Best Paris Stories: meet the authors May 29 at the American Library in Paris

May 29, 2012 19:30 -  Come meet the prize-winning authors of BEST PARIS STORIES at the American Library in Paris  10, rue du Général Camou
75007 Paris, France

ISBN-13: 978-0982369852

For some, Paris is home, for others, merely a dream. For Gaston, it is a bench, the anchor of his life. For Sue, a romantic city filled with scandalous, dark-eyed men, for Frank an all-consuming fire, for Mme Santinelli a ghost she'd hoped to forget. By turns humorous, bittersweet, historical or surreal, each of these carefully selected stories invites us to explore a different facet of Paris.

BEST PARIS STORIES brings together the winning short stories of the 2011 Paris Short Story Contest with works by Jeannine Alter, Bob Levy, Lisa Burkitt, Nafkote Tamirat, Marie Houzelle, Jo Nguyen, Julia Mary Lichtblau, Mary Byrne, Marie Houzelle, Jane M. Handel, and Jim Archibald.

"Delightful anthology for francophiles!" Hannah Duke, My French Life

"Exciting new voices from the winners of the 2011 Paris Short Story Contest" - Paris Writers News

"Paris speaks to her each of her lovers with a different voice meant just for them..Paris remains true to herself in this rich compendium of stories" - Frances Gendlin, author of Paris, Moi and the Gang

"Funny or wrenching, get ready to be moved by this literary feast" - Lizzie Harwood, Paris writer and editor

 AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES 

Jeannine Alter

Jeannine Alter is a freelance writer and education consultant.  A doctor of English Education, she has taught English language, literature, and writing in the United States, Japan, Spain, and, most recently, France.  She wrote the short story “That Summer, with My Dad, in Paris” while living in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

Jo Nguyen

Jo Nguyen has worked as a rock concert promoter, bartender, events planner, nightclub and pub operator.  She graduated from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) a very long time ago and currently spends half the year in France and the other half in Thailand.

Lisa Burkitt 

Lisa Burkitt lives in Co. Donegal, Ireland and has worked as a weekly columnist and print journalist before moving into broadcast journalism and presenting. She has written scripts, short stories and her debut novel; The Memory of Scent is being published in May, 2012.  (see interview with Janet Skeslien Charles on Spotlight on Best Paris Stories)

Marie Houzelle

Marie Houzelle grew up in the south of France and lives in Ivry, just outside Paris, with her bicycle. She is now working on two novels. Her stories have appeared in Serre-Feuilles, Pharos, Orbis, Van Gogh's Ear,and Narrative Magazine. "Hortense on Tuesday Night" was chosen by Narrative Magazine as one of the top five stories from 2010-2011 and is part of their annual Winter 2012 issue (Narrative Library). 

Jim Archibald

Jim is a 59 year old Scot now fulfilling two life-long ambitions. He lives with his wife Jackie in a converted Blacksmith's in The Creuse, in South Central France, and he writes Poetry and Short Stories full-time. After twenty three years in the Royal Navy he is already an inveterate story-teller

Jane M. Handel

Jane Handel grew up in Birmingham and the Isle of Wight.  She qualifed as a solicitor in 1993 but has spent the last twenty years near Paris where she lives with her husband. She has two children, now grown up.  She teaches yoga and is currently working on a novel. (see interview with Janet Skeslien Charles in her series Spotlight on Best Paris Stories)

Mary Byrne
Was born in Ireland, currently a French-English translator, living in France. Short fiction (and some poetry) published and forthcoming in Europe, North America, Australia, and included in anthologies such as Faber Book of Best New Irish Short Stories (2008) and Queens Noir (2008). Winner Fiction International short fiction contest 2011

Julia Lichtblau

Julia Lichtblau’s writing is forthcoming in The Florida Review and Temenos and has been published in Ploughshares blog, Narrative,The Common Online, Pindelbox, and Tertulia. She won 2nd Prize in The Flordia Review’s Jeanne Leiby Chapbook Contest, and has been a finalist for other literary awards, including the 2011 Gold Line Press Chapbook Contest. She has an MFA in fiction from Bennington College. For 15 years, she was a journalist for Dow Jones and BusinessWeek in New York and Paris. She’s working on a short-story collection, Foreign Service, and a novel, Sweet Melissa. 

Bob Levy,

A native New Yorker, Bob Levy currently divides his time between Paris and the San Francisco Bay Area. He has been writing short fiction and literary memoirs for some twenty years. His work has been featured in many Literary Journals, as well as the Chicago Tribune and San Francisco Bay Guardian. He is a Nelson Algren Award Winner, a Langston Hughes Award Winner, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Fiction.  (see interview with Janet Skeslien Charles in her series Spotlight on Best Paris Stories)

Nafkote Tamirat,

Originally from Boston, Nafkote Tamirat will be a graduate of the Columbia University MFA Program. She is currently working on her first novel. Her work has been published in Rose & Thorn Journal and Anemone Sidecar.

BEST PARIS STORIES JUDGES BIOGRAPHIES

Nicola Keegan's debut novel, Swimming, was named one of 2009's top ten novels by Time. Nicola divides her time between Ireland and France with her husband and three children.

Penelope Fletcher is from an island off the west coast of Canada. She opened her first bookshop at 19 on the island and worked in bookshops in Vancouver and Montreal, before moving to Paris in 1990. She runs The Red Wheelbarrow Bookstore in the Marais district in Paris. 

Anne Korkeakivi is the author of the novel An Unexpected Guest (Little, Brown; April 2012), set largely in Paris. Her short fiction and her nonfiction have been published by The Atlantic, The Yale Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times (UK), the Village Voice, Ms., Gourmet, and Travel & Leisure, and other periodicals in North America and Europe. In 2011, she was named a Hawthornden Fellow. She lived in France for ten years.

Diane Johnson's recent books include Lulu in Marrakech (2008), L'Affaire (2004), Le Mariage (2000), and Le Divorce (1997) for which she was a National Book Award finalist and the winner of the California Book Awards gold medal for fiction. She has been a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books since the mid 1970s. With filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, Johnson co-authored the screenplay to The Shining (1980) based on the horror novel of the same name written by Stephen King. In 2003, a movie version of her comedy of manners novel Le Divorce was released, directed by James Ivory and starring Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts. Johnson currently divides her time between homes in Paris and San Francisco.

Elizabeth Bard is an American journalist and author based in Paris. Her first book, Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes has been a New York Times and international bestseller, and was selected as a Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" pick for Spring 2010. Bard's writing on food, art, travel and digital culture has appeared in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Wired, Haper's Bazaar and The Huffington Post. You can follow Elizabeth's continuing culinary adventures on her blog,facebook and twitter pages: www.elizabethbard.com, www.facebook.com/LunchinParis, www.twitter.com/ElizabethBard

Janet Skeslien Charles' debut novel Moonlight in Odessa (Bloomsbury) was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of their top ten debut novels of Fall 2009 and received for the Melissa Nathan Award. It was chosen as Book of the Month by National Geographic Traveler. BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime featured Moonlight in Odessa. Language rights have been sold in 12 countries. Janet has led writing workshops at the American Library in Paris, WICE, and Shakespeare & Co and is currently working on her second novel.

Heather Stimmler-Hall is an American-born travel writer, tour guide and editor living in Paris since 1995. She created the monthly Secrets of Paris Newsletter in 1999, and is a freelance contributor for many guidebooks, magazines and websites including Fodor's Guides, France Magazine, easyJet inflight magazine, and Michelin Green Guides. She is the author of the award-winning guide Naughty Paris: A Lady's Guide to the Sexy City and editor for the upcoming guide in the series, Naughty New York.

Robert Stewart is the Editor of the literary journal New Letters. Robert teaches creative and professional writing at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is the author of Outside Language: Essays (Helicon Nine Editions, 2003) and the poetry collection Plumbers (BkMk Press, 1988), among other publications. His poetry, feature articles and travel essays have appeared in journals such as Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, and Notre Dame Review, as well as numerous anthologies. He has been editor-in-chief of New Letters since 2002.

Charles Trueheart has been director of the American Library in Paris since 2007. He is a former cultural affairs writer and Paris correspondent of the Washington Post, and a former associate director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University. His articles have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and the American Scholar, among other publications. He is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Amherst College.

Clydette de Groot holds a doctorate in psychology and has done post doctoral work in organizational development. She spent much of her career as director of behavioral sciences in family medicine residency training programs affiliated with the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. In addition to serving on a number of non-profit boards, she had an international corporate consulting business.  Charles and Clydette currently co-chair of The de Groot Foundation. They divide their time among France, Switzerland and the US and are active in the Paris literary community.

Cara Black is a bestselling American mystery writer, best known for her Aimée Léduc mystery novels featuring a female Paris-based private investigator. Black is included in the Great Women Mystery Writers by Elizabeth Lindsay 2nd edition. Her first novel, Murder in the Marais, was nominated for an Anthony and Macavity Award for best first novel, and her third novel in the series, Murder in the Sentier, was nominated for an Anthony Award as Best Novel. Murder in the Rue de Paradis was a Washington Post 2009 Fiction Pick and Murder in the Latin Quarter was shortlisted for Best Novel by the Northern California Booksellers Association. Her twelfth in the series, Murder at the Lanterne Rouge received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. She'll receive the Medaille de la Ville de Paris from the Hotel de Ville in Paris in May 2012.

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EDITORIAL COMMITTEE BIOGRAPHIES

Beth Arnold : Award winning writer and journalist for Rolling Stone, GQ, InStyle, Self, American Way, Premiere, and online at The Huffington Post, Salon.com and Vogue.com, Editor of Letter from Paris

http://www.betharnold.com/

Janice Abbott: author of Meet the Press, translator and English teacher and program director. 

Jennifer K. Dick : Author of Fluorescence and Patina, co-founder of Ivy writers series and professor of American Literature in Mulhouse University.

Mary Duncan: author of Henry Miller is Under My Bed, Professor. Founder/coordinator Paris Writers Group. Patron of the Shakespeare and Company Literary Festival, founder of Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Moscow.

Kristin Espinasse : Author of Words in a French Life and the cult blog, French Word A Day. 

Karen Fawcett : Publisher and editor of the widely-read e-magazine Bonjour Paris, and veteran journalist. 

Mary Ellen Gallagher: Fiction and non-fiction writer, currently completing a novel. MFA from Lesley University, Cambridge MA; short story awards from the US, France & Australia.

Nancy Gerbault: Literary agent and President Abroad Writers Conferences

http://www.abroad-crwf.com/combourgfrance.html

Hilary Kaiser : Author of WWII Voices: American GI's and the French Women Who Married Them, and French War Brides, former associate professor at the University of Paris

Dimitri Keramitas : Short story writer, reviewer, teacher, translator, film reviews for Bonjourparis.com

http://www.templetrad.com/

Barry Kirwan: author of The Eden Paradox and Eden’s Trial, short story writer and essayist. 

Marcia Lebre : Director of the Paris Writers Workshop since 1998, MFA Bennington College

Kai Maristed: Author of the short story collection Belong to Me and the novels Out After Dark, Fall, and Broken Ground, her fiction and essays have appeared in The Kenyon Review, The American Voice, StoryQuarterly, The American Scholar, Zoetrope, and The Anchor Essay Annual. Kai has taught at Emerson College and the Harvard Extension School and in the Warren Wilson MFA Program, has judged the University of Michigan Hopwood Awards and reviews frequently for The Los Angeles Times.

Thirza Vallois : Author of Around and About Paris series, Romantic Paris, Aveyron, A Bridge to French Arcadia, as well as the Paris entry to the Encarta Encyclopaedia, Thirza holds several degrees from the Sorbonne, (including the most prestigious agrégation) and is an acclaimed lecturer on France. She has appeared on BBC, PBS, the Travel Channel, CNN, Discovery, the French Cultural Channel, has been aired on scores of radio stations in the US, Britain and others, and has contributed articles to The Financial Times, United Airlines' Hemispheres, Condé Nast Traveller, among other publications. 

Christopher Vanier : Author of the memoir Caribbean Chemistry. short story writer, winner of the Paris Writers Workshop Prize and the Kingston University Life Writing Competition.

http://www.amazon.com/Caribbean-Chemistry-Tales-St-Kitts/dp/1899999450/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283701928&sr=1-1

Eve Zuckerman : Former editor in chief of L'Inébranlable, contributor to Sunday Telegraph, Ireland's Independent, Bonjourparis.com and Canalstreet.fr.