August News

SMALL SCALE SINNERS
Stories by Mahreen Sohail
“Twelve lyrically taut stories about Pakistani women. The sins in Mahreen Sohail's debut collection are both small and large. . . Sohail writes like a pointillist paints, and her stories, while emotionally heavy, lift from the page with humor and piquant details. Many of the 'sinners' surely deserve a second chance in these jewel-like tales." —Kirkus

Small Scale Sinners, the debut story collection by Mahreen Sohail, a 2014 Writing Fellow at A Public Space, is available next month from A Public Space Books. Preorder your copy here.

WEEKEND WRITERS’ RETREAT
Thursday, September 11-Sunday, September 14
A bucolic setting. The camaraderie of fellow writers. New perspectives on your work, and insights on craft. Nurture your writing this fall with A Public Space at the Weekend Writers’ Retreat, a long weekend of workshops and literary talks with authors Peter Trachtenberg, Robert Sullivan, Ayana Mathis, Samantha Hunt, Mary-Beth Hughes Marie Howe, John Haskell, Elizabeth Gaffney, Nick Flynn, Jai Chakrabarti, and J. Mae Barizo; and a conversation with publicist Kimberly Burns on how to be the best advocate for your work. Join us in September at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in New York’s Hudson Valley. Find additional details, and a link to apply, here.

APS TOGETHER
Read Barbara Pym with Han Ong
Starts Today!

“Ah, you ladies! Always on the spot when there’s something happening.” The voice belonged to Mr. Mallett, one of our churchwardens, and its roguish tone made me start guiltily, almost as if I had no right to be discovered outside my own front door. —Barbara Pym, Excellent Women

Join us to read Barbara Pym’s quietly mischievous and sly novel Excellent Women with Han Ong in APS Together, our communal-reading series, free and open to all. Find Han Ong's notes every morning, and share your own, here. And on Monday, August 18 join Han Ong and A Public Space editor Brigid Hughes for a finale conversation. Register here.

SMALL PRESS FLEA
Saturday, August 16, 1:00pm-9:00pm, Amant, 316 Ten Eyck Street, Brooklyn
Find some small-press gems to add to your bookshelves at the Small Press Flea, an all-day market dedicated to supporting independent publishers, hosted by Bomb. We'll be there along with friends from n+1, Nightboat, Archipelago, Wendy's Subway, and more great presses. Come by to say hello to A Public Space editors and friends. Find additional details here.

NEW BOOKS FROM APS FRIENDS

Ed Park, An Oral History of Atlantis
Monday, August 11, 6:45pm, Farm.One, Brooklyn
The Table of Contents Reading Series hosts APS Together host Ed Park, Anelise Chen, and Nicole Cuffy at Farm.One for an evening of food and drinks inspired by the authors' books. (What does An Oral History of Atlantis, Ed Park's debut collection of stories that "tell the absurd truth about our lives," taste like?) Read Ed Park's notes from his APS Together reading of Charles Portis's novel True Grit here.

Megan Cummins, Atomic Hearts
Tuesday, August 5, 6:30pm, P&T Knitwear, New York City
APS editor at large Megan Cummins celebrates the publication of her debut novel, Atomic Hearts, an exquisitely written story of "the ways we can be saved by friendship, love, and imagination," with a reading and conversation with APS associate editor Sarah Blakley-Cartwright. Megan Cummins's story "Suboptimal" appeared in A Public Space No. 32.

PUBLIC ACCESS
This month's Public Access—work from the magazine's archive, made free and open to all—has been selected by APS editor at large Megan Cummins.

Megan Cummins on Story Tellers: Author, Narrator, Character
Don’t let the reader feel the act of writing is a message I've heard delivered in writing workshops. I’m grateful that Yiyun Li delivered a different message in a workshop I took in 2010: "We are storytellers, not storyshowers." I've recalled that piece of advice over the years, in moments of insecurity, when I wondered if my work would ever make it beyond my own screen. My subject has often been writers and the struggle and payoff of writing life down. I'm fascinated by the ways storytelling itself, in big ways and small ones, gives texture to the works of literature we love. After all, there's always someone telling the story, and for me, part of the fun of reading is peeling back the layers of author, narrator, and character. This month’s Public Access selections show how every recollection is a story told; how a single line at the beginning can be a satellite that lets a story break through its own atmosphere; how a flash forward at the end propels the reader into a future only the storyteller can know. Read on and notice all the different ways of telling.

Holy Week Vacation
Guillermo Fadanelli, translated from the Spanish by Joel Streicker
At home everything will return to normal, classes will begin again on Monday: my brother will be like my father and my sister will have a life similar to my mother’s. I, as soon as I can, will clear out of here. Continue reading.

A Phone Call from Heaven
Sandro Veronesi, translated from the Italian by Michael F. Moore
Livia went back to talking about her dream, about how vivid it had been and how it had changed her life. A phone call from heaven, she repeated, and she started to tell the story again. Continue reading.

The Woman in Green
Marie NDiaye, translated from the French by Jordan Stump
I never met this woman, whose presence in my personal legends eclipses, by its incandescence, some of her more irrefutably real neighbors. I’m not even sure she’s actual. In the end, it makes little difference. She remains a pure emblem. Everything I know of her comes to me from Jenny. Continue reading.

Look Up
Lea Carpenter
Let me tell you a story about a pretty boy I knew. Continue reading.

The Mystery
Lídia Jorge
When writing, maybe I have a coin inside my hand. Maybe it’s nothing. But still, as long as I’m alive, I’ll say, “Here, it’s for you.” Continue reading.

ELSEWHERE
For Women in Translation Month, CLMP has a superb list of work from over twenty languages, including numerous books from little-translated languages, both written by and translated by women.

As we begin Barbara Pym's novel Excellent Women with APS Together, we're thinking about the compare-contrast relationship Han Ong set up in his preview of the novel: "Often, she is compared to Jane Austen—I don’t know about that." The exhibit A Lively Mind at the Morgan Library—which tells the story of Jane Austen's authorship and gradual rise to international fame through artifacts, manuscripts, books, and artworks—seems a perfect chance to see about that.