authors Tommy orange & Vanessa Hua, readers angel rodriguez & madison cho, August 24, 2018

Authors Tommy Orange & Vanessa Hua, readers Angel Rodriguez & Madison Cho

What a way to celebrate the end of summer--amazing stories from two groundbreaking debut novelists, Tommy Orange and Vanessa Hua, with readings by Angel Rodriguez and Madison Cho.

Friday, August 24, 2018
The Clara Auditorium
1425 24th Street, Sacramento
Doors open at 7PM. Readings begin at 7:30.
$10 donation is suggested. ​

About our writers 
Tommy Orange burst onto the literary scene in June with his novel There There, a brilliant polyphonic telling of the fateful day when the book’s twelve main characters, all urban Indians, converge at a pow-wow in Oakland, California. Praise for the book has been lavish and wide-ranging, starting with Margaret Atwood, who called the book “a gripping deep dive into urban indigenous community in California: an astonishing literary debut,” and continuing with The New York Times, “groundbreaking, extraordinary – a new kind of American epic,” the Washington Post “masterful, white-hot – a devastating debut novel,” Entertainment Weekly, “the year’s most galvanizing debut novel.” There There is already in its sixth printing. It’s number one on the SF Chronicle best-seller list and number eight on the New York Times Best-Seller list. Orange is a recent graduate from the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He is a 2014 MacDowell Fellow, and a 2016 Writing by Writers Fellow. He is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma.

Vanessa Hua's powerful debut novel, A River of Stars, will be published August 14, but it’s already gathering honors. The online literary site The Millions named it one of their most anticipated books of 2018, and it was selected by August Library Reads as a “Top 10 New Release.” A modern story of motherhood, immigration, and identity, A River of Stars follows a pregnant Chinese woman as she makes her way to California and a stake in the American dream. Hua has been a practicing journalist for two decades. She’s currently a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of a much-praised short story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, which was featured at Stories on Stage Sacramento in 2017. She’s the mother of twin boys and lives with her family in San Francisco.

About our readers 
Madison Cho will make her debut at Stories on Stage Sacramento for this performance.  She has recently appeared in productions of Macbeth and Titus Andronicus. Madison will be reading an excerpt from Vanessa Hua’s debut novel, A River of Stars.

Angel Rodriguez Johnson is an actor and director from the Sacramento region. He holds a BA in Theatre from Sacramento State and has been in many CSUS’s productions including James and the Giant Peach as James, Darskide as The Boy and Gypsy as Tulsa. He has also been in many Latinx projects through Teatro Espejo and Latino Center of Arts and Culture including the roles of Rene in Lydia and Juan in La Pastorela de Sacramento.

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