T.C. Boyle is a novelist, short story writer, and regular contributor to The New Yorker. He has published nineteen novels, including World’s End and The Tortilla Curtain, and twelve collections of short stories. A Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Southern California, his latest novel, No Way Home, was published in April.
Ato Blankson-Wood recently starred as Pericles in The Public Works’ production of Pericles at The Cathedral of St John The Divine. Prior to this, he appeared in the Off-Broadway premiere of Wole Soyinka’s The Swamp Dwellers (TFANA) and starred as Clifford Bradshaw in Cabaret on Broadway. He is best known for his role in Jeremy O. Harris' critically acclaimed Slave Play for which he received Tony, Drama League, and Lucille Lortel Award nominations. Ato played the titular role of Hamlet in Shakespeare in the Park’s production directed by Kenny Leon. Ato also starred opposite Bill Camp and Elizabeth Marvel in Long Day’s Journey into Night for Audible. Ato had his breakout performance in the Public Theatre musical The Total Bent (Drama League and Lucille Lortel Award nominations); he has also been seen on Broadway in Hair and Lysistrata Jones. Films include Detroit, BlacKkKlansman, Worth, and The Same Storm. Television includes The Good Fight, She’s Gotta Have It, and When They See Us. BFA NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. MFA Yale School of Drama.
Jamel Brinkley was raised in the Bronx and Brooklyn. He is the author of Witness: Stories, winner of the Maya Angelou Book Award and a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize. His debut collection, A Lucky Man: Stories, was a finalist for the National Book Award, among other honors, and the winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. His writing has appeared in A Public Space, Ploughshares, Zoetrope: All-Story, and The Paris Review, among other journals, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories. He was a Carol Houck Smith Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and has received an O. Henry Award and the Rome Prize. Brinkley teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Kirsten Vangsness is best known for playing the bespectacled tech kitten Penelope Garcia on Criminal Minds, which will soon air its 19th season on Paramount+, and Bigelow McFigglehorn on Wizards Beyond Waverly Place on Disney. Kirsten has been touring with her third solo piece, Outdated, which she recently performed at San Francisco Sketchfest, and she is the host of BITS, a monthly performance salon in Hollywood. She LOVES reading for Selected Shorts.
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, and The Wife, among other novels. A musical of The Interestings is in development. Wolitzer was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and also writes books for young readers. She is a faculty member in the Creative Writing Program at Stony Brook University, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a yearlong intensive for emerging novelists.
CREDITS
“Heart of a Champion,” from The Descent of Man by T.C Boyle. Copyright © 1975, 1979 by T. Coraghessan Boyle. Originally appeared in the January 1, 1975 issue of Esquire Magazine. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc. on behalf of the author. All rights reserved.
“The Let-Out,” by Jamel Brinkley, from Witness: Stories (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). First published in A Public Space (No. 28, Winter 2019). Copyright © 2019 by Jamel Brinkley. Abridged version of the text used by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC and the author.
