If the arrival of summer isn’t enough reason to celebrate, we’ll add one more and it’s something special: Sunday Salon is turning 11! Yup. So we’re throwing a big party in a House upon the Dirt at Still Points North AND guess who’s coming? John Wayne and Bridget Davis and some Viking Kings and You are One of Them! (Confused? Please keep reading.) In other words, we’re gonna toast to another exciting year of literary love and community with four extraordinary writers and a truly talented musical guest. Come and raise a glass with us, dear reader/ Salon supporter! At Jimmys no. 43. 7pm.
Matt Bell‘s first collection of stories, How They Were Found, was published in 2010, including the story “Dredge,” selected for Best American Mystery Stories 2010, and the story “His Last Great Gift,” shortlisted for Best American Short Stories 2010 and the Pushcart Prize anthology. In 2012, Bell published Cataclysm Baby, a novella. Bell’s epic, mythical debut novel, In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods, was published by Soho Press in Spring 2013. Bell’s fiction has been published in Conjunctions, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Gulf Coast, and many other literary magazines, and has been anthologized in 30 Under 30: An Anthology of Innovative Fiction by Younger Writers and Best American Fantasy 2. He has worked as the Senior Editor at Dzanc Books, and is the editor of The Collagist. He lives in Marquette, Michigan, with his wife Jessica, where he teaches creative writing at Northern Michigan University.
Scott Garson was born in Nebraska and grew up in Iowa. A graduate of Carleton College and George Mason University, he has received awards for his fiction from Playboy, the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation and Dzanc Books. He lives in central Missouri with his wife and two children.
Elliott Holt’s short fiction has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, and she was the runner-up of the 2011 PEN Emerging Writers Award. A graduate of the MFA program at Brooklyn College , she has received fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Summer Writers’ Workshop, and Yaddo. Holt is a former copywriter who has worked at advertising agencies in Moscow, London, and New York. She currently resides in her hometown of Washington, D.C. Find her on Twitter @ElliottHolt.
Leigh Newman’s memoir Still Points North: One Alaskan Childhood, One Grown-up World, One Long Journey Home came out from Dial Press in 2013. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in One Story, Tin House, The New York Times Modern Love section, Fiction, New York Tyrant, Vogue, Real Simple, O The Oprah Magazine, and Bookforum. She is the deputy editor of Oprah.com where she writes about books and happiness, and an editor-at-large for the indie press Black Balloon Publishing.
MUSICAL GUEST:
Since 2011 Bridget Davis and her band the Viking Kings have brought their potent blend of jazz, folk, and pop to music venues through Manhattan and Brooklyn. Featuring fellow University of Miami graduates Sam Petitti on guitar and Dag Markhus on drums, as well as the jazz- and classically-trained Kells Nollenberger on upright bass, the Viking Kings expertly supply each song with its own unique cinematic atmosphere–romance, western, period drama, film noir. Following the 2012 release of their debut EP Trouble Comes in Threes, produced and engineered by Luke Moellman and mastered by Latin Grammy-winning Carlos Alvarez, Bridget Davis and the Viking Kings have been played on Miami’s 90.5 WVUM and featured as a “Must See Show of the Week” by Grass Clippings. But listen to them once, and every show will be a must see show.