PEN PARENTIS Presents Rolnick, Schutt & Solomon in Literary Event, May 8

Tuesday, May 8th, at Gild Hall, a Thompson Hotel (15 Gold Street), Pen Parentis presents three authors who have won coveted prizes in short fiction: Josh Rolnick, whose collection PULP AND PAPER won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award, Christine Schutt, whose short fiction won the O. Henry, Pushcart and Mississippi Review prizes, and whose novels have been shortlisted for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer, and a return appearance by Pen Parentis favorite Anna Solomon, whose short fiction has won the Pushcart Prize twice.

This celebrity-packed season-closing Pen Parentis Salon will begin at 7pm with networking over wine and continue with readings from new works, book signings and discussion surrounding the balance of family with a successful literary career. All Pen Parentis authors are parents, but no kids will be in attendance at this upscale literary evening. The public is warmly invited – this is your last shot to experience a Pen Parentis Salon before their summer break!

Pen Parentis’ monthly 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, and additionally with public funds from the Fund for Creative Communities, supported by The New York State Council on the Arts, and administered by the LMCC.

Admission is free, and everyone 21+ is invited to attend. 7pm start. More details are available at www.penparentis.org.

Anna Solomon’s fiction has appeared in One Story, The Georgia Review, Harvard Review and elsewhere. Her stories have twice been awarded the Pushcart Prize, have won The Missouri Review Editor’s Prize, and have been nominated for a National Magazine Award. Her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, Slate’s Double X, and Kveller. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop and has taught writing at the Sackett Street Writers Workshop and Manhattanville College. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island with her husband and daughter. This is her second appearance at Pen Parentis.

Josh Rolnick’s debut collection, Pulp and Paper, won the 2011 John Simmons Short Fiction Award, selected by Yiyun Li. His short stories have also won the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize and the Florida Review Editor’s Choice Prize. They have been published in Harvard Review, Western Humanities Review, Bellingham Review, and Gulf Coast, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best New American Voices. Josh holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and an MA in Writing from The Johns Hopkins University. He holds a BA from Rutgers University, an MA in International History from London School of Economics, and a visiting graduate certificate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has lived in Jerusalem, London, Philadelphia, Iowa City, Washington, D.C., and Menlo Park, California. He lives with his wife and three sons, dividing his time between Akron, Ohio, and Brooklyn, New York.

Christine Schutt is the author of two short story collections, Nightwork and A Day, a Night, Another Day, Summer. Her first novel, Florida, was a National Book Award finalist; her second novel, All Souls, a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. A third novel, Prosperous Friends, is forthcoming from Grove/Atlantic in fall of 2012. She has published fiction in such magazines as Harper’s, The Alaska Quarterly Review,and The Kenyon Review. Among other honors, Schutt has twice won the O.Henry Short Story Prize, as well as Pushcart and Mississippi Review fiction prizes. She is the recipient of NYFA and Guggenheim Fellowships. Schutt is a senior editor of NOON, a literary annual, and lives and teaches in New York.

Photo Credit:  Jamie B. Clarke