Wystan Owen is the author of Other People’s Love Affairs: Stories (Algonquin Books), named a Best Book of 2018 by Amazon and The Washington Independent Review of Books. His fiction and essays have appeared in A Public Space, The Threepenny Review, LitHub, The American Scholar, and elsewhere. A graduate of both the UC Davis grad program in creative writing and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Owen co-founded and publishes The Bare Life Review.
Zachary Scovel will read “The Patron,” by David Wystan Owen. Scovel recently received his M.A. in French and Francophone Studies at UC Davis and is currently in pursuit of his PhD in the same field. He is a former company member at Big Idea Theatre in Sacramento, where he held the title of Master Carpenter, as well as Assistant Director for the productions of Trevorand A Bright New Boise. Some of his acting credits with the company include Zack in Belleville, Clown 1 in The 39 Steps, Octavius Caesar in Antony and Cleopatra and Dr. Henry Jekyll in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Some of his favorite previous roles also include Juliet in the Sacramento Shakespeare Festival’s all-male cast of Romeo & Juliet, Victor-Emmanuel and Poche for American River College’s A Flea in Her Ear, and Jonathan Harker for Solano Community College’s Dracula. Zachary was also most recently seen on the rooftop in Episode 5 of Boxed Up, the original live episodic musical in Sacramento’s Warehouse Artist Lofts, as well as Aramis in Davis Shakespeare Ensemble’s The Three Musketeers. While Zachary has taken a break to concentrate on academics for the past couple of years, he is anticipating auditioning again soon to finally get back on the stage later this year.
Angela Pneuman is the author of a collection of short stories, Home Remedies, and the novel Lay It on My Heart, from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Her fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, New England Review, and many other literary magazines. She has written nonfiction for The Believer, Salon, and The Rumpus. Since 1999 she has taught creative writing at Stanford, where she was a Stegner Fellow, and for Stanford Continuing Studies. She also serves as the Executive Director for the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, now in its 40th year. Angela is currently at work on a new novel based on a real-life crime.
Cyprus Van Inwegen will read “All Saints Day,” by Angela Pneuman. Van Inwegen is a Davis-based actress, musician, and artist. You may have seen her recently as Eve in Over There Outside (Ground + Field Theatre Festival), in the sketch comedy Monsters Anonymous(Bike City Theatre Co.), or in the reading of Summer Shorts II: A Collection of Short Plays by Nicholas Walker Herbert (Bike City Theatre Co.). Cyprus is a Company Member of Bike City Theatre Co. and past Apprentice of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. Past credits include Juliet in Romeo and Juliet(Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Apprentice Showcase), and co-authoring two plays (Stay,The Unbearable Confessions of the Ski Lodge Survivors) through Boise Contemporary Theatre. She is a graduate of the University of Davis, California, with a B.A. in Communications and a minor in Professional Writing.