Storytellers for How to Build a Fire: In Transition

How to Build a Fire: Ch-ch-ch-changes | Storytellers | Livestream

STORYTELLERS:

TALIA SAXE:
Talia Saxe is a college graduate and all that. She studied philosophy, which is turning out to be very profitable. That is a joke. Currently, she teaches emotional management skills to wonderful children who at some point were in foster care. This means she gets paid to build volcanoes, throw water balloons, and ride the East River ferry. That is not a joke. Talia is a writer at heart and will be thrilled when her bio includes mention of award winning published work. In the mean time, her parents think she is a great writer.

FRED ROBINSON

KARINA GRUDNIKOV:
Karina Grudnikov is a non-fiction writer who hasn’t published any books (yet) or won any awards (yet). After years of making friends laugh, cry and groan from her stories, she is excited to subject strangers to the same treatment.

LEAH SCHNELBACH:
Leah Schnelbach is a staff writer for Tor.com, where she writes about science fiction and fantasy, and meditates on the importance of cultural accomplishments like Mystery Science Theater 3000. She is also the fiction editor of No Tokens. Her short story, “Bracelet,” received an Honorable Mention in Lumina’s 2013 Fiction Contest, judged by George Saunders. She has also been published in Anamesa. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, received an M.A. in Religious Studies from NYU, and wrote serious academic papers on Harry Potter’s place in the literary canon while earning a B.A. from New College of Florida. Turn-ons include redheads, good espresso, and the Oxford comma. Turn-offs include Objectivism, snoring, and the death of the author.

HOSTS:

KATE HILL CANTRILL:
Kate Hill Cantrill is the author of the short story collection, Walk Back From Monkey School, published from Press 53. She has been awarded fellowships from the Michener Center For Writers, The Corporation of Yaddo, The Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Jentel Artists Residency. For more than three years she curated the Rabbit Tales Reading and Performance Series in Dumbo, Brooklyn, and prior to that the Utter Reading Series in Austin, Texas.

DENNIS NORRIS:
Dennis Norris II holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. He’s won several awards and fellowships for his short fiction from the Hurston/Wright Foundation, The NYS Summer Writers Institute and the Vermont Studio Center, and was recently named a 2015 Kimbilio Fellow. His short stories either appear, or are forthcoming in Bound Off, and Madcap Review. He is a curriculum coordinator for the Harlem Children’s Zone and a Basic Skills Instructor for Figure Skating in Harlem. He firmly believes that gossip is a writers’ unalienable right, that mimosas should not be limited to brunch, and that the two are not mutually exclusive.