Genevieve Hudson, Thomas Moniz, and Nancy Au

This event will be held at our Clement street location.

Please join us at Green Apple Books on Clement street on Tuesday, August 28th at 7:00 p.m. as we welcome Genevieve Hudson to celebrate her debut collection of stories (from Future Tense Books), Pretend We Live Here. Genevieve will be joined by two more readers; Tomas Moniz, creator of the popular zine Rad Dad, and Nancy Au, a writer, artist, and teacher living in Oakland. Editor and publisher Brian Hurley will be moderating the reading.

Genevieve Hudson.

In her debut collection of stories, Pretend We Live Here, Genevieve Hudson explores the idea of home and what it means to find one: in the body, in the world, in other people. Her characters are seekers, whose actions are influenced by their slippery identities and by the strange landscapes that surround them. 

“A terrific collection of stories. There are echoes here of Flannery O’Connor, Barry Hannah, and Denis Johnson, but Genevieve Hudson is her own writer–impressively and gloriously so. Her eye for the clinching detail is unnerving and her sympathies are fascinatingly conflicted. I hope, and suspect, this book will be the start of a long and inspiring career.” -Tom Bissell, author of The Disaster Artist and Magic Hours

“In Pretend We Live Here, characters bleed and breathe with a caustic energy that dares the reader to keep pace as they are taken from the Deep South to Western Europe and back again. Genevieve Hudson is a new, coming-of-age voice that spotlights rural America, injecting it with a queer freshness that makes her writing impossible to forget.” -Jing-Jing Lee, author of How We Disappeared

Tomas Moniz

Library Journal (01/01/2017): Writing professor Moniz’s Rad Dad started as a zine over ten years ago, and this reviewer had the pleasure of critiquing that title in 2011 during its growing pains. Now, with a few more kids, Rad Dad has a full-fledged family, and this latest offering [Rad Families: A Celebration] exhibits growth in depth and advice. These collected essays, written by various contributors, are raw, inspired, and artful, capturing the joys and pains of parenting with no apologies and no lack of grace. As such, some entries will speak more to readers than others, but the truth and beauty they evoke is elegant and grounding, celebrating the victories and struggles of a generation of parents: “I did not grow up in a family where anything seemed possible. The future did not really exist because surviving the present was the priority.” Topics range from sex to incarceration to adoption and include the viewpoints of mothers and fathers both new and seasoned, introspective and wishing for a do-over. VERDICT For the literary-minded, this Rad Dad collective is a gem of inspired thought, though this reviewer still loathes the book jacket.

Nancy Au

“I am a queer, bisexual writer, artist, and teacher living in Oakland, California. I graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a degree in anthropology. I have an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University. I am currently an instructor at California State University Stanislaus, where I teach creative writing (to biology majors!). And, I am co-founder of The Escapery, a collective of teachers who are dedicated to diversity, and to writing and art as a form of resistance.

My short stories, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry often center on the experiences of the elderly, the young, immigrants, as well as with characters who struggle with mental health issues. I endeavor to write about (and to amplify, diversify, complicate) the voices that have been historically ignored (or stereotyped or diminished or demonized) within academia and literature. I am also particularly interested in exploring the lives of American-born Chinese and Chinese immigrants, with an eye towards diverse perspectives and outlooks.” – Peas & Carrots