Tuesday, February 20, 7:00 PM

"What one cherishes about Amy Hempel are not her plots but her quirky sensibility and the beautifully honed verbal craft she brings to bear on the situations that have attracted her amused and rueful eye. I find it hard to stop quoting her."

-Robert Towers

Widely recognized as one of America's finest writers of short fiction, Amy Hempel is the author of three collections-Reasons to Live, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, and Tumble Home-as well as individual stories in Vanity Fair, Harper's, and other magazines. Known for her minimal style, her narratives revolve around "slivers of life" that, according to Elizabeth Gleick, "show us the larger shapes of our lives by capturing their most fleeting and fragmentary moments." Frequently anthologized, she has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prizes, and The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. She also serves as a Contributing Editor for Bomb Magazine and has published nonfiction in Esquire, Elle, Vogue, and Mirabella, among others. A New York City resident, she is presently a member of the Core Faculty of the Graduate Writing Program of Bennington College.