Pen Parentis Announces an Evening of Readings and Conversation with Tin House Writers: Cari Luna, Elissa Schappell, and Matthew Specktor, 2/11

Pen Parentis is thrilled to announce an evening of readings and conversation with three esteemed writers from Tin House: Cari Luna, Elissa Schappell, and Matthew Specktor. Cari Luna's The Revolution of Everyday and Matthew Specktor's American Dream Machine are both acclaimed novels released last year from Tin House Books. American Dream Machine is currently in development for a series on Showtime. Elissa Schappell is a founding editor and now editor-at-large at Tin House magazine, and the author of the much celebrated collection Blueprints for Building Better Girls. Each author will read from their work and then talk about their writing and parenting lives in an informal roundtable.

The reading takes place on Tuesday, February 11th at the elegant Hotel Andaz at 75 Wall Street, which graciously provides happy hour specials on beer on wine. The night kicks off at 7:00 pm, and admission is free. RSVP is recommended, but not required-the Pen Parentis Literary Salon is open to adults over the age of 21. The authors' books are available for purchase from The Park Slope Community Bookstore.

February 11th's Literary Salon, co-hosted by authors Brian Gresko and M. M. De Voe, features:

Cari Luna received an MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College. Her debut novel, The Revolution of Every Day, will be published by Tin House Books in October 2013. Her short fiction has appeared in failbetter, Avery Anthology,PANK, and Novembre Magazine. New York-born, she now lives in Portland, OR, with her husband, their two children, a cat, and four chickens.

Elissa Schappell is the author of two books of fiction, most recently Blueprints for Building Better Girls, which was chosen as one of the "Best Books of the Year" by The San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and O Magazine, and Use Me, runner up for the PEN Hemingway award, a New York Times "Notable Book" and a Los Angeles Times, "Best Book of the Year" She is co-editor with Jenny Offill of two anthologies, The Friend Who Got Away and Money Changes Everything. Her fiction, non-fiction and essays have appeared in publications including, The Paris Review, Bomb, The New York Times Book Review, and SPIN, as well as anthologies such as, The Mrs. Dalloway Reader, The Bitch in the House, Lit Riffs and Cooking & Stealing. Currently, she is a Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair, and a Founding-editor, now Editor-at-Large of Tin House magazine. She teaches in the MFA program at Columbia University and the low-residency MFA program at Queens, in Charlotte, N.C. and lives with her family in Brooklyn.

Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound, as well as a nonfiction book of film criticism. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Paris Review, The Believer,Tin House, and other publications. He is a founding editor of The Los Angeles Review of Books.

More info at penparentis.org.

Transportation info: Take the 2/3/4/5/J/M to Wall Street. The Salon takes place in the soaring lobby of the Andaz Hotel, at 75 Wall Street enter on Pearl or on Water.

Upcoming Events

March 11th 2014, 7pm: AUTHORS DISCUSS THEIR PASSIONS, featuring Ann Hood, Rick Moody, and Max Watman

April 8th 2014, 7pm: AUTHORS ON THE VERGE, featuring Sara Lippmann, Ben Tanzer, and Caeli Wolfson Widger, with special guest host Julia Fierro

Pen Parentis, Ltd, is a New York City-based nonprofit literary organization that provides resources to authors who are also parents, to help them stay on creative track after starting a family.

Pen Parentis Literary Salons are made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. They are also funded in part by The Fund for Creative Communities with public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and by a generous one-time grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation in California.