Raising funds to support Inprint programs, while delivering a memorable and high-quality evening that celebrates the power of creative writing and reading, has always been at the heart of the unique annual black-tie event and what has made the Inprint Ball a favorite gala for many patrons. Although the Inprint Ball looked a little different this year, gala supporters and their guests were able to enjoy the festivities from home.

The presentation portion of the evening began at 7:30 pm CST featuring welcome remarks by Inprint Board President Marcia West, followed by a video tribute in memory of recently departed Inprint founders Glenn Cambor and Karl Kilian. This was followed by what is often a beloved part of the evening for many attendees—a series of short readings by Inprint fellowship and prize recipients, all of whom are MFA and PhD students and alumni from the University of Houston. Five Inprint fellows, including Raquel Abend van Dalen, Lauren Berry, Matthew Salesses, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, and Sasha West, each read excerpts from their new work and spoke about how Inprint’s support has impacted their writing life.

As a special treat, gala attendees then had the opportunity to enjoy brief remarks from Inprint National Advisory Council members Sandra Cisneros, Richard Ford, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Salman Rushdie, who each spoke eloquently about their own connection to Inprint and the importance of supporting the organization.

Executive Director Rich Levy followed by introducing MacArthur Fellow and Booker Prize winner George Saunders, the featured speaker of the gala. Saunders, also a member of the Inprint National Advisory Council, gave a moving talk about the role of storytelling in cultivating compassion and how Inprint’s work is doing that in a variety of ways in Houston. Afterwards, Saunders participated in a lively conversation with Ricardo Nuila—Inprint Advisory Board member, Baylor College of Medicine physician and hospitalist, and director of the Baylor Narrative Medicine Program. Saunders and Nuila also touched on some of the themes in Saunders’ new book A Swim in the Pond in the Rain. Nuila had been a salon reader during the 2020 Inprint Poets & Writers Ball and guests were thrilled by his participation again this year. Many also enjoyed the music provided by renowned Houston guitarist Edward Grigassy and his ensemble Latin Carnival.

In addition to the presentation portion of the gala, the Inprint staff arranged private Zoom salon sessions for six tables with visits from George Saunders and Inprint fellowship and prize recipients. Several guests also opted to enjoy a three-course dinner and wine catered by A Fare Extraordinaire, included with each seat and table level contribution. Most dinners were picked up curbside on Saturday afternoon at The Revaire.

As a thank you gift, all attendees received a signed, limited edition chapbook of George Saunders’ I CAN SPEAK! created by Fiona McGettigan and Alan Krathaus of CORE Design Studio. Others also received a copy of Saunders’ A Swim in the Pond in the Rain.

Donors and guests responded to the evening very enthusiastically.

The program was interesting, amusing, compelling and deeply moving.

The virtual gala was brilliantly executed, but the big takeaway was the mission. That came through loud and clear.

Congratulations to everyone involved, especially the Inprint staff, on last’s night’s triumph…. It was wonderful just how inclusive our program is. Thank you Inprint for all that you do for our community. We look forward to celebrating in person next year.

A special thank you to lead 2021 Inprint Poets & Writers Ball donors: Chinhui and Eddie Allen; Nancy Allen; Anne and Albert Chao; Liz and Steve Crowell; Mary S. and Jack Dawson; Susie and Joe Dilg; Randi Faust and Carl Herman; Edward and Helen Oppenheimer Foundation; Caroline Kerr and Andy Lusk, Sabria and Kevin Lewis; Franci Neely; Sidley Austin LLP; Phoebe and Bobby Tudor; Michelle and Rishi Varma; Mark Wawro and Melanie Gray; Marcia West and Ron Lewis; and Nina and Michael Zilkha.

Proceeds from the Inprint Poets & Writers Ball make possible a wide range of literary performance programs, community writing workshops, and fellowships and prizes for creative writing students, all of which have continued virtually during the Covid-19 pandemic and serve thousands annually.

The post The 2021 Inprint Poets & Writers Ball celebrates Houston’s literary spirit with George Saunders and others first appeared on An Open Book - The Inprint Blog.

Inprint is proud to be awarding $201,500 in direct support during the 2015-2016 academic year to some of the nation’s top emerging creative writers in Houston. The money is awarded as prizes and fellowships to University of Houston Creative Writing Program (UH CWP) graduate students and a prize for an undergraduate at Rice University.

This year marks Inprint’s highest single-year amount of support for these creative writing students. Since 1983, Inprint has provided more than $3 million dollars in direct support to more than 500 students. Recipients of these fellowships and prizes are changing the face of contemporary literature and have gone on to publish books, win literary awards, serve as educators, and enrich the cultural life of Houston and other communities nationwide. The collaboration between Inprint and the UH Creative Writing Program—a community-based literary arts nonprofit and a university-based creative writing program—is unique in the country, benefiting both the writers and the Houston community.

J. Kastely, director of the UH CWP, which ranks as one of the best creative writing programs in the country, says, “The Inprint awards not only provide important recognition of student achievement but they also further student achievement.  By providing financial support, the awards make available that precious time in which a writer can have the freedom to allow a work to emerge in the way that it should.  The awards open up a rare space that is essential to the creative process, and they have proved invaluable to students as they develop work that will help shape their future lives as writers.  Finally, it is impossible to underestimate the importance of validation for a writer, and the awards provide this needed validation, which is often crucial if a writer is to undertake the risks that are necessary for truly original work.  The Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston is deeply indebted to Inprint for these awards and the multitude of ways in which Inprint supports both students and faculty.”

Finally, it is impossible to underestimate the importance of validation for a writer, and the awards provide this needed validation, which is often crucial if a writer is to undertake the risks that are necessary for truly original work.  The Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston is deeply indebted to Inprint for these awards and the multitude of ways in which Inprint supports both students and faculty.

Inprint Executive Director Rich Levy says, “These talented writers infuse Houston with their energy and vision, giving readings, teaching workshops, working in schools, universities, colleges, hospitals, community centers, collaborating with other artists, and enriching this city in countless ways. We are honored and dedicated to support them.”

Funds for the fellowships and prizes come from both the Inprint Fellowship Endowment (which the organization created in 1991 and works hard to manage and augment) and Inprint’s annual operating budget (through revenues generated by specific gifts for named prizes and fundraising events such as the Inprint Poets and Writers Ball).

Winners of the 2015-2016 Inprint Prizes are:

• Selena Anderson, Inprint Joan and Stanford Alexander Prize in Fiction ($10,000)
• Matthew Salesses, Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing ($10,000)
• Meghan Martin, Inprint Paul Verlaine Prize in Poetry ($10,000)
• Carlos Hernandez and Michelle Nereim, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prizes in Fiction ($2,500)
• Luisa Muradyan and Martin Rock, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prizes in Poetry($2,500)
• Dana Kroos, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Non-Fiction ($2,500)
• Carlos Hernandez, Inprint Marion BarthelmeGulf Coast Prize ($1,000)

The winners of these prizes were chosen in blind competition by outside judges (some of whom are UH CWP alumni and published writers). The Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing at Rice University was chosen by a visiting Rice scholar.

In addition to the prizes, in fall 2015, Inprint awarded recruiting fellowships (to help the UH CWP attract a great group of new students) and international fellowships. New this year: a recruiting fellowship established in memory of Edgar M. Larsen, former Inprint Board President and a devoted and beloved Inprint Board member for many years. These fellowship recipients include:

• Amanda Casolo and Daniel Chu, Inprint Brown Foundation Fellowships
• Lauren Espinoza, Wanjiku Ngugi, Aza Pace, Samantha Thilen, and Lani Yu, Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellowships
• Thomas Cardomone, Inprint C. Glenn Cambor/M. D. Anderson Foundation Fellowship
• Catherine Cleary, Inprint C. Glenn Cambor/Brown Foundation Fellowship
• Corey Campbell, Inprint C. Glenn Cambor/James A. and Isabel M. Elkins FoundationFellowship
• Carol Ann Madden, Inprint C. Glenn Cambor/Fondren Foundation Fellowship
• Joshua Foster, Inprint C. Glenn Cambor/Michael and Nina Zilkha Fellowship
• Christopher Liek and Josephine Mitchell, Inprint Mary Gibbs and Jessie H. Jones Foundation Fellowships
• Alexandra Naumann, Inprint Edgar M. Larsen Fellowship
• Christopher Hutchinson, Wanjiku Ngugi, and Henk Rossouw, Inprint International Fellowships

Last year, former Inprint Fondren Foundation Fellowship recipient Lacy Johnson, author of The Other Side: A Memoir, was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award; former Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellowship recipient Tiphanie Yanique was listed in the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” and was named one of BookPage’s “14 Women to Watch in 2014”; and former Inprint Brown Foundation Fellowship and Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize recipient Nina McConigley won the 2014 PEN Open Book Award for her story collection Cowboys and East Indians.

Congratulations one and all, we look forward to seeing these writers in print!

The post Inprint awards more than $200,000 in prizes and fellowships to creative writing students in Houston first appeared on An Open Book - The Inprint Blog.

As you read Matthew Salesses’s beautiful new novel, The Hundred-Year Flood, the Prague setting and “love square” may remind you of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The visceral treatment of a natural disaster may call to mind the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, especially for readers around the Gulf. The haints and spirits that follow the protagonist may suggest the hauntings of Beloved. The bewitching effects of an artist couple will delight fans of The Woman Upstairs. The novel’s compelling, phantasmagorical tone may stir up thoughts of Murakami.

With these literary constellations, Salesses has conjured up a wholly original novel, touching on the reverberations of adoption and how family secrets can affect nearly-grown children—an age of development often overlooked in this context.

Salesses is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Houston, and a regular workshop leader for Inprint. We recently emailed about his brilliant book.

ERIKA: Your book has traces of autobiography—the protagonist is a Korean adoptee, a writer, has spent time in Prague—although it radically departs from your life in most ways. Were you inspired by particular books or authors similarly prompted by the reality of lives lived? I’m thinking Alexie, Baldwin, Duras, etc.

MATTHEW: The closest would be Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, which also has a love square and some parallels, I think, to his time there. But I’ve never been very interested in the intersection of artist and character. I’m more interested in the intersection of character and reader.

ERIKA: I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying has been described as flash fiction, a form you publish in widely, and which you teach. Your novel’s sections are similarly short (with the leisure of the novel to double-back and re-examine certain scenes and conversations). This question is often asked of women, so I’m interested to know if having a child has affected the way you work, your stylistic preferences, your time management.

MATTHEW: I love flash fiction. But writing it has nothing to do with fatherhood. It does have something to do with wanting to be the type of writer who finishes projects. While I was working on The Hundred-Year Flood, I wrote I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying one chapter a day, just trying to do something I could finish. One of the major breakthroughs for me with THYF was in throwing out what a chapter was supposed to be like, and using numbered sections that, for me, were permission to write chapters a few pages long or a hundred pages long. I think of it like breath. I had to figure out what the book’s natural rhythm was, and what mine was. I think my writing breath is fairly short, condensed.

Becoming a father has definitely affected all aspects of my life, including my writing, but if anything, I find myself drawn to longer work even more now than before. Maybe it’s something about making meaning over the long arc of a book, and how badly I wish I could know whether I’m doing a good job as a parent and whether my daughter will turn out happy many years from now.

Becoming a father has definitely affected all aspects of my life, including my writing, but if anything, I find myself drawn to longer work even more now than before. Maybe it’s something about making meaning over the long arc of a book, and how badly I wish I could know whether I’m doing a good job as a parent and whether my daughter will turn out happy many years from now.

ERIKA: Speaking of subverting genric paradigms, The Hundred-Year Flood resists conventional narrative in structure, in chronology, and even on the level of sentence. Do you read a lot of poetry, micro journalism, novellas? I could almost hear the screaming Anne Carson fangirl and -boys when the novel mentions her in a bookstore scene.

MATTHEW: I love Anne Carson. That quote got into the book because of a class at UH with J. Kastely, in which we read Eros the Bittersweet, one of the few of her books I hadn’t read then. To me, her definition of desire is everywhere, especially in writing and especially for a person always trying to get closer to himself. As far as what I like to read, it’s mostly novels at this point, and things people link to online. I think of The Hundred-Year Flood as traditionally structured overall—in a simplistic way, it’s a tragic love story—which  helps me to be less traditionally structured with chronology and other things. You have to meet some expectations in order to break others.

ERIKA: Setting your book in Prague was so smart–a place with turbulent history, transgressing on the privacy of civilians, of which there are many unanswered questions. How did you manage to capture the “imperfect English” transliterations of some of the characters?

MATTHEW: I’m not capturing, I’m imagining. Two of the characters speak English in iambs the entire book. That’s a personal joke of mine, but something I have been surprised no one has commented on. It’s more about leaps of imagination than about representing reality.

I’m not capturing, I’m imagining. Two of the characters speak English in iambs the entire book. That’s a personal joke of mine, but something I have been surprised no one has commented on. It’s more about leaps of imagination than about representing reality.

ERIKA: Your novel’s world is filled with ghosts, one in particular, which doesn’t truly materialize for the reader until towards the end of the book. I kept thinking about the various spirits, specters, and wraiths that I’ve picked up, both from my heritage (Jewish golems) and places I’ve lived (Southern haints). What was it like to weave these imaginative hauntings (including the trope of Tee’s emotional container) throughout the book?

MATTHEW: It took a lot of revising. The main ghost in the book was more like memory than ghost until after the novel sold. The container full of micro-aggressions and identity-aggressions was something that also came in late, in order to try to represent Tee’s relationship with passivity and action. The weaving took a lot of reading the novel over and over again, trying to get the pacing right.

ERIKA: Tee’s full given name, Thomas, is not given until 85 pages into the novel, when he writes a letter to his mother that prompts a series of revelations. Did this craft decision signal a character attempting to reclaim (or claim for himself for the first time) a fuller identity?

MATTHEW: Funny. I didn’t think about this so much, but it’s more the opposite. “Tee” is what he would call himself, and is something that could be pronounced in Korean. Thomas is the name his parents gave him and call him. It’s more of a tie to a past that he thinks is stopping him from self-determining.

ERIKA: In your acknowledgements, you write that you are “curiously indebted to a passing remark by Mat Johnson.” Now we all have to know what that was.

MATTHEW: Maybe you’ll find out at the reading! How like a writer to read the acknowledgments so carefully! Ha.

ERIKA: In your acknowledgements, you write that you are “curiously indebted to a passing remark by Mat Johnson.” Now we all have to know what that was.

MATTHEW: Maybe you’ll find out at the reading! How like a writer to read the acknowledgments so carefully! Ha.

ERIKA: The impending flood was such an effective external conflict that ratcheted the tension as the book proceeds. How did the idea of natural disaster become integrated with the bildungsroman of the book?

MATTHEW: It was a decision made in search of more plot. The book was originally set in 2004-5, when I lived in Prague. I remembered walking through Karlin and photographing the flood damage. When I was restarting the book from scratch (the first time), a couple of years in, I thought that the flood could make it more interesting. Then I read about the prophecy that Prague would be destroyed half by fire and half by water. How could I resist after that?

ERIKA: I’ve heard you read a few times around Houston. Do you like giving readings? There does seem something incredibly lyrical about your writing.

MATTHEW: I love reading. I love the moment when you start to settle in and you feel more in touch with your book for a little while, rather than less, because you are closer than ever to what passes between the book and its readers.

I love reading. I love the moment when you start to settle in and you feel more in touch with your book for a little while, rather than less, because you are closer than ever to what passes between the book and its readers.

Salesses is the author of I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying (Civil Coping Mechanisms), The Last Repatriate (Nouvella), and Different Racisms: On Stereotypes, the Individual, and Asian American Masculinity (Thought Catalog Books). In November 2015, Gazillion Strong will serialize his illustrated Korean drama/novel, Marked. He’s written about adoption, race, and parenting for NPR, The New York Times, Salon, the Center for Asian American Media, and The Rumpus. Matthew serves as Insight Editor for The Offing, Online Fiction Editor for Gulf Coast, and Fiction Editor for The Good Men Project.

The post Matthew Salesses talks about The Hundred Year Flood and more first appeared on An Open Book - The Inprint Blog.

Of course, there’s no team like the home team, and Brazos Bookstore scheduled a day of events to please every bibliophile. The inaugural celebration packed eight hours of special events, with an agenda including family-friendly story time and crafts, a drunk coloring part for adults in homage to the new book Hemingwasted: A Loving Look at Literary Lushes, a reception for the new Shakespeare-inspired mural on the front window of the store, and more.

Mark Haber, sales floor manager at Brazos, talked to me about the benefits and opportunities of the day’s activities. “Our bookstore is truly a community center,” he enthused. “Today, I’ve seen people who wouldn’t necessarily know each other rub shoulders. It’s just a great opportunity to talk about books and be around books.”

The final headlining event was billed as Houston’s Ultimate Literary Showdown. It must be said—this showdown rivaled the title fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather that was also happening that night. Moreover, what was on the line was even more important than a title belt. Brazos pledged to donate $300 to the winning author’s charity of choice. These good causes included Books Between Kids, Rice Veterans in Business Association, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and the Literacy Council of Fort Bend.

The final headlining event was billed as Houston’s Ultimate Literary Showdown. It must be said—this showdown rivaled the title fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather that was also happening that night. Moreover, what was on the line was even more important than a title belt.

Competitors had 30 minutes to complete a story based on a hitherto unknown prompt. Benjamin Rybeck, Brazos’s events coordinator, chose a cheeky passage from a romance novel. The certified Harlequin wove a web of intrigue, including a hero in a tux “barreling down the highway,” a crooked senator, a Porsche, a longed-for horse, and chiseled good looks all around.

While the writers typed on their laptops—lo! one scribbled in longhand on a yellow legal pad—with looks of consternation, about 35 guests chatted, browsed books, and sipped beer from St. Arnold and wine from Beviamo.

Soon, we were all assembled, and the judges introduced. The panel consisted of Rich Levy of Inprint, Giuseppe Taurino, assistant director of the University of Houston’s graduate program in creative writing, and Michael Hardy, former arts editor of Houstonia.

The first intrepid reader, Chris Cander, author of Whisper Hollow, wove together a King Learian tale of a “cotton enterprise.” Her story was, appropriately, soaked in Southern details. There were Stetson hats and two-step dancing, an antagonist named Bubba and a protagonist wanted to be, not the next leader of the agricultural empire, but…a poet. As someone who battled very similar circumstances, though dissimilar in nearly every detail, I thought my allegiances would remain with this story. But each subsequent reading was equally imaginative.

The next reader, Mike Freedman, author of School Board, told a lively parable of the modern publishing world. Our hero “Yossarian,” from “a prominent River Oaks family,” was in the crossfire of a battle between the evil “Amazonian” and “Hachette.” The story was wide-ranging, somehow including a mythological creation story of Brazos Bookstore and ending with the sentiment “God bless debutantes.”

Next up was perhaps the most fanciful story of the evening. Matthew Salesses, author of I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying and the forthcoming book The Hundred-Year Flood, pounced on the similarity of the word “senator” and “centaur.” He crafted a story of bestial “bliss” that was acerbically witty and vaguely erotic—thoroughly thematically linked to the prompt. Generally, his tale was about the obstacles one faces in achieving their dreams. Specifically, it was about “glistening horse nether regions attached to a human stomach.”

In a sheer coincidence, the next reader’s first sentence included the word “stud.” Ann Weisgarber, author of The Promise, whipped up a tale that was less about equine physique, and more about “country clubs,” “socialites,” “charities,” and “perfumed bosoms.” Set in the Panhandle, the story journeyed wholeheartedly into the romance genre, complete with a changing of a will as a major plot point.

With such offerings, I’m sure glad that I was not in the judge’s seat. After some deliberations, Rich Levy made the announcement. He extoled the virtues of “the unexpected” and his belief that “humor is an underrated quality in literature.” The winner of the contest was Salesses. The champ was delighted to win money for the Asian-American Writers’ Workshop, a cause he told me that he really believes in.

With stories like these, I’m already looking forward to next year’s hijinks. Of course, every day is a good day to celebrate your local independent bookstore, where you can get inspired and come into contact with the unexpected.

The post A Houston Independent Bookstore Day Celebration first appeared on An Open Book - The Inprint Blog.

The indie book fair flanked the northern, eastern, and southern sides of The Menil Collection museum building, providing an opportunity for local ‘zines, publishers, authors, and nonprofit organizations (I spied Friends of the Houston Public Library, the Hare Krishna Cultural Center, and the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, among others) to display their wares and welcome conversation.

There was printed matter for everyone—romances, poetry, mysteries, cookbooks, Spanish-language, spiritual, YA, and even some book-related crafts.

Brazos Bookstore touted literature by Houston-based authors, like Nick Flynn, Tony Hoagland, Lacy Johnson, Thomas McNeely, (and, in full disclosure, moiself). I spoke to Benjamin Rybeck, events coordinator, about the store’s involvement with MenilFest over the years. “We are first and foremost a community bookstore,” he explained. “We come every year to meet our neighbors.”

Even the littlest members of the community had a chance to participate in the day’s events. A crowd of over one hundred people gathered to hear a diverse line-up of WITS students read their original poems and flash fiction. Families on blankets and puppies frolicking on the lawn complemented the scene.

On the other end of the educational spectrum, graduate students of the creative writing program at the University of Houston, were also in attendance, with the latest issue of Gulf Coast. The Gulf Coast team had also developed a menu of readings and panels at the Houston Center for Photography.

I attended an intimate discussion on interdisciplinary practices entitled “Cross-Media Influence in the Arts: A Ligatures Event,” in which Benjamin Rybeck, Talia Mailman, and moderator Brian Bowers expanded on how “art imitates art.” Rybeck explained how his love of film strengthens his fiction. Mailman revealed how her work as a harpist bolsters her writing, as well. She described how teaching “phrasing and dynamic changes” to a 12-year old music student, made her realize how closely these terms align with the art of the sentence. Bowers expounded on how collaborating with artists and writers in other genres “create something unique and distinct.” The MenilFest was certainly demonstrating that no one need be confined to one mode of expression.

An invitation to cake and piñatas to celebrate the Zine Fest’s “unbirthday party” at The Menil Collection Bookstore was briefly alluring, but I headed over to the Inprint Poetry Buskers instead. Local authors were composing personalized poems, on the spot, for free. I spoke with Sam Dinger, seasoned Inprint busker, who listed some prompts that writers were given, including the theme “after the flood” and a directive to celebrate a brother’s birthday. He also described special moments when community members (a young girl, an older man) helped the writers come up with collaborative material.

Also in the spirit of collaboration, Glass Mountain, UH’s undergraduate literary journal, featured an interactive word game at their table. Participants could arrange and re-arrange cardboard cutouts, like an enlarged version of refrigerator magnets, to make new poems. Each word, I discovered, was taken from the story “Glass Mountain” by Donald Barthelme, postmodernist legend, Houstonian, and co-founder of the Creative Writing Program at UH.

Of course, MenilFest’s reach extends beyond local lore. I spoke with Emily Bludworth de Barrios, a Montrose resident who was representing her Buffalo, NY-based publisher, H_NGM_N Books, at the book fair. “Over the years, I’ve seen the festival grow,” she observed. “It’s a great place to discover little chapbooks.”

Of course, MenilFest’s reach extends beyond local lore. I spoke with Emily Bludworth de Barrios, a Montrose resident who was representing her Buffalo, NY-based publisher, H_NGM_N Books, at the book fair. “Over the years, I’ve seen the festival grow,” she observed. “It’s a great place to discover little chapbooks.”

On a global note, I caught the “Passing the Transnational Baton” reading, featuring Henk Roussow, Jeni McFarland, Brian Bowers, Matthew Salesses, and Elizabeth Davies. Roussow, from South Africa, performed part of his long poem Camissa, a clear-eyed ode to Cape Town, full of dialects, the call of street vendors, zebras and Mercedes, creosote and “trackies.” McFarland read what she termed “a modern noir telling of Rumpelstiltskin,” set in Florida, and, impressively, written in trochaic pentameter. Bowers presented sensual love poems, and “jazzy blues” with the help of some audience finger-snapping. Salesses read from his newest novel, The Hundred-Year Flood, which swings back and forth between Prague and Boston. Finally, Australian-born Davies acknowledged that she was reading to a roomful of writers and chose a very funny piece of flash fiction about “the creative process and mania.” These huge talents truly reflected international flavor of our city.

In a festival this size, there’s no way I could see and hear all that was offered. My chronicle skipped music in the Cy Twombly Gallery, in the Rothko Chapel, and in the Sculpture Park, family film screenings in the Menil Library, and more. There were even more literary events than an intrepid girl reporter could get to. Next spring, I encourage you to make up your own itinerary and see what you find!

The post A literary recap of MenilFest 2015 first appeared on An Open Book - The Inprint Blog.