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In June, we’ll be joined by Elizabeth McCracken and Thisbe Nissen to talk about writing short fiction.
As Neil Gaiman said, “Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and other dreams. They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be back in time for dinner.”
Whether you’re just getting started with your own story writing or you’re well on your way to a collection of your work (or maybe you’re someplace in-between), join us for this opportunity to hear from two writers who have arguably perfected the art of keeping it brief.
We’re encouraging all attendees to read one story by each of our featured authors. These stories will be referenced during the conversation. Here are links to “The Irish Wedding” by Elizabeth McCracken and “We Shall Go to Her, but She Will Not Return to Us” by Thisbe Nissen.
For this event, we’re partnering with Book Woman, a wonderful independent bookstore based in Austin, Texas. You can support Book Woman (and our guests!) by buying copies of Elizabeth and Thisbe’s books here:
Click here to buy THE SOUVENIR MUSEUM by Elizabeth McCracken
Click here to buy HOW OTHER PEOPLE MAKE LOVE by Thisbe Nissen
If you have questions about the craft of writing short fiction, please consider sharing them with us ahead of time – you can fill out this simple Google form. We’ll also leave time for questions during the event.
RSVP to receive your link to the live webinar.
Thisbe Nissen is the author of three novels, Our Lady of the Prairie(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), Osprey Island (Knopf, 2004), The Good People of New York (Knopf, 2001), and two story collections, Out of the Girls' Room and into the Night (University of Iowa Press, 1999, winner of the John Simmons Short Fiction Award) and How Other People Make Love (Wayne State University Press, 2021). She is also the co-author with Erin Ergenbright of The Ex-Boyfriend Cookbook, a collection of stories, recipes, and art collages. Her fiction has been published in The Iowa Review, The American Scholar, Seventeen, and The Virginia Quarterly Review, and anthologized in The Iowa Award: The Best Stories 1991-2000 and Best American Mystery Stories. Her nonfiction has appeared in Vogue, Glamour, Preservation and The Believer, and is featured in several essay anthologies.
She has been the recipient of fellowships from the James Michener-Copernicus Society, The University of Iowa, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony, and was the 19th Zale Writer-in-Residence at Tulane University. She has taught at Columbia University, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Brandeis University, The New School's Eugene Lang College and in the low residency MFA program at Pacific University. These days, she teaches undergrad, MFA and PhD students at Western Michigan University.
