with Deborah Meltvedt
at the Auditorium at CLARA
(The E Claire Raley Studios)
1425 24th Street, Sacramento
Doors open 7:00 – readings begin 7:30
A $10 donation is suggested
Short story writer and essayist Steve Almond is the award-winning author of eight books of fiction and non-fiction, most recently the New York Times bestseller Against Football:One Man’s Reluctant Manifesto. His short stories have appeared in the Best American and Pushcart anthologies, and he has published more than 150 stories in magazines such as Tin House, Playboy, Zoetrope, and Ploughshares. His story “Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched” was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2010 and has been optioned for film. His journalism has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, GQ, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. Almond co-hosts the podcast Dear Sugar Radio with Cheryl Strayed. He lives outside Boston with his wife and his children, and is a frequent teacher at Grub Street in Boston and the Tin House Writer’s Conference. Almond’s appearance in Sacramento will include a writing workshop.
Reading “Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched” by Steve Almond is Blair Leatherwood
Deborah Meltvedt is a writer and high school teacher who loves to blend medical science and art in both the classroom and in her own creative writing. She has been published in the American River Literary Review, Susurrus, Under the Gum Tree,Tule Review, and the Creative Non-Fiction Anthology:What I Didn’t Know: True Stories of Becoming a Teacher. Deborah lives in Sacramento, California with her husband Rick and their cat, Anchovy Jack.
Jessica Laskey will read “It Was So Hot,” a Glimmertrain contest finalist, by Deborah Meltvedt.
Now in its eighth season, Stories on Stage Sacramento continues to bring the best in literary fiction to a growing Sacramento audience. We are happy to announce a new and larger home for the readings – the auditorium at CLARA, the E Claire Raley Studios. In addition, our 2017 events will be held bi-monthly on the following dates: February 24, April 28, June 30, August 25, and October 27. In addition a special program featuring the Los Rios Writers will take place on Friday, September 29.
Friday, February 24 – Featuring Steve Almond. With Deborah Meltvedt.
Friday, June 30 – San Francisco Chronicle columnist and short-story writer Vanessa Hua. With Josh Barkan.
reading from his new short story collection.
I’ll begin with an early warning: I can’t be objective about Bonnie Jo Campbell. I’m a fan. I love her dark, twisted, often funny stories and how she’s willing to take them as far as they will go, and then, even further. I love the sunny, ever-optimistic way she lives her life. I’m in awe of how she’s very serious and disciplined about her writing, but playful when it comes to presenting herself as a writer, despite her burgeoning reputation as a leading author of what’s been called “rural America’s postindustrial
landscape.” What other writer, compared to the great Flannery O’Connor, would show up at appearances for her short story collection Mothers, Tell Your Daughters with Flannery herself at her side, or rather a lifesize, cardboard version of Flannery?
Daughters, and we’ll have copies of the entire book at the event. “Daughters of the Animal Kingdom” is the story we’ve selected to be read, and here’s the graphic interpretation.
she tends to her two donkeys, Jack and Don Quixote, raises chickens, practices martial arts, rides her bike long distances, brings in the hay on her mother’s farm and makes an exemplary elderberry wine. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with her husband, Christopher. 
this month we are very happy to welcome back Kristin Fitzpatrick. Her first short story collection, My Pulse is an Earthquake, was published in 2015 by West Virginia University Press. Her work has appeared in Colorado Review, The Southeast Review, Best of Gival Press Short Stories, Epiphany, and Ventura County Star. Her writing has also been chosen for the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize and The New Short Fiction Series. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Jentel Artist Residency Program and The Seven Hills School. Originally from Michigan, she now lives in California and teaches writing at CSU Channel Islands. There’s more at her website 
Kelley Ogden is an accomplished performer, director and producer whose work has been seen throughout the area. Co-founder of acclaimed fringe theater company, KOLT Run Creations, Kelley has performed with Capital Stage (most recently in How to Use A Knife and The Totalitarians,) Sacramento Shakespeare Festival, Main Street Theatre Works and Theater Galatea among others. Kelley earned her BFA in Performance from The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago.
Bojana (Bonnie) Anglin – Cosumnes River Journal
her playwright husband, p joshua laskey, earned his Masters’ Degree in Translation. As an Equity actress, Jessica’s favorite roles include Sally Bowles in Cabaret (UC Berkeley), Mae in Reefer Madness (Artistic Differences), Jenny in Threepenny Opera (California Stage) and several productions with the Sacramento Theatre Company. Jessica is also a freelance writer for Inside Publications—for which she wrote the newly released book, Inside Sacramento: The Most Interesting Neighborhood Places in America’s Farm-to-Fork Capital—as well as for Sacramento Magazine and The Sacramento Bee.
Pano Roditis is a Theatre and Computer Science double major currently attending California State University Sacramento. He has appeared in the CSUS productions of Avenue Q as “Trekkie Monster,” played multiple roles as member of the ensemble in The Producers, and will appear as Nathan Detroit in their upcoming production of Guys and Dolls. 
Jodi Angel is the author of two collections of short stories. Her first collection, The History of Vegas, was named a Best Book of 2005 by the San Francisco Chronicle. Her second collection, You Only Get Letters from Jail, (2013), was published by Tin House Books and named as a Best Book of 2013 by Esquire. Her short stories have appeared in Esquire, Tin House, One Story, Zoetrope: All-Story, Electric Literature Recommended Reading, and The Offing, among other publications and anthologies. Her short story, “Snuff,” was selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2014. She is a professor of writing and literature at Sacramento City College.
Juliette Kelley. is a writer and psychotherapist living in the Bay Area but a Sacramento native. She recently retired from a decades long career as a civil servant in Contra Costa County and was accepted to St. Mary’s College in Moraga in the MFA program where she will concentrate on Creative Nonfiction.
Diane Kallas has trouble finishing projects which explains all of this: her interest in the flash fiction form, her Facebook name, her status as a fallen-away Catholic, retired technical writer, non-practicing attorney, amateur upholsterer, and also the piles of clean, unfolded laundry that decorate her home.
Sue Staats’ fiction and poetry have been published in The Los Angeles Review, Graze Magazine, Farallon Review, Tule Review, Late Peaches: Poems by Sacramento Poets, Sacramento Voices, and others. She earned an MFA from Pacific University, and was a recent finalist for the Gulf Coast Prize in Fiction and the Nisqually Prize in Fiction. She is currently working on a collection of linked short stories, and serves as Coordinator for Stories on Stage Sacramento.
“Run Through the Jungle” from Jodi Angel’s memoir-in-progress will be read by Ruby Sketchley Locally, Ruby has performed at STC, Big Idea Theatre, KOLT, MSTW, Capital Stage, and as an 1850’s tour guide in Old Sacramento. A company member at BIT, and formerly a board member with the Capital Film Arts Alliance, she and her husband run Tiny Octopus Productions. Their documentary, In The Parlor, will play in September at the SF&MF.
Kellie Yvonne Raines will be reading the three short fiction stories by Juliette Kelley, Diane Kallas, and Sue Staats. She is an Associate Artist with KOLT Run Creations. She directed The Adoration of Dora and her KOLT performance credits include Escape from Happiness, Vinegar Tom, and My Own Stranger. Her last performance was in MotherF**ker With The Hat at Big Idea Theatre. Her poetry has been published in Poetry Now and American River Review. She has a degree in Dramatic Art from the University of California, Davis
In October of 1989, Maureen O’Leary was a student at UC Santa Cruz, a “cranky nineteen-year-old with very few friends, very little passion for anything or anyone.” At 5:03 on October 17, she was at her job at the Ace Hardware store in downtown Santa Cruz when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck and the building collapsed. She ducked under a desk and was spared: several other people in the same building were not. The event changed her instantly, and inspired the fictional narrative of her newly published novel The Ghost Daughter (Coffeetown Press,) in which the earthquake triggers an aftershock of discovery for two mothers and a long-ago abandoned daughter. Advance praise for The Ghost Daughter includes this from National Book Award finalist Karen Bender: “Maureen O’Leary excavates her characters’ hearts with precise honesty, exploring the ways connections between mothers and daughters, friends and lovers stretch, break, endure. A beautiful and moving book.” Maureen is the Stories on Stage Sacramento featured writer for July, and you can read her harrowing account of survival in her blog 
Appearing with Maureen is editor and fiction writer Krista Minard. Krista’s short story “Resurgence” focuses on an earthquake of a more subtle kind: a memory that haunts a mother, who can’t separate it from fears for her pre-teen daughter. . Since 1994, Krista has been editor of Sacramento Magazine and of several bridal publications. As a fiction writer, her short stories and essays have been published in Susurrus, Paper Wings and Soul of the Narrator. She attended the Squaw Valley Community of Writers fiction workshop in 2011. She lives in Folsom with her husband, two nearly-grown daughters and two black cats.
Reading an excerpt from The Ghost Daughter will be Sacramento actress Elise Marie Hodge, a Stories on Stage favorite and owner of EMH Productions. a company dedicated to putting
Victoria Goldblatt will read “Resurgence.” She’s been a Sacramento performer for over 20 years in a variety of films, commercials, community theater and voice overs for TV and radio.. The former Casting Director for Stories on Stage in Sacramento, she was a member of the Steering Committee for the Sacramento’s Playwrights Collaborative for the past seven years.
We don’t usually feature non-fiction at Stories on Stage Sacramento but these are compelling issues tackled in different ways by excellent writers. We’re excited to present these two very different uses of history as a jumping-off place. Mary Volmer is a Grass Valley, CA native and a much-praised writer of historic fiction (Crown of Dust and her just-published Reliance, Illinois.) Crown of Dust, set during the Gold Rush, earned a Publisher’s Weekly starred review and drew praise from The New York Times Sunday Review of Books for “investing her pioneers with piquant inner lives and a poker-faced lyricism.” Similar praise has arrived for Reliance, Illinois, published in May 2016: Booklist singled out its “rich cast of characters and well-evoked setting” and Publisher’s Weekly noted its “smart touches of humor.” Mary earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Saint Mary’s College. a master’s from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and has been awarded residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Hedgebrook. She teaches at Saint Mary’s College and lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
Reading an excerpt from Reliance, Illinois will be Mallory Monachino. A newcomer to Stories on Stage, Mallory recently returned to Sacramento after a year spent in Los Angeles studying with renowned acting coach Doug Warhit. She was last seen on stage in Sacramento in the EMH production Look Back In Anger and was the female lead in the short film Labyrinth, written and directed by Lonon Smith. A former competitive synchronized swimmer, Mallory works as a yoga instructor.
Reading an excerpt from Engineering Eden: The True Story of a Violent Death, a Trial, and the Fight Over Controlling Nature is Matt Rives, an actor, musician, and stand-up comedian. In addition to several Stories on Stage readings, Matthew has played lead roles in Noises Off and A Comedy of Errors and has performed by invitation at Laughs Unlimited, The Sacramento Comedy Spot, and Luna’s Café. His notable roles include “Franz Liebkind” in The Producers and “Buck Barrow” in Bonnie and Clyde with Runaway Stage Productions. Matthew also played the role of “The Captain” in the world premier of Frankenstein with Resurrection Theatre. Most recently, he played the role of Tom/Narrator in Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, Mr. Aarons in Bridge to Terabitihia, and Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.
We’re excited and so, so pleased to bring you not one but two featured authors this month. Lori Ostlund and Anne Raeff are both powerful and lyric writers, partners for more than 20 years and now, married. Other things you should know about them: they once owned an antique shop called “Two Serious Ladies,” referencing the novel by Jane Bowles, they’re both teachers who work primarily with immigrants and each of them has won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, one of the most coveted short story prizes in America. And, most importantly for Sacramento lovers of great fiction, they’re making their first joint appearance at Stories on Stage Sacramento on May 27,2016.
Award-winning collection, The Bigness of the World (newly issued in paperback,) is this from Publisher’s Weekly. “…Ostlund’s artful prose is playfully complex and illuminating, evocative and unsentimental…each piece is sublime.” The collection also won the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, and the 2009 California Book Award for First Fiction. After the publication of her debut novel After the Parade in September 2015, no less an authority than the New York Times praised it as “a powerful debut…provides considerable pleasure and emotional power.” The novel won starred reviews from Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly, was on the “best books of 2015” list for both NPR and Buzzfeed, and was shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize.
In her praise for Anne Raeff‘s winning collection The Jungle Around Us, legendary Flannery O’Connor Award editor Nancy Zafris explains why she selected the work for the 2015 prize: “A wonderfully mature vision informs the stories of The Jungle Around Us, stories that risk being termed old-fashioned—if old-fashioned means ditching self-consciousness and cleverness and bringing back hard-earned intelligence and historical weight and putting them all under a single multicultural roof. The miracle of these stories is their ultimate simplicity and intimacy even as they weave together numerous global threads.” Anne’s stories and essays have appeared in the New England Review, ZYZZYVA, and Guernica, among other places. Her first novel, Clara Mondschein’s Melancholia, was published in 2002. She’s a child of immigrants and much of her writing draws on her family’s history as refugees from war and the Holocaust.
Ireland, a multidisciplinary veteran of the film, television and theater trade, with sixteen years as a working professional in both performance and technical roles. The son of noted ‘lit noir’ author Patrick Ireland, Ethan is a writer & director of several short films, and has worked as a voice actor and a performer for both stage and screen since 1995. Most recently he appeared in EMH’s productions of After Hours and An Almost Perfect Person. He has performed at Now Hear This: A Story and Music Performance Series produced by Atim Udoffia.
The short story “Chinese Opera” from Anne Raeff’s The Jungle Around Us will be read by Kristine David, a local actor and musician in Northern California. She has been seen on many Sacramento stages including: B Street Theatre (Provenance, Bob,) Capital Stage (Mauritius, Much Ado About Nothing,) Sacramento Theater Company (Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet) & Big Idea Theatre (Inventing Van Gogh, Complete Female Stage Beauty.)
Stories on Stage Sacramento is excited to present
nca without passport, money, or credit cards, she could choose refuge in the American Embassy – or she could accept as hers the identity of a stranger, given to her by a mysterious police official. Her choice at this moment, and the following choices she makes, drive the relentless narrative and exploration of both physical and emotional identity in this engrossing novel by our March featured writer, author ,editor and
Cooper , the recent winner of the Tupelo Quarterly Prose Open Prize, judged by Pulitzer winner Adam Johnson. Jame also received First Place in Short Short Fiction in New Millennium Writings, 2013, and Second Place in Essay in Literal Latte, 2014. His short stories and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in The Manhattan Review, Oberon Poetry Magazine, Gold Man Review, KY Story, Temenos,, Paper Swans Press, Folia Literary Magazine, and in other journals and anthologies. A full-length collection of poetry, titled An Ocean Large Enough, is forthcoming from WordTech. His current proje
ct is a wild collection of short stories about fictionalized therapy. Cooper is a practicing psychologist, which profession, he says, has” shaped him to lean in unexpected winds, to hold fast or be swept away in wonder. There is always context, amplified or subdued, a language in the hands, in posture, in the pauses between words.”
Stories on Stage Sacramento 