Fresh Fiction: A Reading

(Obejas, Achy) Achy Obejas is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Ruins, Days of Awe, and three other books of fiction. She edited and translated (into English) the anthology Havana Noir, and has since translated Junot Diaz, Rita Indiana, Wendy Guerra, and many others. In 2014, she was awarded a USA Ford Fellowship for her writing and translation. Her latest book, The Tower of the Antilles (Akashic) is a collection of short stories. The Cubans in Achy Obejas's story collection are haunted by islands: the island they fled, the island they've created, the island they were taken to or forced from, the island they long for, the island they return to, and the island that can never be home again. With language that is both generous and sensual, Obejas writes about existences beset by events beyond individual control, and poignantly captures how history and fate intrude on even the most ordinary of lives.

(Mootoo, Shani) Shani Mootoo was born in Ireland and grew up in Trinidad. Her novels include Valmiki's Daughter, long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize; He Drown She in the Sea, long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and Cereus Blooms at Night. Mootoo divides her time between Grenada and Canada. Her latest novel, Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab (Akashic Books), was long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and short-listed for the Lambda Literary Award.  Jonathan Lewis-Adey was nine when his parents separated, and his mother, Sid, vanished entirely from his life. It is not until he is a grown man that Jonathan finally reconnects with his beloved lost parent, only to find, to his shock and dismay that the woman he knew as "Sid" in Toronto has become an elegant man named Sydney living in his native Trinidad. For nine years, Jonathan has paid regular visits to Sydney on his island retreat, trying with quiet desperation to rediscover the parent he adored inside this familiar stranger, and to overcome his  will end is up to Jonathan, and it is he who must decide what to do with Sydney's haunting legacy of love, loss, and acceptance.  Mootoo is also a contributor to Trinidad Noir: The Classics (Akashic Noir), the latest in the award-winning series of original noir anthologies, which presents nineteen works that trail the country’s criminals, her prostitutes, her officious bureaucrats, her police, and her ordinary citizens.

(Ju, Siel) Siel Ju is the author of two poetry chapbooks: Feelings Are Chemicals in Transit, and Might Club. Her stories and poems appear in ZYZZYVA, The Los Angeles Review, Denver Quarterly, and other publications. She also edits Flash Flash Click, a weekly email lit zine for fast fiction. Siel is the recipient of a residency from The Anderson Center at Tower View and holds a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. Cake Time (is her first novel-in-stories. Daring yet aimless, smart but slightly strange, Cake Time’s young female protagonist keeps making slippery choices, sliding into the dangerous space where curiosity melds with fear, and desires turn into dirty messes. Ultimately, this unflinching novel-in-stories grapples with urgent, timeless questions: why intelligent girls make terrible choices, where to negotiate a private self in an increasingly public world, and how to love madly without losing a sense of self.