Richard Bausch is the author of numerous works of fiction, including the novels Rebel Powers; Violence; In The Night Season; Hello to the Cannibals; Peace; Before, During, After; and the story collections Rare & Endangered Species; Someone to Watch Over Me; Wives & Lovers; and Something Is Out There. His stories have been widely anthologized, appearing in the Granta Book of the American Short Story and the Vintage Book of the Contemporary American Short Story. He has won two National Magazine Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the 2004 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, and the Rea Award for the Short Story. He is also the editor of the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Bausch’s most recent work, the short story collection Living in the Weather of the World, was published in 2017.
Michael Ian Black is known for such seminal television programs as The State, Stella, and Michael and Michael Have Issues, all of which he co-created, wrote, and starred in. In addition to performing stand-up across the country, Black has appeared in many films and television shows, including Ed, Wet Hot American Summer, Burning Love, They Came Together, The Jim Gaffigan Show, Inside Amy Schumer, VH1’s I Love the '80s,The Good Fight, Dogs in a Park, Another Period, Insatiable, Reno 911!, Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later. Black hosted the podcast How to Be Amazing and has written best-selling books for both children and adults, including A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son, published in 2020. Upcoming projects include Linoleum and Spinning Gold.
Carson McCullers (1917 - 1967) published her first short story, "Wunderkind," at the age of nineteen. In 1940, she published her best-known novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Other novels include Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Member of the Wedding, and Clock Without Hands. In 1950, a stage adaptation of The Member of the Wedding won the New York Critics Award. Her major short stories, poems and essays are collected in The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and The Mortgaged Heart.
Maulik Pancholy is an actor, author, and activist. He is best known for his television roles on 30 Rock, Weeds, Whitney, The Good Fight, and for lending his voice to the long-running animated series Phineas & Ferb and Sanjay & Craig. On stage, he starred on Broadway in Terrence McNally’s It's Only a Play, in The New Group’s production of Good for Otto, Bess Wohl’s Grand Horizons at the Helen Hayes Theatre, and most recently The George Street Playhouse virtual production of Becky Mode’s Fully Committed. Pancholy’s debut novel, The Best at It, was named a 2020 Stonewall Honor Book, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and the American Library Association’s Booklist. Pancholy is the co-founder of the anti-bullying organization ActToChange.org.
Lance Reddick is best known for portraying Cedric Daniels on The Wire, Phillip Broyles on Fringe, and Irvin Irving on Bosch. Additional television credits include OZ, Intelligence, Lost, the HBO miniseries The Corner, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Key and Peele, American Horror Story: Coven, Corporate, and Paradise PD. His film credits include White House Down, The Guest, John Wick and John Wick 2, One Night in Miami, and Godzilla vs. Kong. Reddick co-produced and stars in Danny DeVito’s indie film St. Sebastian and can be seen in the upcoming series Resident Evil.
Credits
“Tandolfo the Great” by Richard Bausch, from The Stories of Richard Bausch (HarperCollins, 2003). First appeared in The Wedding Cake in the Middle of the Road: 23 Variations on a Theme (Norton, 1992). Copyright © 1992 by Richard Bausch. Used by permission of Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency.
“A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.” by Carson McCullers. From The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (Riverside Press, 1951). First published in Harper’s Bazaar (November 1942). Copyright © 1942 by Carson McCullers. Used by permission of the Estate of Carson McCullers.
