Monday, November 12, 2007

Roy Kesey Reading Was Terrific!


Roy Kesey Reading a Success
by
John Koetzner

If you live anywhere north of San Francisco along Highway 101 and missed the Roy Kesey reading at Mendocino College, you will have to wait until spring of 2009 to see him again. He's at work on an historical novel about Peru.



In the meantime, if you have not gotten a copy of All Over, his short story collection, you will want to, because it delights, amuses, and even challenges the boundaries of fiction. During his reading at the college, he read only two stories, but that took over half an hour, and his Q&A took over another half an hour. Reading from "Interview," a story that has answers, but no questions, Kesey had the audience laughing at the way the narrator reveals his life and qualifications for a job. Needless to say, it is no ordinary job interview.

Another story that demonstrates Kesey's keen sense of humor and wit is "Hat," a story that can pass as a Zen fable or a metaphor for higher education. Either way, it is biting, funny, and revelatory.

Stephen King selected "Wait" for Best American Short Stories 2007, and it delivers in a Theater of the Absurd way as we witness the wait in an airport terminal. For anyone traveling with flight delays in contemporary times, its satire is not lost, and neither is its bittersweet resolution.

But Kesey's collection keeps one off-balance by the way it gives us the unexpected. We meet revolutionaries, a director with a dead lead actor, a therapist who doesn't want to give up his patient, a cop, dead cows, and a host of other oddball and yet ordinary things that keep us turning the pages. My personal favorites beyond the three titles already mentioned are: "Loess," "Martin," "[Exeunt," "Instituto," "Cheese," "Follow the Money," and "Triangulation."

A new voice in the world of fiction is always exciting. It will be fun to see how Kesey treats Peru in his upcoming novel. We'll look forward to hosting him again in 2009, or sooner should he decide to come back in 2008.

J.K.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Roy Kesey Reading at Mendocino College - Nov. 8, 2007


Roy Kesey to Read at Mendocino College

The Friends of the Mendocino College Library are hosting a reading by author Roy Kesey on Thursday, November 8, in room 5310 in the Center for the Visual & Performing Arts on the Ukiah campus.
Kesey grew up in Ukiah, and now lives in Beijing with his wife and children. His fiction, nonfiction and poetry have appeared in more than sixty magazines, including McSweeney’s, The Georgia Review and The Iowa Review, and in several anthologies including The Future Dictionary of America, New Sudden Fiction, and The Robert Olen Butler Prize Anthology. His short story "Wait" is included in Best American Short Stories 2007 which was edited by Stephen King. He’s also the author of a historical travel guide to the city of Nanjing, a novella called Nothing in the World, and his recent collection of short stories called All Over is to be published on October 23rd.
Hailed as one of our bright young authors, Kesey will be reading at Mendocino College and do a book signing following the reading. Mendocino Book Company will be on hand with copies of his work for those who wish to get copies autographed. For more information regarding the reading, please visit http://www.mendocino.edu/ or call John Koetzner at (707) 468-3051. The Friends of the Mendocino College Library is an affiliate group of the Mendocino College Foundation and it is entering its fourth year of support for readings by authors.
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Monday, April 02, 2007

Valerie Miner Reads April 19th at 7:30 PM




Friends of the Mendocino College Library are sponsoring a reading and book signing by novelist and essayist, Valerie Miner, at the Mendocino College Little Theatre on Thursday, April 19th at 7:30 PM.

This event is free to the public. Valerie Miner is the award-winning author of twelve books. Her forthcoming novel, After Eden, will be published in the "Literature of the American West Series" by the University of Oklahoma Press in Spring, 2007. Other novels include Range of Light , A Walking Fire, Winter's Edge, Blood Sisters, All Good Women, Movement: A Novel in Stories, and Murder in the English Department. Her short fiction books include Abundant Light, The Night Singers and Trespassing. Her collection of essays is Rumors from the Cauldron: Selected Essays, Reviews and Reportage. In 2002, The Low Road: A Scottish Family Memoir was a Finalist for the PEN USA Creative Non-Fiction Award. Abundant Light was a 2005 Fiction Finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards.

Valerie Miner's work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Salmagundi, New Letters, Ploughshares, The Village Voice, Prairie Schooner, The Gettysburg Review, Conditions, The T.L.S., The Women's Review of Books, The Nation and other journals. Her stories and essays are published in more than sixty anthologies. Her collaborative work includes books, museum exhibits as well as theatre. A number of her pieces have been dramatized on BBC Radio 4. She has won fellowships and awards from The Rockefeller Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, The NEA, The Jerome Foundation, The Heinz Foundation, The Australia Council Literary Arts Board and numerous other sources.

She has had Fulbright Fellowships to Tunisia and India.Winner of a Distinguished Teaching Award, she has taught for over twenty-five years and is now an artist-in-residence and professor at Stanford University. She travels internationally giving readings, lectures and workshops. She and her partner live in San Francisco and Mendocino County, California, where they have had a cabin for 25 years. For more information regarding the author, visit: http://www.valerieminer.com/ . This reading is just one of the literary events this spring sponsored by the Friends of the Mendocino College Library, an affiliate group of the Mendocino College Foundation. The college is located at 1000 Hensley Creek Rd in Ukiah. For more information, visit www.mendocino.edu or call (707) 468-3051.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Billy Crystal, the author


700 Sundays
by Billy Crystal

I've always enjoyed Billy Crystal's humor, and I had missed his one-man show of the same name when it came through San Francisco last year. So, what inspired me to pick up this book? I was on my way to a conference and saw that it was probably a quick read. Indeed, it was a quick read.

The 700 Sundays that the title refers to are the number of Sundays that Crystal got to spend with his father before his father's death. It's a family memoir that is funny and provides some insight into what made Billy Crystal, Billy Crystal. It shows us his brothers, his mother, aunts, and uncles. We learn how his family was part of the legendary jazz movement in America, launching the Commodore Records label. At times, there are lines that are a bit gross, but Crystal keeps it all in good taste, focusing on his love for his family.

This book won't go down as one of the great memoirs by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, its informal style, its humor, and Crystal's humanity come through in the end. It's worth the brief time that it takes to read it.

J.K.