2021 Season At A Glance

February 26, 5:00 pm - Young Writers & Actors | Stories on Stage in collaboration with 916 Ink and B Street Theater's Studio for Young Actors VIDEO (47:35)
March 26, 5:00 pm - Ellen Michaelson | THE CARE OF STRANGERS performed by Jessica Laskey VIDEO (1:05:19)
April 30, 5:00 pm - Alia Volz | HOME BAKED: My Mom, Marijuana and the Stoning of San Francisco | performed by Megan Smith VIDEO (1:11)
May 1 (1 to 4 pm) - Writing Workshop with Alia Volz | Memoir: The Act of Remembering Everything
May 28, 5:00 pm - Nancy Johnson | THE KINDEST LIE
performed by Neketia Henry VIDEO (1:05:45)
June 25, 5:00 pm - Tod Goldberg | THE LOW DESERT
Performed by Philip Jacques | VIDEO (1:12:00)
​July 23, 5:00 pm - Twenty Twenty Anthology | Book Launch 
VIDEO (1:17:34)
August 11, 1:00 to 4:00 pm - Twenty Twenty Anthology | Book Launch/Reception | Capital Books on K | Live and livestream via Instagram (1011 K Street, Sacramento (916) 492-6657)
​August 27, 5:00 pm PST - Elizabeth James | MONA AT SEA  performed by Gabby Battista | VIDEO (1:07:05)
September 24, 5:00 pm - Julie Metz | EVA AND EVE
​performed by Julie Anchor VIDEO (1:04:22)
Oct 22, 5:00 pm - David Heska Wanbli Weiden | WINTER COUNTS
​preformed by Elio Gutierrez | VIDEO (57:39)
​
​* FINAL 2022 PERFORMANCE *
November 12 - Natashia DeÓn | THE PERISHING 
​performed by Imani Mitchell | VIDEO (54:11)

- all performances and workshops are currently planned as live Zoom events -

FEBRUARY 26 - 5:00 pm - OPENING NIGHT 2021
Young Writers | with 916 Ink, B Street Theater and Stories on Stage Sacramento

​
​We were thrilled to see young poet Amanda Gorman perform her work at the inauguration and the SuperBowl. Now we can join up to support youth creators in our own home town. We hope you'll join us for an exciting Opening Night 2021. We couldn't be more proud to present Young Writers: Stories on Stage Sacramento, in partnership with 916 Ink and B Street Theatre, 5:00 on February 26. 
The featured youth authors will be:
  • Zoe D, "The Search for Something More"
  • Ash Bridges, "Hanging Around"
  • Autumn Peterson, "Of Bees and Blades"
  • Adora Hanson, "Unknown"
  • Dean Balila, "The Moon is Beautiful"
The featured youth performers will be:
  • Truman Duren, from the B Street Theatre workshop
  • Caroline Elliott, from the B Street Theatre workshop

MARCH 26, 2021 - 5:00 PM - Live via Zoom
Ellen Michaelson | THE CARE OF STRANGERS
Performed by Jessica Laskey

THE CARE OF STRANGERS (Melville House, November 2020) won the 2019 Miami Book Fair de Groot Prize, In this touching debut novella, we witness the blossoming of a friendship in a gritty Brooklyn hospital where a young woman learns to take charge of her life by taking care of others.
 
Working as an orderly in a gritty Brooklyn public hospital, Sima is often reminded by her superiors that she's the least important person there. An immigrant who, with her mother, escaped vicious anti-Semitism in Poland, she spends her shifts transporting patients, observing the doctors and residents and quietly nurturing her aspirations to become a doctor herself by going to night school. Now just one credit short of graduating, she finds herself faltering in the face of pressure from her mother not to overreach, and to settle for the life she has now.
 
Drawn partially from Michaelson’s experiences during her residency and early career working in Brooklyn hospitals, THE CARE OF STRANGERS is a moving portrait of a woman striving to overcome intergenerational trauma and find her own voice. At a time when we are all starved for touch, THE CARE OF STRANGERS beautifully illustrates the transformative power of intimacy and the ways in which allowing yourself to really care for strangers can be the best way to start caring for yourself.

Read Sue Staats recent interview with the author, NEARLY THREE DECADES TO OVERNIGHT SUCCESS, OR, HOW A BOOK GETS MADE.
​
Ellen Michaelson ​is a physician in Portland, Oregon, and an MFA graduate from Pacific University. Currently an assistant professor of Medicine at OHSU and vice president of the board of the NW Narrative Medicine Collaborative, she was an NEH Fellow in Medical Humanities and attended Breadloaf Writers Conference. Her work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Portland Monthly, Women in Solitude (SUNY Press), and Literature in Medicine. THE CARE OF STRANGERS is her first book.

​Jessica Laskey, a Stories on Stage Sacramento favorite, will be our March featured performer. In addition to being a professional actor and casting director for Stories on Stage Sacramento, Jessica Laskey is also a freelance journalist. Her work has appeared in Comstock's, Sacramento and Sactown Magazines, as well as in The Sacramento Bee and OUT North Texas.
"Michaelson’s success in arranging this unlikely friendship and the understated emotional journeys of her main characters, depicting the reality of hospital life, and portraying patients make for a very engaging read." --Booklist
 
"This is a tale of connection and disconnection, between patients, staff, and doctors; between the living and the dead; between parent and child. Sima’s outsider view of her world, tinged with wonder and given over in deft scenework, is a triumph of humanity, endurance, and love." —Joanna Rose, author of A Small Crowd of Strangers
 
"I’ve just inhaled The Care of Strangers . . . Ellen Michaelson’s prismatic characters together propel the reader through the secrets and truths of how and why we live. Not a book about medicine—although indeed it portrays with remarkable fictional fidelity a gritty New York City hospital in the 1980s--The Care of Strangers lifts the veil on authenticity and generosity and even love. I cannot wait to teach this work—and to read it again." —Rita Charon, Founder and Executive Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University

APRIL 30, 5:00 pm - Live via Zoom 
Alia Volz | HOME BAKED: My Mom, Marijuana and the Stoning of San Francisco |
Performed by Megan Smith

​MAY 1, 1:00 to 4:00 pm, Writing Workshop with Alia Volz | Memoir: The Art of Questioning Everything 


​Alia Volz is the author of Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography and winner of the 2020 Golden Poppy Award for Nonfiction. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Bon Appetit, Salon, The Best American Essays and The Best Women’s Travel Writing. She has received fellowships from MacDowell and the Ucross Foundation, and her family story has been featured on Snap Judgment, Criminal, and NPR’s Fresh Air.

A blazingly funny, heartfelt memoir from the daughter of the larger-than-life woman who ran Sticky Fingers Brownies, an underground bakery that distributed thousands of marijuana brownies per month and helped provide medical marijuana to AIDS patients in San Francisco—for fans of Armistead Maupin and Patricia Lockwood.

Megan Pearl Smith is an actor and musician based out of Davis, California. She's worked in productions at many theatres over her career such as Capital Stage, Sacramento Theatre Co., California Shakespeare Theater, Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, San Francisco Playhouse, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, and many more. She is also half of the band Misner & Smiththat play their own brand of story-driven, harmony-filled, acoustic folk/rock music.
Check out Sue Staats interview with Alia on the Stories on Stage blog
​and Jessica Laskey's interview with actor Megan Pearl Smith

May 1, 1:00 - 4:00 pm | Memoir: The Art of Questioning Everything with Alia Volz
National Book Critics Circle finalist Alia Volz used to think personal writing had to begin with questions and end with answers—not unlike the essays we were taught to write in high school and college. Her breakthrough came with the realization that the most interesting moments in memoir happen when questions lead not to answers, but to more questions. Memories change and become unreliable. The book starts out investigating one thing, then shifts as the narrator’s worldview crumbles and new questions arise. Uncertainty becomes a plot device. This craft talk will explore relentless self-interrogation as the driving force behind contemporary personal essays and memoir. Volz will share practical tools, tips, and techniques for getting the most out of questions that refuse to be answered.
 
In this three-hour workshop, you will learn how to structure personal essay and memoir like a classic whodunit, using the core mystery and shape of popular crime fiction to make personal writing more exciting. Volz will deconstruct her award-winning essay “Snakebit” (The Best American Essays 2017) to show us how an evolving series of questions–and relentless interrogation–produces a winning plot. In-class exercises and discussion will focus on how to apply this technique to book-length memoir.


​During the '70s in San Francisco, Alia's mother ran the underground Sticky Fingers Brownies, delivering upwards of 10,000 illegal marijuana edibles per month throughout the circus-like atmosphere of a city in the throes of major change. She exchanged psychic readings with Alia's future father, and thereafter had a partner in business and life.

Decades before cannabusiness went mainstream, when marijuana was as illicit as heroin, they ingeniously hid themselves in plain sight, parading through town—and through the scenes and upheavals of the day, from Gay Liberation to the tragedy of the Peoples Temple—in bright and elaborate outfits, the goods wrapped in hand-designed packaging and tucked into Alia's stroller. But the stars were not aligned forever and, after leaving the city and a shoulda-seen-it-coming divorce, Alia and her mom returned to San Francisco in the mid-80s, this time using Sticky Fingers' distribution channels to provide medical marijuana to friends and former customers now suffering the depredations of AIDS.

Exhilarating, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartbreaking, Home Baked celebrates an eccentric and remarkable extended family, taking us through love, loss, and finding home.

May 28, 5:00 pm 
Nancy Johnson | THE KINDEST LIE
Performed by Neketia Henry

A native of Chicago’s South Side, Nancy Johnson worked for more than a decade as an Emmy-nominated, award-winning television journalist at CBS and ABC affiliates in markets nationwide. Her debut novel, The Kindest Lie, has been reviewed by The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, and is featured on EntertainmentWeekly’s Must List. It’s been named one of the most anticipated books of 2021 by Newsweek, O, the Oprah Magazine, Shondaland, NBC News, Marie Claire, ELLE, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Post, Good Housekeeping, Parade, Refinery29, and more. Booksellers nationwide selected her novel as an Indie Next pick and librarians chose it for LibraryReads. Nancy’s work has been published in Real Simple and O, The Oprah Magazine, and has received support from the Hurston/Wright Foundation, Tin House, and Kimbilio Fiction. 
A graduate of Northwestern University and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Nancy lives in downtown Chicago and manages brand communications for a large health care nonprofit. The Kindest Lie is her first novel.

Born and raised in Chicago, IL, Neketia Henry moved to California with her mother at the age of 12. As a child, she knew that performing arts was her true passion, and began performing in numerous stage plays and musicals. Since then, Neketia has appeared in numerous film projects and countless commercials and national print ads. For the past 7 years, she has been a Marketing Ambassador for KQCA My58, which ultimately landed her the role of weekend field reporter for KCRA 3 television NBC network in Sacramento, CA.  She is a devoted wife and mother and advocates for students with learning disabilities ages elementary through high school. Neketia is a professional actress and host whose witty personality captivates all audiences from TV to stages and everything in between....All she needs is one mic!

The Kindest Lie examines the heartbreaking divide between black and white communities and plumbs the emotional depths of the struggles faced by ordinary Americans in the wake of the financial crisis. Capturing the profound racial injustices and class inequalities roiling society, Nancy Johnson’s debut novel offers an unflinching view of motherhood in contemporary America and the never-ending quest to achieve the American Dream.

Visit the SOSS blog for Jessica Laskey's interview with actor Neketia Henry and a post chock full of links to reviews of THE KINDEST LIE and interviews with author Nancy Johnson.
For fans of Tayari Jones and Jacqueline Woodson, a searing, thought-provoking page-turner about race, class, identity, and the pursuit of the American dream.
​
“A deep dive into how we define family and what it means to grow up Black… beautifully crafted.”
—Jodi Picoult, NYT bestselling author of The Book of Two Ways and Small Great Things

Reviewed by The Washington Post and featured in Entertainment Weekly and the Chicago Tribune
Selected as a February Book of the Month Club pick and Amazon Book of the Month Top Ten!
Named a most greatly anticipated book by Newsweek, O, the Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Shondaland, NBC News, Marie Claire, ELLE, The New York Post, The Chicago Tribune, Good Housekeeping, Refinery29, PopSugar, and more!

June 25, 5:00 pm - Live via Zoom - check out the recording!
​Tod Goldberg | The Salt, from THE LOW DESERT - Gangster Stories
Performed by Philip Jacques

Picture

​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 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.
“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 

​July 23, 5:00 pm | VIDEO (1:17:34)
Twenty Twenty: 43 stories from a year like no other
A Stories on Stage Sacramento Anthology | edited by Dorothy Rice
Book Launch | Featured authors/stories/actors listed below 

Join us for this special event. Enjoy seven of the amazing pieces from the anthology, performed by actors. Here's the list ... drum roll, please!

Devara Berger | A Letter to Our Loyal Customers
Anita Felicelli | Mother, My Monster
Sands Hall | Surrendered
Pamela Houston | Stamina
p joshua laskey | The Arsonist
Deborah Meltvedt | Mindfulness, 2020
Joshua Mohr | ​Letting Go)

​Performed by Brennan Villados and Kelley Ogden

Picture
Actor Brennan Villados

Twenty Twenty: A Stories on Stage Sacramento Anthology (June 30, 2021) includes 43 stories inspired by a year like no other, 2020. Essays and short stories from Northern California authors are organized under the themes Masks, Resilience, Monsters, Kinship, and Time, and touch many aspects of a year that proved catastrophic beyond anyone’s imagining. The devastating toll of Covid-19, life under quarantine, the closure of schools and businesses, the murder of George Floyd, wildfires that swept the West, and more, all are touched on by diverse voices and points of view.

Award-winning, acclaimed authors and friends of SOSS Karen Bender, Anita Felicelli, Joan Frank, Debra Gwartney, Sands Hall, Pamela Houston, Vanessa Hua, Joshua Mohr, and Peter Orner, contributed pieces in the anthology, adding their voices to the Northern California authors who responded to the October 2020 submission call: 2020, You Lived It. Did You Write It?

​Thank you donors! The anthology, and our monthly performances would not have been possible without your support. 

July 23 Featured Authors & Actor Bios

​Actor Brennan Villados
Brennan is a performer based out of Sacramento, California. His most recent acting credits include in The Picture of Dorian Gray with Freefall Stage, A Soldier’s Play with Celebration Arts, and Marat/Sade with Falcon’s Eye Theatre. Brennan made his directorial debut in 2019 with Romeo and Juliet for Freefall Stage’s Shakespeare in the park. He attended The American Academy of Dramatic Art and has worked for the UC Davis School of Medicine Standardized Patient Program for the last six years. His other favorite roles include Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet with Falcon’s Eye Theatre, Patrick Stone in Inventing Van Gogh with Big Idea Theatre, Eddie in Fool for Love, and Tom in the one-man show Poster of the Cosmos, both for Blank Canvas Theatre. He is delighted to be a part of this production and looks forward to discovering new ways of connecting and storytelling in this unprecedented time.

​Anita Felicelli is the author of Chimerica: A Novel (WTAW Press) and the short story collection Love Songs for a Lost Continent (Stillhouse Press), which won the 2016 Mary Roberts Rinehart Award. Anita’s stories have appeared in The Normal School, Joyland, The Rumpus, Kweli Journal, Eckleburg, and elsewhere. Her essays, reviews, and criticism have appeared in The New York Times (Modern Love), Slate, Salon, San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Babble, Romper, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She graduated from UC Berkeley and UC Berkeley School of Law. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and a Voices of Our Nations alum. Her work has placed as a finalist in multiple Glimmer Train contests and received a Puffin Foundation grant, two Greater Bay Area Journalism awards, and Pushcart Prize nominations. She lives in the Bay Area with her family.

Sands Hall is the author of the memoir, Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology (Counterpoint), finalist for the Northern California Book Award, and a Publishers Weekly Best Book in Religion and Spirituality; the audio book is also available, read by the author. Her novel, Catching Heaven (Ballantine), is a Penguin/Random House Reader’s Circle Selec- tion and a WILLA Literary Award Finalist for Best Contemporary Fiction, Women Writing the West. She is also the author of a book of writing essays and exercises, Tools of the Writer’s Craft. Her produced plays include an adaptation of Alcott’s Little Women, and the comic-drama Fair Use, which takes on the “was it plagiarism?” controversy surrounding Wallace Stegner’s novel, Angle of Repose.Her stories and essays have been published in such journals as the New England Review, Iowa Review, and Los Angeles Review of Books. Sands has an extensive acting and directing resume, and she recently released a CD of her original songs, Rustler’s Moon. Professor Emeritus at Franklin & Marshall College, she teaches for the Community of Writers and the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, among other conferences. She lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in California. www.sandshall.com
Actor Kelley Ogden
​Kelley is an accomplished performer, director, and producer whose work has been seen throughout the area. Co-founder of acclaimed fringe theater company KOLT Run Creations, she has performed with Capital Stage, Davis Shakespeare Festival, Sacramento Shakespeare Festival, Main Street Theatre Works, and Theater Galatea, among others. Ogden earned her BFA in performance from The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago.  

Devara Berger has worked as an editor and a writer for a variety of organizations. Her nonfiction articles were published in magazines and newspapers and her poetry has appeared in journals in Australia and the United States. She lives in Sacramento with two dogs acting as her probation officer.

​Pam Houston is the author of the memoir Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country; two novels, Contents May Have Shifted and Sight Hound; two collections of short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness and Waltzing the Cat; and a collection of essays, A Little More About Me, all published by W.W. Norton. Her fiction has been selected for volumes of The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Short Stories of the Century, among other anthologies. She is the winner of the Western States Book Award, the WILLA Award for contemporary fiction, the Evil Companions Literary Award and several teaching awards.

p joshua laskey, originally from Sacramento, currently writes in Dallas, Texas. His published work includes original, adapted, and translated plays as well as original and award-winning self-translated short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. He is proud to have performed for both Stories on Stage Sacramento and Stories on Stage Davis, where he is also an honorary board member emeritus. www.pjoshualaskey.com.

​Deborah Meltvedt is a writer and medical science teacher who lives in Sacramento. Deborah has been published in the American River Literary Review, Under the Gum Tree, Susurrus and the Creative Nonfiction Anthology What I Didn’t Know: True Stories of Becoming a Teacher. Her first book of poems, Building a Woman, was published this year by Poetry Box Press. Deborah lives with her husband Rick and their cat, Anchovy Jack.
​
Joshua Mohr is the author of the memoir Sirens (2017), as well as five novels including Damascus, which The New York Times called “Beat- poet cool.” He’s also written Fight Song and Some Things that Meant the World to Me, one of O Magazine’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, as well as Termite Parade, an Editors’ Choice in The New York Times. His novel All This Life won the Northern California Book Award. He is the founder of Decant Editorial.
​

August 11, 1:00 - 4:00 pm
​Twenty Twenty Anthology | Book Launch/Reception
Capital Books on K | Downtown Sacramento (1011 K Street)

Please join us live (and instagram-live) at Capital Books on K (Sacramento), upstairs in the Flamingo Lounge, Wednesday, August 11 from 1-4 to meet some authors featured in TWENTY TWENTY: A Stories on Stage Anthology. 
Oh, and snacks!
​
https://capitalbooksonk.com/events.
1011 K Street (916) 492-6657

If you can't join us order your copy of the anthology wherever books are sold, including https://tinyurl.com/9ddank86.

Sue Staats' has baked some of her amazing cookies for the event. She has also shared the recipes and some mouth-watering photographs with us in the latest blog post. Check it out here.

​August 27, 5:00 pm, Live via Zoom
Elizabeth James | MONA AT SEA
​Excerpt performed by Gabby Battista 

Picture
Before becoming a writer Elizabeth James was a waitress, a pollster, an Avon lady, and an opera singer. Her short story, Cosmic Blues, was a finalist in Glimmer Train’s 2016 Short Story Award for New Writers, and her stories and essays have received multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. She’s an alum of Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Tin House Writers Workshop, and Lit Camp. She is a regular contributor to Ploughshares Blog. Her first novel, MONA AT SEA, was a finalist in the 2019 SFWP Literary Awards judged by Carmen Maria Machado, and is forthcoming, June 2021, from Santa Fe Writers Project. Originally from South Texas, Elizabeth now lives with her family in Oakland, California.

​Check out Sue Staats' recent interview with Elizabeth on the SOSS blog. 

​Gabby Battista​ is an actress based in the Sacramento region. She has been working as the Development Director for the Davis Shakespeare Festival since 2016 and has enjoyed her passion for community outreach and acting simultaneously. Her recent acting credits in the Sacramento region include Jesusa, from Davis Shakespeare's The Tenth Muse, and Alicia from Capital Stage's production of The Thanksgiving Play. Before the pandemic, she was expected to play the title role in Shotgun Players’ production of Henry V. She has also been a teaching artist at Cal Shakes since 2015 where she teaches movement, voice and Shakespeare text. Gabby is so grateful to have made it through this last year thus far with the support of the community here, and is overjoyed to be reading for Stories on Stage Sacramento.
​
​Check out Jessica Laskey's recent interview with Gabby Battista on the SOSS blog.
NAMED A “MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2021” BY THE RUMPUS, BETCHES, FROLIC, MS. CAREER GIRL, AND THE MILLIONS AND A FINALIST IN THE 2019 SFWP LITERARY AWARDS JUDGED BY CARMEN MARIA MACHADO!

About Mona at Sea:
In this sharp, witty debut, Elizabeth Gonzalez James introduces us to Mona Mireles -- observant to a fault, unflinching in her opinions, and uncompromisingly confident in her professional abilities. Mona is a Millennial perfectionist who fails upwards in the midst of the 2008 economic crisis.
​
​Despite her potential, and her top- of-her-class college degree, Mona finds herself unemployed, living with her parents, and adrift in life and love. Mona's the sort who says exactly the right thing at absolutely the wrong moments, seeing the world through a cynic's eyes. In the financial and social malaise of the early 2000s, Mona walks a knife's edge as she faces down unemployment, underemployment, the complexities of adult relationships, and the downward spiral of her parents' shattering marriage. The more Mona craves perfection and order, the more she is forced to see that it is never attainable. Mona's journey asks the question: When we find what gives our life meaning, will we be ready for it?

READ THE FIRST CHAPTER IN THE APRIL 2019 ISSUE OF EMBARK LITERARY JOURNAL
WATCH ELIZABETH READ AN EXCERPT FROM MONA AT SEA

Praise for MONA AT SEA

"Mona at Sea is a delightful debut, one that marks Elizabeth Gonzalez James as a writer to watch." — Adam Johnson, National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Orphan Master's Son

"A hilarious, high-octane novel about coming into one's own without coming undone. The millennial, bicultural narrator, Mona Mireles, is smart and skewering, contending with a troubled past threatening to derail her present. Elizabeth Gonzalez James is a fresh new voice in contemporary literature. Bienvenida!" — Cristina García, author of Here in Berlin and Dreaming in Cuban

"Mona at Sea reads like an intimate late night conversation with the friend you never knew you needed. Written with humor and insight and vulnerability, it's a tribute to the struggle to stay upright as the world around you comes falling down." — Mat Johnson, author of Pym and Hunting in Harlem

“Touching on themes of ambition, addiction, and adulthood, Mona at Sea is a charming debut.” -- Julie Zuckerman, author of The Book of Jeremiah

"Years from now, when I try to remember what the last decade felt like, I will return to this remarkable debut. Elizabeth Gonzalez James writes with a rare combination of wit, style, and heart, and in Mona she has created the perfect hero for navigating all the absurdities and anxieties of contemporary America." — Jim Gavin, author of Middle Men and creator of AMC's Lodge 49

This Millennial coming of age story is a sharp, witty take on the Great Recession. Mona Mireles is the perfect narrator--overly critical, self-deprecating, bitingly honest, and very, very funny. Her keen observations about life, work, and love during the less than halcyon days of the early 2000s are almost compensation for having lived through them. I loved this book! — Janis Cooke Newman, author of A Master Plan for Rescue and Mary: Mrs. A. Lincoln

How do you write an honest, moving, and very funny book about coming of age in an economic downturn and having all of your dreams crushed? In Mona At Sea, Elizabeth Gonzalez James has done just that, with an unerring eye for the details of suburban American family life and its many absurdities. Mona is a whip-smart and darkly funny character who has spent years expressing her pain and discomfort in a most astonishing way. As Mona finds her sea legs, she gives us hope for our own resilience in hard times. This is a fantastic read and a remarkable first novel from a writer who deserves to take her place alongside David Sedaris and Ottessa Moshfegh. — Galadrielle Allman, author of Please Be with Me: A Song for My Father, Duane Allman

​September 24, 5:00 PM (PST) | Live & Free via Zoom | VIDEO
Julie Metz | Eva and Eve: A Search for My Mother's Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind 

​Excerpt performed by Julie Anchor

​Julie Metz,  author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Perfection, returns with Eva and Eve, an unforgettable account of her late mother's childhood in Nazi-occupied Austria and the parallels she sees in present-day America. 

She has written on a wide range of women’s issues for publications including: The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Dame, sheknows.com, Salon, Slice, Redbook, Glamour, Next Tribe, MrBellersneighborhood.com, and Coastal Living.

​Julie Metz' essays have appeared in the anthologies The Moment, edited by Larry Smith, creator of “Six-Word Memoirs,” and The House That Made Me, edited by Grant Jarrett.
Julie Anchor has been an actor for over 25 years in the Sacramento area. She is a stage actor and company member of Main Street Theatre Works in Jackson, CA, and has been performing with MSTW since 1999, as well as directed 10 of their productions. Julie has also performed at the B Street Theatre, Sacramento Theatre Company, and Capital Stage, as well as The Hapgood Theatre in Antioch. Other work includes film, most recently Pipe Dream, and voice over work for various clients. She it thrilled to make her debut with Stories on Stage Sacramento.
To Julie Metz, her mother, Eve, was the quintessential New Yorker. Eve rarely spoke about her childhood and it was difficult to imagine her living anywhere else except Manhattan, where she could be found attending Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera or inspecting a round of French triple crème at Zabar's. 

In truth, Eve had endured a harrowing childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna. In the two years following the Nazi takeover, her father Julius struggled to find a safe haven for his wife and children. Across the ocean, anti-immigration fervor prevailed as part of the initial America First movement. Miraculously, Julius got his family out of Vienna just in time, thanks to perseverance, a medicine package made of folded paper, a sympathetic American Vice Consul, and good luck. 
​
Shortly after Eve’s death, Metz found a keepsake book her mother had kept hidden in a drawer for over half a century, filled with farewell notes from her childhood friends and relatives. In that secret keepsake book, her mother’s name was Eva. Inspired by this discovery, Metz set out in search of her mother’s lost childhood. The result is Eva and Eve, a real-life detective story that offers moments of grace, serendipity, and lessons for this polarized moment when once again Otherness is the enemy.
Interweaving personal memoir and family history, Eva and Eve vividly traces one woman's search for her mother's lost childhood while revealing the resilience of our forebears and the sacrifices that ordinary people are called to make during history's darkest hours.
  • Read an excerpt from Eva and Eve
  • ​Watch the trailers
  • Read Julie's recently published essay in Tablet Magazine​​


​Praise for Eva and Eve

"Eva and Eve maps a wide arc, pulling a Jewish family's past in wartime Vienna into the present era with vivid and dramatic detail. The story of political repression, terror and dissolution, then arrival and retrieval in a new country, is full of astonishing and unlikely twists of fate, showing again that individual destiny may be the greatest mystery of all. Metz's journey to recover the past offers a model for connection and self-understanding--as well as a testament to the strengths of an America that is just and fair to all."
--Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

"Keeping secrets was a virtue for many in the Silent Generation and they died without ever revealing themselves to their puzzled, frustrated children. With a combination of dogged research and emotional archeology, Julie Metz has uncovered a nearly lost world, and in doing so, she has found the Viennese childhood that formed her mother's character."
--Mary Doria Russell, author of The Sparrow and A Thread of Grace

"Upon her mother Eve's death in New York, Julie Metz embarks on a journey to the Vienna of the child Eva, who faced the terror of Nazism. We learn of the emotional connections of this middle-class family to its home and of Julie's complicated relationships with her mother and her own daughter. Using intrepid detective work and inspired imagination, Metz immerses the reader in interwar Jewish life and culture as it intertwined with Viennese society. She skillfully weaves a poignant family history of loss, escape, and refugee life as she evokes the sights, smells, and tastes of her mother's lost childhood." --Marion Kaplan, author of Hitler's Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal

"Eva and Eve is a beautiful memoir about all the ways history shapes a family. Metz's meditation on her mother's escape from Nazi Vienna, and the world of her ancestors that was left behind, is an important exploration of the past, but also a warning for the future. This is a devastating and important book, one that should be required reading." --Danielle Trussoni, bestselling author of Angelology and The Ancestor

"Three generations of women--grandmother, mother, daughter--illuminate how history is lived and worlds overlap, filtered through families and passed down from one era to the next. Metz writes, with great insight, about how her mother's escape from Nazi-occupied Vienna to New York City--full of unexpected twists and turns--has echoed through her own life and her daughter's, down to the present moment. This journey of discovery and reclamation could hardly be more timely and resonant."
​--Adrienne Brodeur, bestselling author of Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me

"Julie Metz's Eva and Eve is a touching homage to her mother who escaped the terror of Nazi Austria as a child, creating herself anew as an American in America. This is a work of startling eloquence and beauty, in its archeological excavation of four generations of a Jewish family and its literary depiction of how the broad sweep of history is threaded into the intricate drama of ordinary human lives."
--Lan Cao, author of Family in Six Tones and Monkey Bridge

"Inspired by a collection of keepsakes, Metz unearths a chapter of her mother's hidden past, deftly navigating between two spheres: her family's harrowing escape from the Nazis, and her own present-day world--one steeped in research and introspection, and replete with political red flags weighed against those of the Third Reich. A timely and deeply layered investigation." -- Georgia Hunter, author of We Were the Lucky Ones 
"Julie Metz's Eva and Eve is a beautifully written ode to her mother who escaped the Nazis as a child in Vienna in 1940. With an artist's eye for detail and a detective's tenacity, Metz brings to life four generations of her family with great sensitivity and intelligence, and offers a timely meditation on political power gone awry." --Helen Fremont, national bestselling author of After Long Silence and The Escape Artist

"Interweaving past and present, blending research and imagination, Julie Metz's memoir crafts a portrait of an elusive mother with a bifurcated life. In her search for the threads of half-told stories and hidden treasures, Metz discovers an absorbingly complex family legacy. An illuminating and textured book." --Elizabeth Rosner, author of Survivor Café The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory

"Weaving together a lyrical exploration of her maternal family history--first as persecuted Jews in Austria, then as struggling immigrants in America--with poignant meditations on her own personal growth and trauma in an era of resurgent, reactionary nationalism, Metz illustrates the persistence of old, human evils, and the inspiration we can find for our own battles in the stories of resilient forebears."
--George Prochnik, author of The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World

"With a historian's scrupulous research and a novelist's inventive power, Julie Metz has delivered a gripping and moving account of her mother's narrow escape from the Nazis. It is an indelible story of both what was gained and what was lost in the exodus from Vienna to New York."
--Prof. Samuel G. Freedman, Columbia Journalism School, author of Breaking the Line and Who She Was

"Equal parts beautifully-wrought memoir and mystery, Eva and Eve is the spellbinding intergenerational story of what it means to survive the trauma of impending tragedy and to keep it from the people you love most in the world. Julie Metz has pieced together the story of her beloved late mother's childhood in and escape from Nazi-occupied Austria, her own place in the story they shared as mother and daughter, and what it means to go to any length to save one's family in the face of unspeakable xenophobic horror. A masterpiece that I couldn't put down."
--Elissa Altman, author of Motherland

October 22, 5:00 pm | Video
David Heska Wanbli Weiden | WINTER COUNTS
Performed by Elio Gutierrez ​


​David Heska Wanbli Weiden, an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota nation, is author of the novel WINTER COUNTS (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2020), nominated for the 2021 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.  WINTER COUNTS, an IndieBound and Amazon bestseller, is a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by NPR, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Amazon, Sun Sentinel,  LitReactor, CrimeReads, Deadly Pleasures, Air Mail, MysteryPeople, and BOLO Books.  The book was also selected as an Amazon Best Mystery and Thriller of the year, an Indie Next pick, Best Noir Fiction and Best Debut of the Year as well as a Notable Selection for Best Crime Novel by CrimeReads.  The novel was a main selection of the Book of the Month Club, Best of the Month by Apple Books, and was the November choice of the BuzzFeed Book Club and the AWP Virtual Book Club.  The book was released in 2021 in France by Gallmeister Editions and titled JUSTICE INDIENNE.  The novel is also being translated into German and Turkish.
Picture
WINTER COUNTS is the story of a local Native American enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation who becomes obsessed with finding and stopping the dealer who is bringing increasingly dangerous drugs into his community.  It’s a Native thriller, an examination of the broken criminal justice system on reservations, and a meditation on Native identity.  Benjamin Percy, author of The Dark Net, says, “The full-throttle, can’t-put-it-downness of this novel is a fact. WINTER COUNTS is a hell of a gripping debut, perfectly plotted, and David Heska Wanbli Weiden is a major new voice in crime fiction, indigenous fiction, and American literature.”

Weiden is also the author of the children’s book SPOTTED TAIL (Reycraft, 2019), a biography of the great Lakota leader and winner of the 2020 Spur Award from the Western Writers of America.  He’s published work in the New York Times, Shenandoah, Yellow Medicine Review, Transmotion, Criminal Class Review, Tribal College Journal, and other magazines.  He teaches creative writing at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, the MFA program in Writing and Publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and the low-residency MFA program at Western Colorado University.
Weiden received the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, longlisted for the PRISM International Creative Nonfiction Award, shortlisted for the Briarpatch Creative Nonfiction Award, and winner of the Tribal College Journal fiction award.

He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts, his law degree from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He was a Tin House Scholar, MacDowell Fellow, Ragdale Foundation resident, VONA alumnus, and received the 2018 PEN/America Writing for Justice Fellowship.  He’s an active member of the Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Western Writers of America, and the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers.  He’s Professor of Native American Studies and Political Science at Metropolitan State University of Denver, and lives in Colorado with his two sons.

Actor Elio Gutierrez is based in the Sacramento area and has been involved in the theatrical community as a director, actor, instructor, collaborator, and advocate. He has directed at B Street Theatre, Green Valley, Sutter Street, Musical Mayhem, River City, the Latinx Center of Art and Culture, and more. He founded the theatre program at Hawkins School of Performing Arts, and is the Artistic Director and an instructor. With a proud Latinx experience, he also helped found Artists of Color, a Sacramento based 501(c)3 organization of People of Color working in partnership with art organizations to ensure the equitable treatment, representation, and inclusion of BIPOC people in all areas of creative practice and as decision makers in key leadership positions in the arts industry. Some acting credits include: Usnavi (IN THE HEIGHTS), Emcee (CABARET), The Baker (INTO THE WOODS), El Gallo (THE FANTASTICKS), and the one-man show, PAIN OF THE MACHO. Elio received his BS in Psychology and his BA in Spanish at UC Davis. He is currently working towards a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology.

Awards/Praise for Winter Counts

Winner of the Anthony Award:  WINTER COUNTS was awarded the 2021 Anthony Award for Best First Novel.
Winner of the High Plains Book Award, Indigenous Writer:  WINTER COUNTS was awarded the High Plains Book Award for Indigenous Writer.

Financial Times and Guardian reviews:  The Financial Times gives WINTER COUNTS a rave review and states, “This is virtuoso stuff: socially committed as well as mesmerising crime fiction — with no proselytising agenda.”  The Guardian also gives the novel a rave review, and states that it’s “an authentic and humane view of a largely unreported world, ravaged by years of systemic oppression.”

Winner of the Macavity Award:  WINTER COUNTS was awarded the 2021 Macavity Award for Best First Novel.

New reviews:  Brenna O’Hara in World Literature Today gives WINTER COUNTS a rave review. “Anyone interested in modern crime thrillers, the tricky politics of reservation law enforcement, or legally ambiguous antiheros with hearts of gold will enjoy Winter Counts, which redefines the constraints of the crime thriller genre and leaves readers with memorable characters, political insight, and a gripping, edge-of-your-seat story to boot.”  The Billings Gazette and the Watertown Public Opinion gave the novel stellar reviews.

​Winner of the Barry Award:  WINTER COUNTS was awarded the 2021 Barry Award for Best First Novel.

Winner of the Thriller Award:  The International Thriller Writers awarded WINTER COUNTS the 2021 Thriller Award for Best First Novel.

Best Paperback Lists:  Buzzfeed includes WINTER COUNTS as a “new paperback you won’t want to put down.”  CrimeReads lists the novel as one of the “Best New Books Out in Paperback.”  BookRiot names WINTER COUNTS as a “Great New Paperback.”
​
Indie Next list:  The paperback edition of WINTER COUNTS has been chosen for the July Indie Next list.

For a more complete list of awards (of which there are MANY) and more reviews, visit David's website.

An interview with David Heska Wanbli Weiden on His Crime Novel Winter Counts -- TEAGUE BOHLEN APRIL 30, 2021 Westword

The Edgar Award, as Denver author and Edgar finalist David Heska Wanbli Weiden puts it, is “like the Oscars for crime writers. It’s like our National Book Award.” So it was a big deal when Weiden’s thriller Winter Counts was shortlisted. It’s an even bigger deal that he’s only the second Native American writer to be named a finalist in the prize’s storied history. 

Not that the Edgars are the only organization recognizing Weiden’s work — far from it. He’s already won a Lefty Award for Best Debut Novel, and the Western Writers of America presented his book with the Best Contemporary Novel and Best Debut Novel awards. Still pending is a cornucopia of other awards: the Barry, the Thriller, a Colorado Book Award, a Reading the West prize, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Weiden is going to be busy — and he might want to be making space on his fireplace mantel for all those pen-shaped trophies and whatnot. 

We spoke with Weiden, who’s both a writer and a professor of Native American Studies and Political Science at Metropolitan State University, about his writing, how cultural identity affects his work, and the many award nominations he and Winter Counts are rightfully juggling. 

Westword: Your recent novel, Winter Counts, has been nominated all over the place for too many awards to count, and has already won a couple. Before we jump into the book itself, what does it feel like to experience the whirlwind of accolades for your work? 
Read the rest of the interview here. ​

November 12, 2021 | VIDEO
​Natashia DeÓn | THE PERISHING
​Performed by Imani Mitchell 

Natashia Deón is a NAACP Image Award Nominee and author of the critically-acclaimed novel, GRACE (Counterpoint Press).  Awarded the 2017 American Library Association's Black Caucus Award for Best Debut Fiction, GRACE was also named a New York Times Top Book 2016, a Kirkus ReviewBest Book of 2016, and a Book Riot, The Root, and Entropy Magazine Favorite Book of 2016. Her new novel, THE PERISHING will be released November 2021 with Counterpoint Press, distributed by Penguin Random House.
 
Founder of REDEEMED, a non-profit that pairs professional writers with those who have been convicted of crimes, Deón is a practicing criminal attorney, law professor, and creative writing professor at UCLA and Otis College of Art & Design. Deón is the mother of two and is the creator of the popular L.A.-based reading series’ Dirty Laundry Lit and The Table.
​
She has appeared in People Magazine, TIME magazine, and Redbook, with essays in The New York Times, American Short Fiction, Buzzfeed, Lenny, LA Review of Books, The Feminist Wire, Asian American Lit Review and other places. 
 
Deón was a U.S. Delegate to Armenia in 2017 as part of the U.S. Embassy’s reconciliation project between Turkey and Armenia, in partnership with the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program and is a Pamela Krasney Moral Courage Fellow, and has been awarded fellowships and residencies at Yale, Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, Prague's Creative Writing Program, Dickinson House in Belgium, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and other places. 

​Imani Mitchell is a writer, director, actor, and filmmaker. Born and raised in Sacramento, CA, she developed her love for acting and storytelling at an early age. Imani received her Associate's degree in Theatre Arts with an emphasis in Acting from Sacramento City College. From there, she went on to act for various theaters within the Northern California area, including Celebration Arts, Capital Stage, and B Street Theatre. Most recently, she directed a production of PIPELINE at Celebration Arts.

Outside of the theater, Imani is dedicated to the art of filmmaking and developing her craft as a writer and director. In 2019, she founded her film company IAM Studios and wrote her first film, WHIRLPOOL.  The mission of IAM Studios is to employ and support talent of color and showcase stories that are authentic, nuanced, and impactful. Currently, her second film entitled I REMEMBER YESTERDAY is in post-production with a plan to be released in Winter 2021.
​
Check out casting director Jessica Laskey's interview with Imani on the Stories on Stage blog.
Picture
ABOUT THE PERISHING
A Black immortal in 1930’s Los Angeles must recover the memory of her past in order to save the world in this extraordinarily affecting novel for readers of readers of N. K. Jemisen and Octavia E. Butler.

Lou, a young Black woman, wakes up in an alley in 1930s Los Angeles, nearly naked and with no memory of how she got there or where she’s from, only a fleeting sense that this isn’t the first time she’s found herself in similar circumstances. Taken in by a caring foster family, Lou dedicates herself to her education while trying to put her mysterious origins behind her. She’ll go on to become the first Black female journalist at the Los Angeles Times, but Lou’s extraordinary life is about to become even more remarkable. When she befriends a firefighter at a downtown boxing gym, Lou is shocked to realize that though she has no memory of ever meeting him she’s been drawing his face since her days in foster care. 

Increasingly certain that their paths have previously crossed—perhaps even in a past life–and coupled with unexplainable flashes from different times that have been haunting her dreams, Lou begins to believe she may be an immortal sent to this place and time for a very important reason, one that only others like her will be able to explain. Relying on her journalistic training and with the help of her friends, Lou sets out to investigate the mystery of her existence and make sense of the jumble of lifetimes calling to her from throughout the ages before her time runs out for good.
THE PERISHING NAMED A "FALL 2021 MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK" by...

INDIE NEXT        USA TODAY                  THE NEW YORK TIMES
ESSENCE           SHONDALAND              PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY         
BOOK RIOT        LIBRARY JOURNAL      LITHUB       
CRIME READS                                         THE MILLIONS

“A bold and bracing novel steeped in LA history about love and power and justice.”
“This isn’t a book. It’s a touchstone. It’s an oracle. It’s a mirror in which you will see your authentic self, reflected on the pages. The Perishing is one part lyrical mystery, one part history lesson you didn’t learn in school, one part time machine. It’s a lush, genre-smashing, philosophical experience of a novel that blew my mind even as it broke my heart.” 
—Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

​“Natashia Deón writes with her nerves, generating terrific suspense. And her style is so visual it plays tricks on the imagination — did I just watch that scene? Or did I read it? It’s Ms. Deón’s real and rare ability to make reading a felt, almost physical experience.”
--Jennifer Senior, New York Times critic

“The Perishing is a downright masterpiece.” 
 —Shondaland.com
“Reading The Perishing feels like falling through a shimmering kaleidoscope of stories that, when pieced together, tell the past, present, and future of an immortal soul. It makes me excited for the future of literature.”
—Caroline Barbee, Friendly City Books, Columbus, MS

“This marriage of period lit and science fiction will plug the Lovecraft Country sized hole in your heart.”
—Keyaira Boone, ESSENCE

“God, The Perishing. Where do I even begin? It’s riveting, my God.”
—Crime Reads

Who We Are

Literature. Live!
​Stories on Stage Sacramento is an award-winning, nonprofit literary performance series featuring stories by local, national and international authors performed aloud by professional actors. Designated as Best of the City 2019 by Sactown Magazine and Best Virtual Music or Entertainment Experience of 2021 by Sacramento Magazine.

Location

The Auditorium at CLARA
​1425 24th Street, Sacramento, CA 95816

Contact Us