Sun, Jun 25
|Zoom book event
Bold Stories & Unexpected Connections
Authors Jolene McIlwain (SIDLE CREEK)Authors Jolene McIlwain (SIDLE CREEK) and Shena McAuliffe (WE ARE A TEEMING WILDERNESS) will discuss the bold stories and unexpected connections in their new story collections, in conversation with Julie Zuckerman. In partnership with Press 53 and Melville House.
Time & Location
Jun 25, 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM EDT
Zoom book event
About the Event
About the authors:
Jolene McIlwain’s work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears in numerous online and print literary journals including West Branch, Florida Review, Cincinnati Review, CRAFT, Smokelong Quarterly, New Orleans Review, LITRO, Prime Number, and more. Her work was included in 2019’s Best Small Fictions Anthology and named finalist for 2018’s Best of the Net, Glimmer Train’s and River Styx’s contests, and semifinalist in Nimrod’s Katherine Anne Porter Prize and two American Short Fictions contests. She’s received a Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council grant, the Georgia Court Chautauqua faculty scholarship, and Tinker Mountain’s merit scholarship. She’s taught literary theory/analysis at Duquesne and Chatham Universities, and she worked as a radiologic technologist before attending college (BS English, minor in sculpture, MA Literature).
She was born, raised, and currently lives in a small town in the Appalachian plateau of Western Pennsylvania. Her debut, SIDLE CREEK, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and Shelf Awareness calls it a “riveting debut collection” and “a rare gem, a compelling blend of nature and humanity perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer and Daisy Johnson's Fen." NPR’s review states, “The 22 stories in Sidle Creek charm, surprise, and convey a deep love of the people and place McIlwain has long called home…beautiful prose.”
Shena McAuliffe is the author of The Good Echo: A Novel (Black Lawrence Press, 2018), Glass Light Electricity: Essays (University of Alaska, 2020), and We Are A Teeming Wilderness (Press 53, 2023), winner of the 2022 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. Her short stories and essays have been published in Conjunctions, Black Warrior Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. She earned a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Utah, and an MFA in Fiction Writing at Washington University in St. Louis. She grew up in Wisconsin and Colorado, and now lives in Schenectady, New York, where she is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Assistant Professor of English at Union College.