John Lescroart is the author of twenty-five novels, sixteen of which have been New York Times Bestsellers. Libraries Unlimited has included Lescroart in its publication “The 100 Most Popular Thriller and Suspense Authors.” With sales of over ten million copies, his books have been translated into twenty-two languages in more than seventy-five countries, and his short stories appear in many anthologies. Stories on Stage Davis will present “The Adventure of the Giant Rat of Sumatra,” which was selected for the 1998 edition of Houghton Mifflin’s The Best American Mystery Stories, edited by Sue Grafton. Lescroart has endowed the perennial $5,000 Maurice Prize for excellence in long-form fiction at the University of California at Davis. He and his wife, Lisa Sawyer, live in Northern California.
J.R. Yancher will read “The Adventure of the Giant Rat of Sumatra” by John Lescroart. Yancher is a Davis native who has traversed the country for the last ten years, training and working as an actor and director. His theaters of employ have included Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Victory Gardens (Chicago), Pacific Conservatory Theater (PCPA), Seattle Immersive Theater, Ten Chimneys (WI), and, most recently, Davis Shakespeare Festival. In front of the camera, he has worked on internet, regional, and national commercials. Yancher holds a BFA in original works from Cornish College of the Arts and an AA in acting from The Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts. He is a founding member of OG Theater in Seattle and currently directs for TPC Sketch Comedy and Improv in Sacramento.
Lucy Corin is the author of the short story collections One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses (McSweeney’s Books) and The Entire Predicament (Tin House Books) as well as a novel, Everyday Psychokillers: A History for Girls (FC2). Stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, Conjunctions, Ploughshares, Tin House Magazine, and the New American Stories anthology from Vintage. She was an American Academy of Arts and Letters Rome Prize winner and is a current NEA fellow in literature. She is at work on a novel, The Swank Hotel. (Photo by Lydia Daniller)
Catriona McPherson was born in Scotland and lived there until 2010, before moving to California. A former bank clerk, library worker, and academic, she is the multi-award-winning author of the Dandy Gilver detective stories, set in Scotland in the 1920s. She also writes award-winning contemporary standalones, including The Day She Died, Come to Harm, and The Child Garden. McPherson is a proud member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, The Crimewriters’ Association, The Society of Authors, and Scottish PEN. She was the 2014/15 president of Sisters in Crime (National). Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains won the Sue Feder Memorial Award in 2012, and Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder won the Agatha for Best Historical Novel in the same year. The series won the Bruce Alexander Award in 2013 and 2014. She lives in Davis with her husband and two cats.
Analise Langford-Clark will read “Baby Alive” by Lucy Corin and an excerpt of the story “The First Mrs. Coulter” by Catriona McPherson. Langford-Clark has been involved in community theater in the Sacramento Area for the last twenty years. Some of her favorite roles include Janet van de Graff in The Drowsy Chaperone with Fair Oaks Theatre Festival, Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at American River College, and Marie-Therese in Adoration of Dora with KOLT Run Creations. She has worked for the Sacramento Kings for the last fourteen years—Go Kings! She is a survivor of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and she and her father help raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where she was lucky enough to be treated. While her first love is theater, she is an avid reader and is thrilled to get to participate in this program.
