Panel: A Sense of Place—Bay Area in Fiction Writing

Beverly Parayno and friends Toni Mirosevich, Norman Zelaya and Olga Zilberbourg read from their fiction writing drawing upon the physical surroundings of the Bay Area. Hear how they use place in their work to illuminate the complicated lives of their characters.

The readings will be followed by a brief Q&A session.

Parayno was born in the Bay Area and raised in East San José by immigrant parents from the Philippines. Her fiction, memoir, essays and author interviews appear in Narrative Magazine, Bellingham Review, The Rumpus, Warscapes, Huizache, and Southword: New Writing from Ireland, among others. Her work has been translated into Mandarin and published by World Literature, a journal of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Her debut short story collection WILDFLOWERS is published by PAWA Press (2023). Parayno earned a BA from San José State University, an MA from University College Cork and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she received a Lynda Hull scholarship. She serves on the board of PAWA, a nonprofit arts organization and independent publisher dedicated to supporting Filipinx and Filipinx American writers and artists and on the executive committee for Litquake. She lives and works in Cameron Park as an animal communicator and freelance development professional for social justice nonprofits and facilitates the Cameron Park Library Writers Workshop. Currently, she is working on a teenage runaway memoir set in upstate New York in the mid-1980s.

Mirosevich’s grew up in a Croatian-American fishing family in Everett, Washington. Her new book of linked stories Spell Heaven (Counterpoint Press, 2022) tells the tale of a gay couple’s move to a Northern California coastal town where they find comradery with a community of outsiders living by the sea’s edge. She’s the author of six previous books including Pink Harvest, winner of the First Series in Creative NonFiction Award and a Lambda Literary Award Finalist. Multi-genre writings have been anthologized in Best American Travel Writing, Best of the Bellevue Literary Review, AutoBioDiversity: True Stories from Zyzzyva, and elsewhere. Awarded fellowships from MacDowell, Djerassi Resident Arts, Hedgebrook among others. After early years working in various labor jobs she began teaching creative writing at San Francisco State University in 1991. Now, a professor emeritus of creative writing at SFSU.

Zelaya is from San Francisco, CA. His writing is inspired by his Nicoya heritage and his lived experience as an SF native and Mission District homeboy. He’s the author of two collections of short fiction, Orlando & Other Stories (Pochino Press, 2017), and most recently, Gente, Folks (Black Freighter Press, 2022). His work has appeared in ZYZZYVA, Apogee Journal, NY Tyrant, 14 Hills, and Cipactli, among other journals. Mr. Zelaya has read and lectured throughout California, and across the country. Also, he’s appeared on stage, in film, and in the squared circle as the masked luchador, Super Pulga. He lives and works in San Francisco, where he’s completing a debut novel.

Zilberbourg’s English-language debut LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES (WTAW Press) explores “bicultural identity hilariously, poignantly,” according to The Moscow Times. This collection received warm reviews from The Common, Los Angeles Review of Books, NYU’s Jordan Center, The Manchester Review, Rain Taxi, among others, and was named a finalist in the 2019 Foreword INDIES Book Award. Born in Leningrad, USSR, she grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia, and makes her home in San Francisco, California. She has published four collections of stories in Russia, including most recent Задержи дыхание from Vremya Press. She serves as a consulting editor at Narrative Magazine and as a co-facilitator of the San Francisco Writers Workshop. Together with Yelena Furman, she has co-founded Punctured Lines, a feminist blog about literature from the former Soviet Union. She is currently at work on her first novel.

Connect:

Beverly Parayno - Website

Toni Mirosevich - Website | Toni Mirsevich - Instagram 

Norman Zelaya - Instagram 

Olga Zilberbourg: Website

Sponsored by Philippine American Writers and Artists (PAWA) and the Filipino American Center at the San Francisco Public Library