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Selected Shorts
Guest host Maulik Pancholy presents works that reflect on the diversity and excellence of Riverhead Books, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2018. The program features “Flower Hunters” by Lauren Groff, performed by Maria Dizzia, and “Buck Boy” by James McBride, performed by Teagle F. Bougere, as well as special commissions from Aja Gabel (“Alarm”) and R. O. Kwon (“Tempo”) both performed by Hettienne Park.
Teagle F. Bougere recently portrayed James Baldwin in the American Vicarious virtual production of Debate: Baldwin vs. Buckley, and co-starred with Catherine Zeta-Jones in the webseries Queen America. Bougere's Broadway credits include The Crucible, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Tempest. He was featured in The Public Theater’s productions of Socrates and the much acclaimed production of Coriolanus in Central Park. His most recent New York stage appearance was the world premiere of The New Englanders at Manhattan Theater Club. Additional theater credits include Is God Is at SoHo Rep, Beast in the Jungle, 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 (one man show) at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Blue Door at Berkeley Rep. 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, and What the Deaf Man Heard, Bull, as well as seven episodes for the Law & Order franchise.
Maria Dizzia was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play). She has appeared on stage 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. 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, Vox Lux, William, The Neighbors' Window, Two Against Nature, Shadow Girl, Depraved, Emergence, The Outside Story, The Undoing, and Forever Alone. Dizzia can be seen in the forthcoming films Two Against Nature and Ghostwritten.
Aja Gabel’s novel, The Ensemble, was published in 2018. Her fiction and essays have been featured in The Cut, Buzzfeed, 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.
Lauren Groff is the author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers, Delicate Edible Birds, a collection of stories, and Arcadia, a New York Times Notable Book, winner of the Medici Book Club Prize, and finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award. Her third novel, Fates and Furies, was a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kirkus Award. Her most recent collection of stories, Florida, won the Story Prize. Her work has appeared in journals including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Tin House, One Story, and Ploughshares, and in the anthologies The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and five editions of the Best American Short Stories. In 2017, she was named by Granta magazine as one of the Best of Young American Novelists of her generation. In 2018, she received a Guggenheim fellowship in Fiction and a Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
R. O. Kwon’s debut novel, The Incendiaries, published in 2018, was named a best book of the year by more than forty publications and received the Housatonic Book Award and was a finalist or nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best First Book, and the Los Angeles Times First Book Prize, among others. Kwon coedited the nationally bestselling collection Kink, a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Vanity Fair, The Paris Review, Bookforum, NPR, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, MacDowell, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Born in Seoul, Kwon has lived most of her life in the United States.
James McBride is a writer, composer, and saxophonist. His novel Deacon King Kong, published in 2020, won numerous prizes and was named as one of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of the Year. He is also the author of the National Book Award–winning novel The Good Lord Bird, which was made into a limited series starring Ethan Hawke, the classic bestselling memoir The Color of Water, and the novels Song Yet Sung and Miracle at St. Anna. He is also the author of 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.
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.
Hettienne Park is an actress and writer best known for her roles on The Outsider and Hannibal. Additional screen credits include The OA, Blacklist, High Maintenance, Bride Wars, Damages, The Good Wife, Young Adult, Blindspot, and most recently, 9-1-1: Lonestar and Prodigal Son. 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’s forthcoming projects include Gossip Girl on HBO Max and Netflix’s Don’t Look Up, written and directed by Adam McKay.
Credits
“Alarm” by Aja Gabel. Commissioned for this event. Used by permission of Writers House.
“Tempo” by R. O. Kwon. Commissioned for this event. Used by permission of Trident Media Group.
“Flower Hunters” by Lauren Groff, from Florida (Riverhead, 2018). First published in The New Yorker (November 2016). Copyright © 2016 by Lauren Groff. Used by permission of The Clegg Agency.
“Buck Boy” by James McBride, from Five-Carat Soul (Riverhead, 2017). First appeared in Electric Literature (September 2017). Copyright © 2017 by James McBride. Used by permission of Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.
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