First Fiction: Ties that Bind | Mechanics' Institute

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First Fiction: Ties that Bind
A Litquake Event

For emerging fiction writers, focusing on family has long been a staple. Rachel Khong (Goodbye, Vitamin) and Margaret Wilkerson Sexton (A Kind of Freedom) plumb the richness of familial relationships in their debut novels to great effect. Tonight these two critically acclaimed authors read and discuss their recent books with author, journalist, and teacher Meghan Ward. 

 

Meghan Ward is the author of Runway: Confessions of a Not-so-Supermodel, a chronicle of six years spent working as a high-fashion model in Paris, London, Tokyo and Milan. She is also a freelance writer whose work has appeared most recently in The Rumpus, Mutha, San Francisco Magazine, 7×7, San Francisco Chronicle, It’s So You: 35 Women Write About Personal Expression Through Fashion and Style, and Wake Up and Smell the Shit: Hilarious Travel Disasters. She is also a teacher at the Writers’ Grotto, and edits books.

Rachel Khong grew up in Southern California, and holds degrees from Yale University and the University of Florida. From 2011 to 2016, she was the managing editor then executive editor of Lucky Peach magazine. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Tin House, Joyland, American Short Fiction, San Francisco Chronicle, The Believer, and California Sunday. She lives in San Francisco. Goodbye, Vitamin is her first novel. 6

Born and raised in New Orleans, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton studied creative writing at Dartmouth and law at U.C. Berkeley. A recipient of the Lombard fellowship, she spent a year in the Dominican Republic working for a civil rights organization and writing. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her stories have been published or are forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Limestone Journal, and Broad! Magazine. She lives in the Bay Area, California. A Kind of Freedom is her debut novel. 

 

Mechanics' Institute members: Select the number of tickets then enter code MECH for free admission.

Click here to register

 

Activities

Admission: 
Members Free
Public $15
Location: 
4th Floor Meeting Room
Questions?
Information Desk - 415-393-0102

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