Season 6, Episode 2: March 16

Last month Joe Young killed it in his guest-hosting duties, so we're doing it again in March. Your guest host will be the wonderful Laura van den Berg and she will be introducing Elliott Holt, Marie-Helene Bertino, Meghan Kenny, and Scott McClanahan.



Elliott Holt's short fiction has appeared in The Pushcart Prize XXXV (2011 anthology) among other places. Her debut novel You Are One of Them will be published by The Penguin Press in May. [Photo credit Rebecca Zeller]



Marie-Helene Bertino's debut collection of short stories SAFE AS HOUSES received The 2012 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was long-listed for The Story Prize. She received The Pushcart Prize in 2007 and a Special Mention in 2011. She has taught for The Gotham Writer's Workshop and One Story's Emerging Writer's Workshop and was an Emerging Writer Fellow at NYC's Center for Fiction. She hails from Philly and lives in Brooklyn. Currently, she is a biographer for people living with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). For more information, visit www.mariehelenebertino.com, or follow her @mhbertino.



Scott McClanahan is the writer of Stories V! and the Collected Works of Scott McClanahan, Vol. 1. Two Dollar Radio is putting out Crapalachia in 2013. Tyrant Books is putting out Hill William in 2013.



Meghan Kenny received her MFA from Boise State University and her fiction has appeared in Hobart, Pleiades, The Gettysburg Review, The Kenyon Review, The Cincinnati Review and elsewhere. She won the 2005 Iowa Review Award, held the 2008-2009 Tickner Writing Fellowship at The Gilman School, was a fiction scholar at Bread Loaf in 2010, and recently won second place in Glimmer Train’s Fall Fiction Open. She teaches English at Gerstell Academy and fiction writing for Gotham Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Baltimore and is working on a novel.

The Last 510 of 2012

Jen and I have been hosting the 510 for 5 full years now. It's exhausting at times, organizing people, but we both love bringing so many good words to stand up in front of you. So the latest greatness will be Matt Bell, Amber Sparks, Robert Kloss, and Julian Berengaut. That's November 17th, 5pm, at the usual place, Minas.

Matt Bell is the author of Cataclysm Baby, a novella, and How They Were Found, a collection of fiction. His debut novel In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods will be published by Soho Press in June 2013. He is the Senior Editor at Dzanc Books, where he also edits the literary magazine The Collagist, and he teaches creative writing at Northern Michigan University.

Amber Sparks’s short stories have appeared in New York Tyrant, Unsaid, Gargoyle, Barrelhouse, The Collagist and elsewhere. Her first full-length story collection, May We Shed These Human Bodies, was recently published by Curbside Splendor. She lives with a husband and two beasts in Washington, DC. You can find her at ambernoellesparks.com or follow her on Twitter @ambernoelle.

Robert Kloss is the author of How the Days of Love & Diphtheria and The Alligators of Abraham. He is found online at robert-kloss.com.

Julian Berengaut is the author of The Estate of Wormwood and Honey, a novel about 19th century Russia. Berengaut was born in Poland. He was educated at universities in Warsaw, Jerusalem, Waltham, Massachusetts and Madison, Wisconsin. He worked for many years as an international debt negotiator. He has written poetry and short stories.

The 510 Is Back

The 510 is back for the fall series and we're opening with one that is going to be so great: Noy Holland, Laura van den Berg, Sam Michel, and Lauren Bender. It's upstairs at the Minas Gallery, at 5pm, just like you like it.

Noy Holland’s collections of short fiction and novellas include Swim for the Little One First (FC2),What Begins with Bird (FC2), and The Spectacle of the Body (Knopf.) She has published work in Conjunctions, The Quarterly, Ploughshares, Milan Review, Western Humanities Review, The Believer, NOON, New York Tyrant, and Post Road, among others. She was a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council award for artistic merit and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She has taught for many years in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts, as well as at Phillips Andover and the University of Florida. She serves on the board of directors at FC2.

Laura van den Berg’s debut collection of stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (Dzanc Books, 2009), was a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection, longlisted for The Story Prize, and shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Award. She is also the author of the chapbook There Will Be No More Good Nights Without Good Nights (Origami Zoo Press, 2012). She currently teaches creative writing at George Washington University and lives in Baltimore.

Sam Michel is the author of a book of short stories, Under the Light, and the novels Big Dogs and Flyboys and Strange Cowboy: Lincoln Dahl Turns Five. He teaches, works with stone, and makes his home in Massachusetts and Montana.

Lauren Bender is a teacher, student, and twin living and working in Baltimore. Publications include The Dictionary Poems: Some Bees (New Lights Press), Whale Box (Publishing Genius), [there is no YOU in poem] (Big Game Books), and I'AM BORED (Produce Press, with Kevin Thurston). Selected exhibitions/performances include CorpOreo (Transmodern Festival) and Big Pink (The Baltimore Museum of Art). Lauren curated the BOITE: Show&Tell series at Minas Gallery in Hampden and is co-director of Narrow House. She feels pretty good lately.