Rivka Galchen at the DC JCC this Tuesday

This Tuesday, May 19 at 7:30 pm, Rivka Galchen will talk about her debut novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, with Washington Post Book World deputy editor Ron Charles, at the DC Jewish Community Center (1529 16th St. NW). Tickets are $9 for the general public, $6 for JCC members. Go here to reserve a seat or call (202) 777-3251. (See also James Wood’s review of the book.)

Ice Cream and Books and Alan

The last post's mention of the Washington Post Magazine reminded me of an article I read a while back that is worthy of sharing here. The story is about Andrew Gifford, a D.C. publisher who's family founded and ran Gifford's Ice Cream and Candy, a franchise of old-fashioned ice cream parlors that once thrived in the D.C. area. Gifford's went from being the hottest spot on a Saturday night in the 1950s to bankrupt in 1985.

Despite suffering from a long-time painful chronic illness, in 2002 Gifford began a small literary press, the Santa Fe Writer's Project. Writer Ray Robertson is quoted in an interview, "Publishers like Andrew Gifford at SFWP are [expletive] heroes." The press published The Fires, written by GMU's own Alan Cheuse. Cheuse is mentioned and quoted in the article. (Also, interviewed here by SFWP, on his novellas.)

Check it out here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/14/AR2008081401431.html

Washington Post fiction contest

Hey! There’s less than a month left to enter the Washington Post Magazine’s short story contest. Write 1,500 words or less inspired by, based on, or tangentially connected to the photo here by May 4. As far as I can tell the prize is publication in the 2010 Valentine’s issue of the magazine, but you’d get to appear in the same issue as a bunch of established writers. Submission information is linked to this sentence, if you missed it.

Last year’s winner was Sam Esquith, a writer and teacher in Middleburg, Virginia, and the year before that it was Dean Hebert of the University of Maryland—one of us should win one!