Tim Horvath

James Scott, author of the debut novel,The Kept, in conversation with Tim Horvath, author of the short story collection, Understories, on Thursday, February 12th at 7pm

In the winter of 1897, midwife Elspeth Howell arrives at her isolated farmstead in upstate New York to discover an unthinkable crime. The only survivor is her twelve-year-old son, Caleb, who joins her in mourning the tragedy and planning its reprisal.

Their long journey leads them to a roughhewn lake town, defined by the violence of both its landscape and its inhabitants. There Caleb is forced into a brutal adulthood as he slowly discovers truths about his family he never suspected, and Elspeth must confront the terrible urges and unceasing temptations that have haunted her for years.

Throughout it all, the love between mother and son serves as the only shield against a merciless world.

James Scott was born in Boston and raised in upstate New York. He holds a BA from Middlebury College and an MFA from Emerson College. His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, One Story, American Short Fiction and other publications. He has received fellowships and awards from, among others, Yaddo, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the New York State Summer Writers' Institute and the Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and dog. The Kept is his first novel.

Tim Horvath received his MFA from the University of New Hampshire, where he won the Thomas Williams Memorial Prize. His story "The Understory" won the 2006 Raymond Carver Short Story Award, judged by Bill Henderson, and in 2008 he received a Yaddo fellowship. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Alimentum: The Literature of Food, Fiction, Web Conjunctions, Puerto del Sol, and many other journals. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and daughter, and works as a psychiatric counselor and a creative writing instructor.

Location: Street: 125 Water Street City: Exeter, Province: New Hampshire Postal Code: 03833-2456 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Thursday, October 9th, 2014, 7 p.m.

Three authors join us for a night of literary delight!

Eric Shonkwiler, Above All Men (a post-apocalyptic story of a man struggling to keep his family and farm together), Tim Horvath, Understories (a collection of short stories), Nathan Graziano, My Next Bad Decision (a new volume of verse).

Eric Shonkwiler received his MFA in Fiction from University of California-Riverside, where he was the recipient of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship Award, and is the Regional Editor for Los Angeles Review of Books, as well as a former reader for PANK and former Editor-in-Chief and fiction editor for CRATE: The Literary Journal of UCR. Born and raised in Ohio, Eric is an extensive nomad, having lived and worked in every contiguous U.S. time zone, and finding himself on the road as often as not.

Above All Men: Years from now, America is slowly collapsing. Crops are drying up and oil is running out. People flee cities for the countryside, worsening the drought and opening the land to crime. Amid this decay and strife, war veteran David Parrish fights to keep his family and farm together. However, the murder of a local child opens old wounds, forcing him to confront his own nature on a hunt through dust storms and crumbling towns for the killer. Shonkwiler's critically acclaimed debut novel is a 2014 Midwest Connections Pick and has been called “poetic, stark, and impossible to ignore” by authors and critics such as Frank Bill, Paula Bomer, and Tom Lutz.

Understories, by Tim Horvath:

What if there were a city that consisted only of restaurants? What if Paul Gauguin had gone to Greenland instead of Tahiti? What if there were a field called Umbrology, the study of shadows, where physicists and shadow puppeteers worked side by side? Full of speculative daring though firmly anchored in the tradition of realism, Tim Horvath’s stories explore all of this and more— blending the everyday and wondrous to contend with age-old themes of loss, identity, imagination, and the search for human connection. Whether making offhand references to Mystery Science Theater, providing a new perspective on Heidegger’s philosophy and forays into Nazism, or following the imaginary travels of a library book, Horvath’s writing is as entertaining as it is thought provoking.

My Next Bad Decision, a volume of verse by Nathan Graziano. Nathan is a high school teacher in Manchester and has an MFA in fiction writing from The University of New Hampshire. He is the author of three collections of poetry, Not So Profound, Teaching Metaphors, and After the Honeymoon; two collections of short prose, Frostbite and Hangover Breakfasts; and several chapbooks of fiction and poetry. His work has appeared in numerous literary publications, such as Word Riot, Rattle, The Hawaii Review, The Good Men Project, Night Train, and Nerve Cowboy, and his short story, “Fishbone,” was a finalist for The Norman Mailer Award.

Location: Street: 45 S Main St Additional: City: Concord , Province: New Hampshire Postal Code: 03301 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

“There are few perfect debut American novels. Walter Percy’s The Moviegoer and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird come to mind. So does Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. To this list ought to be added Paul Harding’s devastating first book, Tinkers. . . . Harding has written a masterpiece.” John Freeman, National Public Radio

”At its heart Inukshuk is about family. But Spatz has transfigured this beautifully told, wise story with history and myth, poetry and magic into something rarer, stranger, and altogether amazing. A book that points unerringly true north.” Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

“Tim Horvath is a fluid, inventive writer who deftly interweaves the palpably real and the pyrotechnically fantastic. At once playful, deeply moving, and sharply funny, Understories satisfies the mind, the heart, and the gut.” Kate Christensen, author of The Astral

Paul Harding is the author of Tinkers, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts and Iowa Writers’ Workshop, was a drummer for the band Cold Water Flat, and has taught writing at Harvard and the University of Iowa. A 2010 Guggenheim fellow and PEN / Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers Award recipient, Harding lives near Boston with his wife and two sons.

Gregory Spatz is the author of the short fiction collection Wonderful Tricks and the novels Fiddler’s Dream, No One But Us, and Inukshuk. He has also written for the Oxford American and his short stories have appeared in the New Yorker, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Epoch, Shenandoah, Iowa Review, Santa Monica Review and elsewhere. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and recipient of a Washington State Book Award, he teaches at Eastern Washington University in Spokane and plays the fiddle and tours with Mighty Squirrel and in the JUNO-nominated bluegrass band John Reischman and the Jaybirds.

Tim Horvath teaches creative writing at New Hampshire Institute of Art and Boston’s Grub Street writing center. He has also worked part-time as a counselor in a psychiatric hospital, primarily with autistic children and adolescents. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and daughter.

This event will be hosted by Ted Weesner.

Ted Weesner's work has appeared in Ploughshares, The Cincinnati Review, The Boston Globe, Glamour, Memorious, Gastronomica, and elsewhere, as well as on National Public Radio. His story 'Tuscaloosa' was a Best American Distinguished selection. He has also contributed to Scribner's American Writer and The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. A recipient of the PEN/New England Discovery Award, two Somerville Arts Council grants, an award from the St. Botolph Club, and a residency at the MacDowell Colony, Weesner teaches writing at Tufts, the Museum School, and Grub Street.

Location: Street: Porter Square Shopping Center Additional: 25 White Street City: Cambridge, Province: Massachusetts Postal Code: 02140 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

We're so proud to be hosting Tim Horvath for his new collection of short stories, Understories, releasing from Bellevue Literary Press on May 1st. A few years ago, we hosted Tim for his novella Circulation, then published by a small press and now included in Understories. His stories are filled with wonder and curiosity--what if life was like ______? What haunts us? How do we become obsessed? His writing is incisive and inventive, funny and poignant. We are thrilled to be celebrating the publication of his collection of short stories, and look forward to his career ahead.

What if there were a city that consisted only of restaurants? What if Paul Gauguin had gone to Greenland instead of Tahiti? What if there were a field called Umbrology, the study of shadows, where physicists and shadow puppeteers worked side by side? Full of speculative daring though firmly anchored in the tradition of realism, Tim Horvath's stories explore all of this and more-- blending the everyday and wondrous to contend with age-old themes of loss, identity, imagination, and the search for human connection. Whether making offhand references to "Mystery Science Theater, " providing a new perspective on Heidegger's philosophy and forays into Nazism, or following the imaginary travels of a library book, Horvath's writing is as entertaining as it is thought provoking.

"Horvath seems to be channeling, all at once, Borges and Calvino and Kevin Brockmeier. And it all works." --REBECCA MAKKAI, author of The Borrower "Tim Horvath is a fluid, inventive writer who deftly interweaves the palpably real and the pyrotechnically fantastic. At once playful, deeply moving, and sharply funny, "Understories" satisfies the mind, the heart, and the gut." --KATE CHRISTENSEN, author of The Astral and The Great Man

Tim Horvath received his MFA from the University of New Hampshire, where he won the Thomas Williams Memorial Prize. His story "The Understory" won the 2006 Raymond Carver Short Story Award, judged by Bill Henderson, and in 2008 he received a Yaddo fellowship. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Alimentum: The Literature of Food, Fiction, Web Conjunctions, Puerto del Sol, and many other journals.

He teaches creative writing at Chester College of New England and Boston's Grub Street writing center. He also works part-time as a counselor in a psychiatric hospital, primarily with autistic children and adolescents. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and daughter.

Location: Street: 125 Water Street City: Exeter, Province: New Hampshire Postal Code: 03833-2456 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)