Writing the Virus with Caille Millner, Jon Roemer, David Dario Winner, and Oscar Villalon (Virtual Event)

Writing the Virus, the first anthology to explore the human effects of the pandemic, parses the virus as it hits a society polarized by racism, privilege, and politics. The book tracks the virus’s progression from epidemiological threat to international crisis and sketches the evolution of Corona’s rapidly changing meaning over the past three-quarters of a year. Among the 31 works in the book, Writing the Virus appeals to the power of love in the Black community as our strongest and most promising force for change (Millner); explores what it means to be a writer in precarious times (Roemer); and exposes the uncomfortable barriers of ethnicity, civic cooperation, and racism as experienced by someone going out for what is no longer an ordinary run (Winner). Writing the Virus, edited by Andrea Scrima and David Winner, was published November 1 by Outpost 19 Books.

Readers of the evening: Caille Millner (“Something New”); Jon Roemer (“Uncertainty Ever After”); and David Dario Winner (“Daisy Assassin”). The event will be moderated by Oscar Villalon, managing editor of Zyzzyva.

Caille Millner
Caille Millner is the author of The Golden Road: Notes on My Gentrification (Penguin Press). Her short fiction has appeared in The Southern Review, Zyzzyva, and Best American Short Stories 2016. Her essays have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review and The Paris Review Daily.

Jon Roemer
Jon Roemer is the publisher and senior editor at Outpost19 Books and author of the novel Five Windows. His writing has appeared at The Millions, KGB Lit, The Writer, OZY, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, 3:AM, and elsewhere. His public speaking includes the Editors’ Picks panel at Library Journal’s Day of Dialogue and Northwestern University’s guest lecture program. He is queer and based in San Francisco.

David Dario Winner
David Winner is the author of Tyler’s Last and The Cannibal of Guadalajara. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, The Millions, and other publications in the US and the UK. He is the fiction editor of the Rome-based magazine, The American, senior editor for Statorec, and a regular contributor to the The Brooklyn Rail.

Oscar Villalon
Oscar Villalon is the managing editor of Zyzzyva. His writing has appeared in Freeman’s, Literary Hub, the Believer, Alta, Zócalo Public Square, and other publications. He lives in San Francisco.