Marie-Helene Bertino [2] will read from her debut novel, 2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas (Crown [3]; August 5, 2014.) Her stories have appeared in The Pushcart Prize Anthology XXXIII, North American Review, Gigantic, Gulf Coast, Mississippi Review, Inkwell, Indiana Review, American Short Fiction, Five Chapters, Storyville and The Common, among others.

She teaches at NYU, the Center for Fiction, the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop, [4] and the One Story Workshop for Writers [5], and has been invited to read and teach at bookstores and universities in America and abroad, including the Brooklyn Book Festival, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the University of Pennsylvania and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Festival in Cork, Ireland. She has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Hedgebrook. A Philadelphia native, she lives in Brooklyn. http://www.mariehelenebertino.com/

Joanna Clapps Herman's [6] new collection of short stories, No Longer and Not Yet, was published by SUNY Press [7]. She is currently working on a new book whose working title is Ieri, Oggi e Domani: Food and Family from Sun Press. Her memoir, The Anarchist Bastard (SUNY Press, 2011) begins, "I often say that I was born in 1944 but raised in the 15th Century because although I was born in Waterbury, CT, in a New England factory town, in post-WWII, I grew up in a large southern Italian family where the rules were absolute, and customs antiquated." 

Next Readings


Oct. 11: John Domini and Joe Tirella, author of Tomorrowland @Sidewalk Café


Nov. 8: Suzanne Petito and Michael Trocchia @Cornelia Street Café


Dec. 13: Richard Vetere and Antonio d’Alfonso @Sidewalk Café