Lori Ostlund’s novel After the Parade (Scribner, 2015) was shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and was a Barnes and Noble Discover pick. Her first book, a story collection entitled The Bigness of the World, won the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Award, the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, and the 2009 California Book Award for First Fiction. Stories from it appeared in the Best American Short Stories and the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, among other places. Lori has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award and was a finalist for the 2017 Simpson Family Literary Prize. She is a teacher and lives in San Francisco with her wife, son, and cats, though she spent her formative years in Minnesota, cat-less.
Jessica Laskey will read “Talking Fowl with my Father,” by Lori Ostlund. Jessica is very excited to return to SOS Davis! She currently serves as the co-director of its sister series, Stories on Stage Sacramento, alongside her husband, p joshua laskey. As an actor, she has performed with Theater Galatea, Sacramento Theatre Company, Capital Stage, California Stage and Artistic Differences, among others. As a journalist, her work has appeared in Sacramento Magazine, Sactown Magazine, Inside Sacramento and Comstock’s Magazine, where she serves as the Special Sections Editor. More at jessicalaskey.com.
Raised in Wyoming and Montana, Kathryn Williams couldn’t wait to see the world, becoming a Peace Corps English teacher in Afghanistan, then afterward traveling extensively. Rhino Dreams, set in exotic Namibia, seemed a perfect locale.
She lives in Davis and is finishing a book of short stories set in the least exotic locale—a down-at-the-heels trailer park in hurricane prone Florida.
Carolyn Waggoner cared for and about animals her entire life. She lived in Davis with a sizeable menagerie of rescue creatures and an indulgent veterinarian husband. Carolyn hoped that Rhino Dreams would both entertain and bring attention to the plight of the rhino. Carolyn passed away in August 2022.
Patricia Glass will read “Rhino Dreams,” by Kathryn Williams and Carolyn Waggoner. Patricia has been involved in dramas, comedies, musicals, voice-overs, staged readings, and storytelling for more than thirty years; locally for the past twenty. Her most recent credit is playing Lina Lamont (Singin’ In the Rain) and will next perform as Morticia (The Addams Family) at the Woodland Opera House. Glass earned a BA in Theatre from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and has worked for UC for the past twenty-two years.