authors Dana Johnson & Melissa Yancy, readers ruby sketchley & lori russo, 10/26/18

Authors Dana Johnson & Melissa Yancy, readers Ruby Sketchley & Lori Russo

​​For our final event of the 2018 season, Stories on Stage Sacramento presents two powerhouse, prize-winning short story writers, Dana Johnson and Melissa Yancy. You’ll hear two complex, beautiful, very different stories about children, about love, and about the wrenching decisions parents face. Readings will be performed by Ruby Sketchley and Lori Russo.

Friday, October 26
The Clara Auditorium
1425 24th Street, Sacramento
Doors open at 7PM. Readings begin at 7:30.
$10 donation is suggested. 

About our writers 
Dana Johnson won the Flannery O’Connor Award for her short story collection, Break Any Woman Down, twice nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Johnson’s most recent collection, In The Not Quite Dark, was described in the Los Angeles Review as “stunning…triumphantly portraying the complexities of womanhood, race, and Los Angeles.” In a starred review, Publishers Weekly praised the book’s “masterly, morally engaged storytelling.” Johnson’s novel, Elsewhere, California, was one of the nominees for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, along with Break Any Woman Down. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Callaloo, The Iowa Review and Huizache, among others, and anthologized in Watchlist: 32 Stories by Persons of Interest, Shaking the Tree: A Collection of New Fiction and Memoir by Black Women, and California Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century. Born and raised in and around Los Angeles, She is a professor of English at the University of Southern California.

Melissa Yancy
Melissa Yancy’s stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, One Story, Prairie Schooner, Zyzzyva, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. Her story collection Dog Years was selected by Richard Russo as winner of the 2016 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was published by University of Pittsburgh Press in fall 2016. She is the recipient of a 2016 NEA Literature Fellowship.Her stories “Dog Years” and “Consider this Case” received Special Mention in the 2016 Pushcart Prize XL. “Consider this Case” was also winner of The Missouri Review 2013 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize and the short story “Teeth Apart” was first-place winner of the 2011 Glimmer Train Fiction Open. She is a graduate of the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California, where she received an Edward Moses Award and Phi Kappa Phi Award. She lives in Los Angeles and works in the non-profit world.

About our readers 
Ruby Sketchley has performed locally at Sacramento Theatre Company, Capital Stage, Big Idea Theatre, KOLT, MSTW, and as an 1850’s tour guide in Old Sacramento. She’s a former company member of Big Idea Theatre and a former board member of the Capital Film Arts Alliance. She and her husband own Tiny Octopus Productions, which produced the award winning documentary In The Parlor. She’s excited to be returning to Stories on Stage Sacramento.

Lori Russo is an alumni of the USC BFA program in Los Angeles. She has performed in Broadway touring companies of 42nd St. and Meet Me in St. Louis. Lori staged & choreographed New York premiers of Captains and Courage, The Unwritten Song and The Bus To Buenos Aires, and has staged and choreographed work for California Stage, Big Idea Theater and Capital Stage.. She has been a company member and resident choreographer with Sierra Repertory Theatre, performing in Lend Me A Tenor, Guys and Dolls, Comedy of Errors, A Streetcar Named Desire and most recently The Glass Menagerie and Vanya, Sonia, Masha & Spike. She appeared in Capital Stage’s productions of Superior Donuts and Good People, and in the Sacramento Theatre Company’s production of Mothers and Sons. Lori received an Elly award for best actress in Love Isadora with California Stage. She also teaches Movement for the Actor Workshops.

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