At our recent Narrative Salon in San Francisco, we gathered with friends and fellow Narrativos. Along the way, we celebrated a landmark year—one shaped by our literary community that includes more than two thousand authors in our free Library. We marked the debut of A. T. Steel, our latest Narrative Prize winner, and the growth of the Narrative for Schools program that serves as an educational oasis for teachers and students in more than 880 under-resourced schools across the US and in fifty-five countries.
The evening began with one of our youngest authors, Helen Gu, winner of the Tenth Annual High School Writing Contest, reading her poem “Mooncakes.” In her introduction, Narrative editor Carol Edgarian remarked, “This poem has a kind of ambition, clarity, and—I’m just gonna say it—ballsiness. Helen took a formidable Chinese myth and reimagined it through the lens of her family’s sorrow and a young girl’s longing to create a transcendent work that is the author’s gift to you.”
We ended the night with our dear friend and longtime Narrativo, Tobias Wolff, reading his legendary short story Bullet in the Brain. In his introduction, Narrative editor Tom Jenks remarked, “I can say something about Toby that I can’t say about many (or maybe any) writers that I know, and that is I have yet to meet a reader who doesn’t love his stories, and that’s really because of the love that Toby puts into his work.”