Changing Hands Tempe

Honey by Victor Lodato: Contributor Update

Superstition Review

Congratulations to previous contributor Victor Lodato on the forthcoming publication of his third novel! Honey is available for preorder now from Harper Collins, and will be released on April 16th.

You can attend his book launch on Friday, April 19 at 7:00 pm in Changing Hands Bookstore (6428 S McClintock Dr, Tempe, AZ 85283). He’ll be in conversation with the amazing Javier Zamora, NY Times bestselling author of SOLITO. 

She knows where all the bodies are buried.

Honey Fasinga, the glamorous daughter of a notorious New Jersey mobster, is returning home at last, ready to reckon with her violent past.

As a rebellious teenager, Honey managed to escape her father’s circle of influence and reinvent herself in a world of art and beauty, working for a high-end auction house in Los Angeles. Now in her twilight years, she decides to return home and unexpectedly falls in love. But in her family, nothing has changed. When her grandnephew Michael bursts into her life in what appears to be a drug-fueled frenzy, and her Lexus gets jacked, it’s hard to keep minding her own business. As old cruelties begin to resurface, Honey is no longer sure what she really wants—to forgive or to avenge.

Honey has already received significant praise:

“Utterly enchanting. A deeply human novel that sings the song of life itself. What a brilliant feat of empathy, style, and transcendent beauty—Lodato has created a true original in Honey.”

— Mona Awad, author of Bunny

“Rarely in literature—rarely in our lives—do we encounter someone like Honey Fasinga: fierce, complicated, and out-of-this-world sharp both inside and out. I cried, laughed, and screamed while reading this novel. Weeks after finishing, I am still looking for Honey everywhere.”

— Javier Zamora, New York Times bestselling author of Solito

Read our interview with Victor from Issue 8 here!

Follow his work on his website.

Victor Lodato is the author of two critically acclaimed novels. Edgar and Lucy was called “a riveting and exuberant ride” by the New York Times, and Mathilda Savitch, winner of the PEN USA Award, was hailed as “a Salingeresque wonder of a first novel.” Mathilda Savitch also won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize and has been published in sixteen countries. Victor is a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as the recipient of fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Princess Grace Foundation, The Camargo Foundation (France), and The Bogliasco Foundation (Italy). His short fiction and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, and Best American Short Stories. Victor was born and raised in New Jersey and currently divides his time between Ashland, Oregon and Tucson, Arizona. 

#ArtLiPhx: First Friday Poetry

Superstition Review

Peter Twal, winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize, reads from his debut collection, Our Earliest Tattoos.

These long-lined sonnets, inspired by the LCD Soundsystem song “All My Friends,” celebrate the surreal, embracing the nature of memory as fragmented and inherently bizarre.

Open reading follows.

ABOUT THE POET 
PETER TWAL is a Jordanian-American poet, an electrical engineer, and the author of Our Earliest Tattoos, winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize (University of Arkansas Press). He earned his MFA from the University of Notre Dame, where he was awarded the Samuel and Mary Anne Hazo Poetry Prize. Since then, his work has appeared in The Believer, Best New Poets, Kenyon Review Online, West Branch Wired, Ninth Letter Online, Berkeley Poetry Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Pleiades, Bat City Review, and elsewhere. Drawing from his professional career, Peter’s poetry seeks a common ground where the seemingly disconnected worlds of writing and engineering learn from each other’s malleability and strength. Our Earliest Tattoos, his debut collection, furthers that pursuit through the use of poetic form, imagistic layering, and more.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 6428 S. McClintock Dr., Tempe

Date: Friday, August 2

Time: 7 p.m.

For more information about the event, click here.

Buy Book

#ArtLitPhx: A Reading with Yi Shun Lai

Superstition Review

Time: Friday, April 26, 2019

Date: 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Location: Changing Hands Tempe, 6428 South McClintock Drive, Tempe, AZ 85283

Cost: Free

Event Details:

Join author Yi Shun Lai for a community reading from her novel, “Not a Self-Help Book: The Misadventures of Marty Wu,” on Friday, April 26, 2019 at Tempe Changing Hands (6428 S McClintock Dr, Tempe, AZ 85283) at 6:30 p.m.

While encouraged, RSVPs are purely for the purposes of monitoring attendance, gauging interest, and communicating information about parking, directions, and other aspects of the event. You do not have to register or RSVP to attend this event. This event is open to the public and free.

Yi Shun will be teaching a class, “From Query Letter to Publication: Navigating the Publishing Eco-system” on Saturday, April 27, 2019 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Piper Writers House (450 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85287). For more information about Yi Shun’s class, visit our website at http://piper.asu.edu/classes.

About the Book

Marty hopes to someday open a boutique costume shop, but it’s hard to keep focused on her dream. First comes a spectacular career meltdown that sends her ricocheting between the stress of New York and the warmth of supportive relatives in Taiwan. Then she faces one domestic drama after another, with a formidable mother who’s impossible to please, an annoyingly successful and well- adjusted brother, and surprising family secrets that pop up just when she doesn’t want to deal with them.

Mining the comedic potential of the 1.5-generation American experience, NOT A SELF-HELP BOOK is an insightful and witty portrait of a young woman scrambling to balance familial expectations and her own creative dreams. Copies will be for sale at Changing Hands Bookstore or online at www.spdbooks.org.

About the Author

Yi Shun Lai is the co-publisher and fiction editor for the Tahoma Literary Review, a thrice-annual literary magazine that promotes literary citizenship, transparency, and sustainable literature. She teaches workshops and classes on creative writing and publishing at the Claremont Colleges, the University of La Verne, and other educational institutions, and in Southern New Hampshire University’s online MFA program. Her debut novel, Not a Self-Help Book: The Misadventures of Marty Wu, is in its fourth printing. It was a semi-finalist for the 2017 Thurber Prize in American Humor. She writes regularly for The Writer magazine on the art of publishing and the craft of writing. Find her online @gooddirt on Twitter and on the web at http://www.thegooddirt.org.

#ArtLitPhx: Changing Hands Presents Jonathan Santlofer

Superstition Review

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Date: September 24

Time: 7pm-9pm

Event Description:

FREE EVENT. Artist and bestselling author Jonathan Santlofer visits with his powerful new memoir THE WIDOWER’S NOTEBOOK, the portrait of a marriage, an account of the complexities of finding oneself single again after losing your spouse, and a story of the enduring power of familial love. (Event co-presented by Hospice of the Valley and Temple Chai.)

ABOUT THE BOOK
On a summer day in New York, Santlofer discovers his wife, Joy, gasping for breath on their living room couch. After a frenzied 911 call, an ambulance race across Manhattan, and hours pacing in a hospital waiting room, a doctor finally delivers the fateful news. Consumed by grief, Jonathan desperately tries to pursue life as he always had—writing, social engagements, and working on his art—but finds it nearly impossible to admit his deep feelings of loss to anyone, not even to his beloved daughter, Doria, or to himself. As Jonathan grieves and heals, he tries to unravel what happened to Joy, a journey that will take him nearly two years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jonathan Santlofer is a writer and artist whose work has ben translated into seventeen languages. His fourth novel, Anatomy of Fear, won the Nero Award for best novel of 2009. His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies. He is also the creator and editor of several anthologies including It Occurs to Me That I Am America, a collection of original stories and art. His paintings and drawings are included in many public and private collections. He lives in New York City.

MORE DETAILS

https://www.changinghands.com/event/september2018/jonathan-santlofer-widowers-notebook

#ArtLitPhx: Rosemarie Dombrowski presents “The Art of Memory in 750 Words or Less”

Superstition Review

Rosemarie DombrowskiRosemarie Dombrowski will be hosting a two-part writing workshop on flash memoir, titled “The Art of Memory in 750 Words or Less.” The workshop will take place at Changing Hands in Tempe from 6pm to 8pm on September 11 and September 25. Admission is $35 for both sessions.

During the first class, attendees will read and discuss examples of flash fiction and participate in a writing exercise. They will then receive a take-home writing prompt. In the second class, attendees will workshop their new, original piece of flash memoir and receive individualized feedback.

Rosemarie Dombrowski is a writer with a long list of accomplishments. She is the co-founder of the Phoenix Poetry Series, a poetry editor for Four Chambers Press, the founder of Rinky Dink Press, a three-time Pushcart nominee, and the inaugural Phoenix Poet Laureate. She is also a Senior Lecturer at Arizona State University’s Downtown campus. You can read more about her accomplishments on her website.

For more information about the workshop and to register, click here.

Contributor Update: Come Together With Mary Sojourner

Superstition Review

Good afternoon, everybody! Today, we are excited to announce that past contributor Mary Sojourner, featured in the Fiction section of both our 3rd and 10th issue, will be teaching a women’s writing circle at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe this Sunday, April 2, from 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm. Details can be found here. This wonderful opportunity coincides with a reading/book signing of Mary’s new book “The Talker,” out now from Torrey House Press. The price of admission is just purchasing a copy of “The Talker,” so if you’re at the reading and want your copy signed, joining the writing circle is a breeze! Come through, hear selections from “The Talker,” and come together as part of our wonderful writing community!

Go to this reading, buy this book!
The cover of Mary Sojourner’s new book “The Talker.”

#ArtLitPhx: Friday Poetry with Jeredith Merrin at Changing Hands

Superstition Review

jeredith-merrinJeredith Merrin will be reading from her new book Owling this Friday, October 14 at 7 p.m. at Changing Hands Tempe. Her latest poetry collection won the 2016 Grayson Books Chapbook competition.

Merrin, brought up in the Pacific Northwest, took her MA in English (specializing in Chaucer), and a PhD from UC Berkeley in Anglo-American Poetry and Poetics. Cup, a special honoree in the 2013 Able Muse Book Award, is her third collection; her previous books are Shift and Bat Ode (University of Chicago Press Phoenix Poets series). She’s authored an influential book of criticism on Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop. Her reviews and essays (on Moore, Bishop, Clare, Mew, Amichai, and others), and poems have appeared in Paris Review, Slate, Ploughshares, Southwest Review, Yale Review and elsewhere. A retired Professor of English (The Ohio State University), Merrin lives near Phoenix.

For more information, please visit Changing Hands website.