Join us at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, as NER celebrates forty years in print with readings by four recent contributors: Steve Almond, Mary Clark, Oliver de la Paz, and Kim McLarin. We look forward to browsing the stacks in this lively neighborhood bookstore, having some ginger lemonade at Cafe Zing, and meeting our authors and readers from the Boston-Cambridge area. We hope to see you there!
Steve Almond is the author of nine books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Against Football and Candyfreak. His short stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Best American Mysteries, and the Pushcart Prize anthologies. His most recent book is Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country. His stories have appeared in NER many times since 2001, most recently with “The Course of True Love” (NER 38.2, 2017).
Mary Clark has an MFA in poetry from the University of Iowa, and has published poems and stories in Ploughshares, Iowa Review, Fiction, and, of course, New England Review. New England Review was the last magazine to publish her poetry and fiction before her 20-year hiatus in sending out work, and was the first magazine to pick her up when she returned. Her story “Many of the Men” appears in NER 38.1 (2017). This summer, she sold her house in Somerville and quit her job in cloud computing and data integration to write novels full-time.
Oliver de la Paz is the author of four collections of poetry: Names Above Houses (2001), Furious Lullaby (2007), Requiem for the Orchard (2010), and Post Subject: A Fable (2014). He is a co-editor of A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry and a founding member and co-chair of the Kundiman advisory board. He teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in the low residency MFA Program at Pacific Lutheran University. His poetry has appeared most recently in NER 39.1 (2018), with “Autism Screening Questionnaire.”
Kim McLarin is author of three novels and the memoir Divorce Dog: Men, Motherhood and Midlife. Her essay collection, Womanish: A Grown Black Woman Speaks on Life and Love, will be published in January 2019. Her essays and journalism have appeared in many periodicals, including her recent essay “Eshu Finds Work” in NER 38.1 (2017). Her work has been honored by the Massachusetts Center for the Book, the Barnes & Noble Discover Program, the Hurston/Wright Foundation, and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She is an associate professor at Emerson College and graduate program director of the MFA in Popular Fiction.
Porter Square Books in located in the Porter Square shopping center at 45 White Street in Cambridge. Visit the Porter Square Books website for details about directions, hours, events, and dozens of special programs that they run throughout the year.