Present Tense

SEATTLE—Novelist Matt Briggs and essayist Tim Elhajj will read from and talk about the“the nonfiction flash” or “micro-memoir” that is personal essay under 1,500 words. They will read and talk at 5 p.m. on Sunday October 25th at the Seattle Book Fest.

Sunday October 25th 5:00 PM
$5.00
Seattle Book Fest | Columbia City Event Center
3528 S. Ferdinand | Seattle, WA
http://www.seattlebookfest.com/

James Whorton Jr. who edited a special issue of micro-memoir for the Mississippi Review wrote:

“We talk about the various narrative genres—novel, memoir, short story, straightjournalism—as though these categories have a separate existence from the particular worksthey describe. Credibility does not reside in the genre, however, but in the person of thewriter. Books don’t lie to us, people do: we’ve been lied to by neighbors, Presidents, andnovelists alike, and skepticism will never be made obsolete by any refinement of the literarycategories. It will always be indispensable both to citizenship and to literacy. (”Partly TrueStories,” Mississippi Review)

In this reading and discussion, Briggs and Elhajj will read work that (they hope) seems real. And they will talk about the sleight of hand of telling the “real” story.

Matt Briggs is the author of The Remains of River Names and three other collections ofstories. His first novel, Shoot the Buffalo, will be re-released in November by the PublicationStudio as a Jank Edition. A second novel, The Strong Man, will be released in January. Recent or forthcoming work has appeared in The Chicago Review, Opium Magazine, and The Goldenhandcuffs Review. Briggs writes for Reading Local: Seattle and keeps a blog at: mattbriggs.wordpress.com

You can find an essay by Briggs:“Flag Ceremony,” The Mississippi Review Online, 7/2006

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