Ferry Plaza Book Party: Vignettes and Postcards with Erin Byrne

LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK PARTY: Vignettes and Postcards: Writings From the Evening Writing Workshop at Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, Paris, Fall, 2011 with Erin Byrne

Erin Byrne

Monday, August 13, 6pm
Book Passage || Ferry Plaza
San Francisco || www.bookpassage.com

You are invited to journey to an intimate neighborhood in 1950s Texas, the rue de Seine during the flood of 1910, and a 1960s political uprising in Brazil; to meet characters like Leila, an Algerian woman living in the outskirts of Paris, and Lilia, a young ballerina dancing inside a painting; to inhale the scent of warm cinnamon bread, to hear the pealing of bells from high up on an Italian hillside, and to walk upon the paving stones of Paris.

Vignettes & Postcards: Writings From the Evening Writing Workshop at Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, Paris, Fall, 2011 is a collection of twenty-six stories by writers from all over the world, springing from the workshop “Leaping into the Void,” taught by award-winning writer Erin Byrne.

Edited by Byrne and Anna Pook, ongoing instructor of the workshop, the stories of Vignettes & Postcards represent a variety of genres—short fiction, personal essay, interview, travel, and poetry. These exquisite pieces reflect the focus upon instinct and spontaneity, and the emphasis on deep creative revisioning that are the cornerstones of “Leaping into the Void.”

Erin Byrne writes travel articles and essays, short stories, poems, and screenplays.  Her work has won numerous awards, including the 2012 Travelers’ Tales Grand Prize Silver Solas Award for Best Travel Story of the Year for Spirals, Memoir of a Celtic Soul. Erin offers individual travel writing consultations, and teaches the workshop, “Deep Travel,” with writer Christina Ammon. She is currently working on The Storykeeper, a book and documentary film about occupied Paris; The Red Notebook: A Novel of Americans Passed Through Occupied Paris; and Wings from Victory, a collection of her travel essays. www.e-byrne.com.

Hear from the following writers at our August 13 event: Fanélie Chantre, Philip Murray-Lawson, Nancy Szczepanski, Jean-Bernard Ponthus, and editor, Erin Byrne.

Born in Barcelona, Fanélie Chantre is a French Catalan poet living between Paris and Berkeley. Fanélie writes poems in Catalan, French, Spanish, and English, and has published short poems in the leading Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. She is currently working on a collection of poems around the theme of “silent architecture.”

Philip Murray- Lawson was born in Scotland, but has lived most of his adult life in Turkey and France. He runs Evolution-abc, a Paris based language consulting company.  His work has appeared in Prism, a Learning Journal and Udolpho, the periodical of the Gothic Society.  Philip’s collection of horror stories, Heresies, was published in 2000.  Philip currently writes a political satire/horror blog at: rieslingandblackspaghetti.wordpress.com

Nancy Szczepanski writes about her experiences with food and travel.  She spent seven years in Japan where she came to love all manner of tofu: pure white and satiny kinugoshi tofu, slightly sweet, black speckled sesame, or goma tofu, and her particular favorite, a tofu by-product called yuba, made from the wrinkly skin that forms on top of soy milk. She currently lives in Paris where she is creating a food blog.

Jean-Bernard Ponthus has been writing articles for the internal newspaper at La Poste for ten years. His articles deal with the cultural aspect of stamps, exhibitions sponsored by La Poste, or reportage in the post-offices of Paris.  Jean-Bernard’s work has appeared in the Société des Amis du Musée de La Poste magazine after being a curator in this Museum. His main exhibition was a private collection of the correspondence of Colette. Jean-Bernard’s photography includes postcards of Parisian urban landscapes, and can be found at http://broceliande1.unblog.fr/2012/01.

As those who have spent time at Shakespeare and Company can attest, something other happens when writers create there.  Step inside the world of Vignettes & Postcards, and discover this mysterious quality for yourself.