Friday, June 7, 7:30 PM
An Evening with the One Story Literary Debutantes
Sponsored by The Author’s Guild
Hosted by One Story founding editor Hannah Tinti
Featuring readings by award-winning debut authors L. Annette Binder, Manuel Gonzales, Ben Miller, Leigh Newman, Ethan Rutherford, Claire Vaye Watkins, Douglas Watson
Reception to follow

One Story magazine’s annual Literary Debutante Ball is a send-up of the Debutante Balls of old—but instead of featuring young society ladies, it honors One Story authors who have published their first books in the past year. Following One Story’s benefit ball, which raises funds for this award-winning non-profit publisher, the 2013 Debutantes will visit Greenlight to read from their debut books. L. Annette Binder won the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction as well as numerous first book awards for Rise, her collection of contemporary fairy tales where the strange and surreal exist on the fringes of everyday life. Manuel Gonzales’ story collection The Miniature Wife is an exuberantly imaginative debut in the tradition of George Saunders and Aimee Bender, praised by Ben Marcus, Charles Yu and many other distinguished voices. Ben Miller’s evocative family memoir has a title that speaks for itself: River Bend Chronicle: The Junkification of a Boyhood Idyll Amid the Curious Glory of Urban Iowa. Part adventure story, part love story, part homecoming, Leigh Newman’s Still Points North is a page-turning memoir that explores the extremes of belonging and exile through her Alaskan childhood. The Peripatetic Coffin by Ethan Rutherford (already a Greenlight favorite) is a powerful new story collection populated by doomed ships and confused heroes, praised by Jim Shepard, Charles Baxter and other masters of the genre. Claire Vaye Watkins won the 2013 Story Prize for her debut collection Battleborn, which reimagines the mythology of the American West. And Douglas Watson plumbs the contradictions of reading, writing, and human desire in a collection of fairy tales gone awry with his story collection The Era of Not Quite. Novelist and One Story founder Hannah Tinti hosts this evening of powerhouse talents, followed by a reception hosted by the Authors Guild. Greenlight is proud to host some of the best emerging writers currently at work in American letters for this festive occasion!