Chris Feliciano Arnold has written essays and journalism for The Atlantic, Harper’s, Foreign Policy, Outside, Vice News, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Folha de S. Paulo and more. The recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, he has published fiction in Playboy, The Kenyon Review, Ecotone and other magazines. Along the way, his work has been noted in The Best American Sports Writing and The Best American Short Stories. He lives and teaches writing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Presently, he is Distinguished Visiting Writer of Nonfiction at Saint Mary’s College of California. His first book, The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First Century Amazon, is a work of narrative nonfiction published by Picador in 2018.
Returning Stories on Stage Davis actor Chad Fisk will be reading Arnold’s story “Lawn King.” Fisk was most recently in Of Mice and Men at Woodland Opera House just before everything shut down. He has also performed locally with the Bike City Theatre Company radio series. He has appeared on stage throughout the Bay Area, including Othello at Cal Shakes, Comedy of Errors at SF Shakes, The Homecoming at the Aurora in Berkeley, and Picnic at Sac Theatre Company. Chad has also appeared on a few episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.
Austin Smith grew up on a family dairy farm in Illinois. He received an MA from UC-Davis and an MFA from the University of Virginia. His stories have appeared in Harper’s, Narrative, Threepenny Review, Kenyon Review, Sewanee Review, and other publications. He is the author of two poetry collections, Almanac and Flyover Country, both published through the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow, he currently teaches at Stanford University, where he is a Jones Lecturer in creative writing.
Smith’s short story “King Me” will be read by returning Stories on Stage Davis actor Patty Shade. Patty performed in many music and theater productions throughout the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul over the 30 years that she lived there. Locally, she performed with the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble for two seasons. Patty is currently an audiobook narrator/producer (patriciashade.com) working out of her home studio. In her spare time she sings with the Davis Chorale, raises puppies for Canine Companions and travels with her newly retired husband to visit her four grandchildren and see the world!