Event Date
Annie Liontas' debut novel, Let Me Explain You (Scribner), was featured in The New York Times Book Review as Editor's Choice and was selected by the ABA as a 2015 Indies Introduce Debut and Indies Next title. She is the co-editor of the anthology A Manner of Being: Writers on their Mentors, and the recipient of a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Her story "Two Planes in Love" was runner-up in BOMB Magazine's 2013 Fiction Prize Contest. Since 2003, Annie has been dedicated to urban education, working with teachers and youth in Newark and Philadelphia. In 2016, we are happy to welcome her to Davis, where she will be Visiting Assistant Professor in the Writing Program, teaching fiction.
Naomi J. Williams was born in Japan and spoke no English until she was six years old. Her debut novel, Landfalls, a fictionalized account of the 18th-century Lapérouse expedition, came out with Farrar, Straus & Giroux in August of 2015. Naomi’s short fiction has appeared in journals such as A Public Space, One Story, The Southern Review, and The Gettysburg Review. In 2009, she received a Pushcart Prize and a Best American Honorable Mention. Naomi has an MA in Creative Writing from UC Davis.
Naomi lives with her family in Davis, California, where she’s started work on her second book, a novel about the early 20th-century Japanese poet Yosano Akiko.
The readings are at 7 PM in 126 Voorhies Hall, and are free and open to the public.