories here, is distinguished by a gallows humor featuring men who are just smart enough to work a grift but not bright enough to escape the ensuing trouble.” — Los Angeles Times
“Most of the stories in The Low Desert succeed by blending the thought-provoking nature of literary storytelling with the brisk action of pulp noir. Oh yes, people are killed in these stories, and not by slow-burning angst. They are shot, or drowned, or their heads get chopped off. But don’t misunderstand: Amid the carnage, Goldberg deftly inserts three-dimensional people with real-life issues. There’s something for everyone here, including Goldberg’s trademark biting humor…This imagined desert underworld, home to racketeers and regret, buried bodies and criminal clowns, is an engrossing place to spend time. The thoughtful treatment of Las Vegas is particularly appreciated. One hopes Goldberg continues to explore these places he knows so well.” — NPR
“Most of the stories in The Low Desert succeed by blending the thought-provoking nature of literary storytelling with the brisk action of pulp noir. Oh yes, people are killed in these stories, and not by slow-burning angst. They are shot, or drowned, or their heads get chopped off. But don’t misunderstand: Amid the carnage, Goldberg deftly inserts three-dimensional people with real-life issues. There’s something for everyone here, including Goldberg’s trademark biting humor…This imagined desert underworld, home to racketeers and regret, buried bodies and criminal clowns, is an engrossing place to spend time. The thoughtful treatment of Las Vegas is particularly appreciated. One hopes Goldberg continues to explore these places he knows so well.” — NPR
Our 2021 Season
We began the year with a special opening night partnership with 916 Ink and B Street Theater. Followed by performances of new work by authors Ellen Michaelson, Alia Volz, Nancy Johnson, Tod Goldberg, Elizabeth Gonzalez James, David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Natashia Deon, and Julie Metz.
Stories on Stage Sacramento is publishing a fantastic collection of stories:
TWENTY TWENTY: A STORIES ON STAGE ANTHOLOGY
COMING SOON!
We began the year with a special opening night partnership with 916 Ink and B Street Theater. Followed by performances of new work by authors Ellen Michaelson, Alia Volz, Nancy Johnson, Tod Goldberg, Elizabeth Gonzalez James, David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Natashia Deon, and Julie Metz.
Stories on Stage Sacramento is publishing a fantastic collection of stories:
TWENTY TWENTY: A STORIES ON STAGE ANTHOLOGY
COMING SOON!
Check the SOSS blog for Sue Staats' interview with June guest author TOD GOLDBERG and Jessica Laskey's interview with our June featured actor PHILIP JACQUES
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Stay tuned for updates on our SOSS TWENTY TWENTY Anthology
43 stories from Northern California authors, and from SOSS friends and alums
Karen Bender,Joshua Mohr, Pamela Houston, Anita Felicelli, Debra Gwartney,
Sands Hall, Peter Owner, Joan Frank and Vanessa Hua
AND
Stay tuned for updates on our SOSS TWENTY TWENTY Anthology
43 stories from Northern California authors, and from SOSS friends and alums
Karen Bender,Joshua Mohr, Pamela Houston, Anita Felicelli, Debra Gwartney,
Sands Hall, Peter Owner, Joan Frank and Vanessa Hua
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Find the books featured on Stories on Stage Sacramento at Capital Books on K, our local bookseller partner, and receive postcard-sized art of the bookstore and their neighbor, the Crest Theater. Free with your book(s). Heidi and Ross Rojek have been getting stories to readers in Sacramento and beyond much faster than the big guys during this crisis, so let's reward them for that! In addition to mail order and curbside pickup, the store is now open, so you can browse again (appropriately masked of course!) |
Capital Books & Crest Theater, by Kyle Thaw and his mother, Heidi Rojek. This beautiful artwork FREE with your book purchase!
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Stories on Stage Sacramento In the News
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INSIGHT with Beth RuyakInsight host Beth Ruyak in conversation with Sue Staats and Jen Palmares Meadows
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SACRAMENTO NEWS & REVIEWSue Staats: "Outgoing coordinator for SOSS - A New Chapter"
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