Natalie Baszile has an MA in Afro-American Studies from UCLA and is a graduate of Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers, where she was a Holden Minority Scholar. An early version of Queen Sugar won the Hurston Wright College Writer’s Award and was a co-runner up in the Faulkner Pirate’s Alley Novel-in-Progress competition, and excerpts were published in Cairn and ZYZZYVA. She has had residencies at the Ragdale Foundation, where she was awarded the Sylvia Clare Brown fellowship, Virginia Center for the Arts, and Hedgebrook. Her non-fiction work has appeared in The Rumpus.net, Mission at Tenth, and The Best Women’s Travel Writing Volume 9. Baszile is a former fiction editor at The Cortland Review and is a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. She grew up in Southern California and lives in San Francisco with her family.
Alana Mathews will read from Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile. She is excited about her debut with Stories on Stage Davis. In addition to performing for Stories on Stage Sacramento, she has appeared in several productions with Celebration Arts and received an Elly nomination for Best Lead Actress for her role of Marta in Sorrows and Rejoicings. She played Martha in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at the Sacramento Theatre Company. Mathews most enjoys the role of mom to her three children, Caleb, Jordan, and Josiah!
Theresa Duve Morales teaches middle school art in Woodland, California, where she lives with her husband and daughters. She’s had a story published in the anthology American Fiction: Volume 12, where it placed third in the American Fiction Prize contest, and another online in The Adirondack Review, where it won the Fulton Prize. A third story is forthcoming later this year in CALYX, A Journal of Art and Literature by Women.
Sara Matsui-Colby will read “Study of an Orange” by Theresa Duve Morales. Matsui-Colby is a bilingual Japanese-American actress with a BA in Theater Arts and has studied Noh and Kyogen acting with Theatre of Yugen for three years. She has worked with theaters in both the Sacramento and Bay Areas and will be in Main Street Theatre Works’ production of Chemical Imbalance: A Jekyll and Hyde Play. In addition to theater, she has also worked on films and voice overs, and also teaches Japanese and acting. When she is not working, she enjoys practicing her shamisen, running, and making origami.
