Riverhead at 25

Guest host Maulik Pancholy presents works that reflect on the diversity and excellence of Riverhead Books, celebrating a quarter century.

Founded in 1994, Riverhead Books is now well established as a publisher of bestselling literary fiction and quality nonfiction. Throughout its history, Riverhead has been dedicated to publishing extraordinary groundbreaking, unique writers. Riverhead’s books and authors have won Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, National Book Critic Circle Awards, MacArthur Genius Awards, Hurston Wright Legacy Awards, Dayton Literary Peace Prizes, and numerous other distinctions.

We celebrated this distinguished imprint with a special evening at Symphony Space hosted by Meg Wolitzer, who talks about her long-time publisher from the stage. Wolitzer’s latest novel is The Female Persuasion. Her previous novels include The Interestings, The Uncoupling, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, and The Wife, which was released as a film starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. She has also published novels for young readers. She has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Columbia University, Skidmore College, the University of Houston, Boston University, and Barnard College, and currently teaches at Stony Brook Southampton. Wolitzer served as guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017.

The program features two long stories, “Flower Hunters,” by Lauren Groff, performed by Maria Dizzia, and “Buck Boy,” by James McBride, performed by Teagle Bougere, as well as special commissions from Aja Gabel (“Alarm”) and R.O. Kwon (“Tempo”) both performed by Hettienne Park.

“Flower Hunters” is from Groff’s most recent collection, Florida. It is Halloween, and an emotionally selfish woman faces some hard truths about herself and the world. Groff remarks that stories are about questions, not answers, and there are many in this tale—about friendship, and marriage, nature, and past and present.

Groff is the author of the short story collection Delicate Edible Birds and the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, and Fates and Furies, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her short stories have appeared in the New Yorker, TheAtlantic, Tin House, Glimmer Train, Ploughshares, and five editions of the Best American Short Stories, among other publications. In 2017, Groff was named one of the Best of Young American Novelists by the literary magazine Granta.

Reader Maria Dizzia was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play). She has appeared onstage in Uncle Vanya, Cradle and All, The Hallway Trilogy, The Drunken City, Eurydice, Belleville, for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award, and most recently, If I Forget, which will be broadcast on Thirteen in the NY metropolitan area on December 3rd. Her film and television credits include While We’re Young, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Other Woman, Master of None, Horace and Pete, Louie, Royal Pains, Orange Is the New Black, Going in Style, 13 Reasons Why, Red Oaks, Sea Change, Humor Me, Piercing, and Vox Lux. Recent films (released or in production) include William, The Neighbors' Window, Two Against Nature, Shadow Girl, and Depraved.

This program closes with James McBride’s “Buck Boy,” one of a series of stories taking place in a fictional Pennsylvania neighborhood known as “The Bottom” that he introduced in his short-story collection Five-Carat Soul. The story touches on class, and race, and growing up young in tough times and places. But it has energy and humor, beautifully conveyed in this reading by Teagle Bougere.

McBride describes himself as a writer, composer, and saxophonist. He’s the author of the National Book Award–winning novel The Good Lord Bird, the classic bestselling memoir The Color of Water, and the novels Song Yet Sung and Miracle at St. Anna. He is also the author the short story collection Five-Carat Soul and Kill ’Em and Leave, a biography of James Brown. McBride was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2015, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Essence, and National Geographic, among other publications. A recipient of the National Humanities Medal, McBride is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.

Reader Teagle F. Bougere is currently co-starring with Catherine Zeta-Jones in the new television series Queen America. His Broadway credits include The Crucible, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Tempest. Additional theater credits include Is God Is at SoHo Rep, Beast in the Jungle directed by Susan Stroman, the title role in the stage adaptation of Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man at The Court Theater in Chicago, The Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., and The Huntington in Boston, Julius Caesar and Cymbeline for The Public Theater in Central Park, A Soldier’s Play at Second Stage, A Fair Country at Lincoln Center, Last Dance for Sybil (with Ruby Dee) at the New Federal Theatre, An Iliad at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre, and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Blue Door at Berkeley Rep. Bougere was a company member at Arena Stage for five seasons. His film and television credits include Hill ‘n’ Gully, The Path, The Mist, Good Friday, Conviction,Cosby, The Job, Third Watch, Murder in Black and White, A Night at the Museum, The Imposters, The Pelican Brief, Two Weeks Notice, What the Deaf Man Heard.

Of the two shorter works on this show, Aja Gabel’s “Alarm,” shows us what happens when the line between longing and reality blurs.

Gabel’s novel The Ensemble, was published in 2018. Her fiction and essays have been featured in Kenyon Review, Glimmer Train, New England Review, BOMB, New Ohio Review, among other publications. She has taught fiction, non-fiction, and literature at the University of Virginia, the University of Houston, Sweet Briar College, and Pacific University, and served as fellow in fiction at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

“Alarm” is read by Hettienne Park, best known for her work on Hannibal. Additional screen credits include The OA, Blacklist, High Maintenance, Bride Wars, Damages, The Good Wife, Young Adult, and most recently Blindspot. Park appeared on Broadway in Seminar and off-Broadway in The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures; her stage work earned her a Theatre World Award, honoring her outstanding debuts on and off-Broadway.

Park also reads “Tempo,” by R.O. Kwon. Kwon is the author of the novel, The Incendiaries, published in 2018. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, her writing is published in The Guardian, Vice, Buzzfeed, Time, Noon, Electric Literature, Playboy, and elsewhere. She has received awards from Yaddo, MacDowell, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, Omi International, the Steinbeck Center, and the Norman Mailer Writers' Colony.