September 2010 - Michelle Richmond

Short Stories for Kindle

The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress, winner of the Associated Writing Programs Award for Short Fiction, is now available for Kindle. Sample or purchase the book here.

The stories in Michelle Richmond’s first collection spin artfully off the life of a single character…smart and adept…” The New York Times

“This collection of brief sketches alternating with longer fictions has a novel’s heft, as characters who are just names in one story emerge to take center stage in another. These women’s lives are shaped by fate and by place, forces hauntingly evoked by this talented young writer.” ~The Boston Globe

“Richmond’s writing is perceptive and heartfelt, her subjects at once edgy and familiar. This is a winning debut.” Publishers Weekly

This weekend in Carmel

I’m heading to Carmel, CA, this weekend for the Carmel Authors & Ideas Festival, where I’ll be giving a talk entitled Straddling the Literary Divide: A Southern Writer in the Wild West, as well as conducting a breakout session on inspiration, or the art of finding one’s story. Looking forward to a beautiful dinner on the beach and a room with a view!

The line-up of 35 speakers and authors includes Condoleezza Rice, Roy Blount, Jr, David Brooks, Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Krasny, Tobias Wolff, Kemble Scott, Jane Ganahl, yours truly, and many others.

Tickets are available here. At $550, they’re not cheap, but if you have a mind to patronize the arts and would like to spend a weekend hanging out in a fairly intimate setting with some interesting people, this event might be just your cup of tea.

Scout, Atticus, Boo…
and You

Join me at the San Francisco Public Library on Tuesday, Sept. 28, for a celebration of To Kill a Mockingbird. The evening will begin with a screening of the short documentary Scott, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of 50 Years of To Kill a Mockingbird, by Mary McDonagh Murphy. Then Andrew Sean Greer, Jewelle Gomez, and I will sit down for a panel moderated by Oscar Villalon to talk about the book. I’ll talk about my visit down to Monroeville a few months ago, when I watched the annual local production of To Kill a Mockingbird on the courthouse lawn that inspired the town’s most revered resident, Harper Lee.

This event is also in commemoration of the American Libraries Association’s annual Banned Books Week. Event details here.

Miami Serenade

I’ll be doing a couple of events in Miami this weekend. On Friday, Sept. 10, at 7:00 p.m., I’ll be reading at the CAS Gallery (1210 Stanford Drive) at the University of Miami to kick off the Goran Reading Series, which celebrates Lester Goran’s 50-year teaching tenure at the University of Miami. On Saturday, Sept. 11, I’ll be conducting a community workshop in flash fiction at Books & Books in Coral Gables. Both events are free and open to the public, but the Books & Books event is filling up fast, so reservations are recommended (see below). If you’re a long-lost friend, or a reader down Miami way, please stop by and say hello.

From Books & Books:
“Join bestselling author Michelle Richmond for a workshop in which she’ll share her secrets and tricks in crafting vital, mesmerizing flash fiction. With in-depth exploration of samples, writing exercises, and an open discussion not only of fundamentals of fiction but of the broader writing world. Free and open to the public, but space is limited, so please reserve early. RSVP to jalison@miami.edu.”