My guys! Yiyun, Kem, Cara & The Moth
There has been a whole ton of good news coming in for my clients lately:
Yiyun Li has a new novel, KINDER THAN SOLITUDE, coming out from Random House on Feb 25. There will be quite a lot of attention for her as we get closer to publication date, (you’ll see!), but for now, I’m so happy to see the book popping up on all of the Most Anticipated for 2014 lists. A great piece on Yiyun ran in Guernica this week, Justice in China: Emily Parker talks with Yiyun about self-censorship in China, the line between fact and fiction, and whether it’s possible to create good art under a repressive regime. If you haven’t read her already, I urge you to dive in to any of her books. Yiyun moved to the US from Beijing in 1996 to get her PhD in immunology at the University of Iowa and started taking writing classes at the local community college on the side. Now, two short story collections, two novels and a discarded career as an immunologist later: Yiyun Li is a MacArthur Genius award winner, one of The New Yorker‘s 20 Best Writers under 40, a Granta Best Young American Novelist, the winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the Whiting Writers’ Award, and the Guardian First Book Award. KINDER THAN SOLITUDE, her first novel as a U.S. citizen, is about three friends whose lives are changed by a murder one of them may have committed. No kidding, Most Anticipated. No Kidding!
Kem Nunn’s new novel, his first in nine years, is CHANCE, a a gritty, twisted psychological thriller centered on a lonely, brilliant, forensic neuropsychologist in San Francisco, who has, I might add, catastrophic taste in women. Scribner will publish on Feb. 18. Los Angeles Magazine profiles Kem this month, Publishers Weekly gave the book a fabulous starred review, and the editors at Amazon chose CHANCE as one of the top ten books of February. Meanwhile, Kem has just gone back to work at his day job, writing the next season of the FX series, Sons of Anarchy. The San Francisco Chronicle bemoans the use of the Golden Gate Bridge on book jackets, but for this ex-San Franciscan, the cover of CHANCE just makes me swoon…
Cara Hoffman‘s second novel, BE SAFE I LOVE YOU, comes out from Simon and Schuster on April 1. Cara’s first book, SO MUCH PRETTY, received rave reviews across the board, including being named Best Suspense Novel of The Year by the New York Times in 2011. Critics are so looking forward to this new novel that we’ve completely run out of galleys and are reduced to sending bound manuscripts out now (BREs, if you’ve yet to receive an advance copy, let me know!) BE SAFE I LOVE YOU is the story of Sgt. Lauren Clay who returns home from a tour of duty in Iraq – it’s clear to her friends and family that something is wrong with Lauren, but they’re all just so happy to have her home. The advance reviews are stellar, but I like this quote from Adam Haslett: “BE SAFE I LOVE YOU isn’t just a beautiful and unsparing tale of a soldier’s return from the Iraq War, though it is certainly that. It is a reckoning with the moral disaster of that conflict, one that no amount of news and reporting can give us because it requires more than facts. It requires the kind of imaginative transformation Cara Hoffman has accomplished here, turning the story of one young woman’s journey from working poverty to war and home again into a song of lament for a country that has lost its way.”
This is the first novel I know of that is about a female veteran returning home and experiencing PTSD. Expect liberal use of the words “powerful,” “fearless” and “unflinching” in reviews of this extremely intelligent, beautifully written, literary page-turner. It took my breath away.
After helping The Moth with publicity for their first ever book – which hey! hit the New York Times Bestseller List a couple months ago – I’m going to help the organization with publicity too. First thing I’m looking forward to is The Moth MainStage at Cooper Union in NYC next Monday, February 10. This event will be hosted by Jessi Klein and feature stories from NPR’s Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me Host Peter Sagal, the founder of the Big Apple Circus Paul Binder, and other phenomenal people (see more below). Tickets will go quickly – get em here.
The Moth presents:
Flirting with Disaster: Stories of Narrow Escapes
Join The Moth for stories from the razor’s edge. Close calls and death-defying heroics. Taunting fate, laughing in the face of danger, or walking haplessly into the lion’s den.
Monday, February 10th
Hosted By:
Jessi Klein
Stories by:
Paul Binder
Shannon Cason
Tara Clancy
Nicole C. Kear
Peter Sagal
Music by:
Mazz Swift
Directors: Meg Bowles, Catherine Burns, Maggie Cino and Jenifer Hixson
Producer: Caleigh Waldman
Assistant Producer: Jenelle Pifer
Executive Producers: Sarah Haberman and Sarah Austin Jenness
At The Great Hall of Cooper Union
7 East 7th Street
6:30pm Doors open
7:30pm Stories begin
$30 tickets available
To reserve a table please call The Moth office at 212-742-0551
Tables for four are $250 for non-Moth members and $200 for members of the Satin level and above.
Our Host:
Jessi Klein is a writer-performer who is currently the head writer and an executive producer of Inside Amy Schumer on Comedy Central. She’s had her own half-hour stand up special and has appeared on Best Week Ever, The Today Show, and CNN. She is also a regular panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. She’s working on her first book.
Our Storytellers:
Paul Binder—street juggler, talent booker for Merv Griffin, floor manager for Julia Child, Sesame Street regular, and founder of the Big Apple Circus—has lived and worked with the finest circus artists from around the globe. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Paul trained with the San Francisco Mime Troupe before travelling across Europe as a street juggler. He returned to New York with the dream to create a theatrically excellent, yet artistically intimate American circus, and in 1977, the Big Apple Circus was born. In July of 2009, Paul “stepped out of the ring,” but he continues to work with the Big Apple Circus as a senior adviser. The New York Landmarks Conservancy has designated him a “Living Landmark.” For more information, visit PaulBinderCircus.com.
Shannon Cason is a writer and storyteller. He is Chicago’s first Moth GrandSLAM Champion and has hosted The Moth’s wild and crazy Tour de Fat shows. Shannon also hosts his own storytelling podcast called Homemade Stories, where he shares interesting stories from his life and some of his fiction too. He is originally from Detroit, married, and is the father of two beautiful girls. Please find more about his upcoming projects at shannoncason.com.
Tara Clancy is a writer, fifth-generation native New Yorker and licensed city tour guide. Her writing has appeared inThe Paris Review, The New York Times Magazine and The Rumpus. She is also a Moth GrandSLAM winner. Originally from Queens, Tara now lives in Manhattan with her wife and two sons. She is currently working on a memoir. More info at www.taraclancy.com
Nicole C. Kear is the author of the forthcoming memoir Now I See You, to be published by St. Martin’s Press in June. She contributes essays and articles on parenthood to Parents, American Baby, Babble and Salon, among others, and chronicles her continuing mid-adventures in Mommydom on her blog, A Mom Amok. A native of New York, she received a BA from Yale, a MA from Columbia, and a red nose from the San Francisco School of Circus Arts. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, three children and a morbidly obese goldfish.
Peter Sagal is the host of the NPR news quiz Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and is also a playwright, author (The Book of Vice: Naughty Things and How To Do Them) and a regular columnist for Runner’s World. He has run 11 marathons, including the 2013 Boston Marathon.
Our Musician:
Critically acclaimed as one of America’s most talented and versatile performers today, and fresh off a five week tour of Africa as a cultural ambassador on behalf of the United States Department of State, Violin/Vox/Freestyle Composition artist Mazz Swift has engaged audiences all over the world with the signature weaving of song, melody and improvisation that she calls MazzMuse. She is a singer, composer and Juilliard-trained violinist who has, over the years, performed and recorded with a diverse accumulation of artists including Whitney Houston, Perry Farrell, Dee Snider, James “Blood” Ulmer, Vernon Reid, Valerie, June, DJ Logic, William Parker, Butch Morris, Jason Lindner, Kanye West, Common and Jay-Z. Mazz is currently recording two CDs: MazzMuse: The Band (produced by Vernon Reid of Living Colour) and Solo MazzMuse (produced by Suphala, electronica sensation and tabla student of Zakir Hussein). Please visit www.MazzMuse.com for more information on Mazz’s releases as well as show updates.
