Zuni Chopra released her first poetry collection at the age of 9 and her second just three years later. Her debut novel, The House That Spoke – which was featured at Stories on Stage in 2024 – was published when she was 15. Her second book, The Island of the Day Before, is a collection of stories, flash fiction, and poetry. She is most interested in magical realism and blurring the lines between our reality and our imagination. Her favorite authors include Neil Gaiman, Madeline Miller, T.S. Eliot, and Lewis Carroll. Zuni recently completed her BA in English at Stanford University and is currently pursuing an MFA through NYU.
Kelley Ogden will be reading “The Hungry Bones,” by Zuni Chopra. Kelley is an actress, director and producer who has performed locally with Capital Stage, Davis Shakespeare Festival, Main Street Theater Works, Falcons Eye Theatre, Celebration Arts, Sacramento Shakespeare Festival, and Theater Galatea among others. She also co-founded KOLT Run Creations, an award-winning experimental theater company, with her wife, local director Lisa Thew. Kelley has a BFA in Performance from The Theatre School at DePaul University, and spent her youth working with companies all over the country, including Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago and Stages Repertory in Houston. Currently, Kelley works primarily behind the mic as voice talent for short films and podcasts. She loves gardening, baking, baseball, the WNBA, and reading for Stories on Stage!
Cheri Radke is a science fiction and fantasy writer. Her debut novel was An Accident of Dragons, which has been described as “if Oscar Wilde turned his pen to writing high fantasy.” Today we will hear an excerpt from her second novel, A Calculation of Dragons. Cheri has also been a librarian, a bookseller, and an academic coordinator. She studied Linguistics at New York University and went on to earn a Master’s in Library and Information Science from Kent State University. She lives in Woodland, California.
J.R. Wolfe will be reading an excerpt from A Calculation of Dragons, by Cheri Radke. J.R. is a Yolo County-based actor, director, writer, and producer. He trained at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts and the Cornish College of the Arts, and earned his MFA at UC Davis. J.R. has acted at regional theaters throughout the country including Victory Gardens, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Pacific Conservatory Theater, Capital Stage, and Seattle Immersive Theater. He’s appeared in national, regional, and industrial commercials as well as several short film projects. J.R. is the co-founder of Studio Creatch, whose mission is to create impactful new works in the mediums of animation, puppetry, and live theater. The company specializes in edu-tainment, collaborating with non-profits, educational institutions, and governmental to craft works in service of public health & safety. Simultaneously, Studio Creatch also produces its own diverse body of theatrical new works. To learn more about this work, please visit studiocreatch.com and/or follow them on instagram: @studiocreatch.