Grotto Nights at the Library: A Conversation with Writers

Grotto Nights is a monthly series at the Library featuring The Writers Grotto members who will showcase and discuss their writing around a theme of their choice. This month features Laurie Ann Doyle, Douglas Henderson, Dominic Lim and Kathy Seligman talking about stories set in the Bay Area. The authors will discuss their work and take questions from the audience. 

Laurie Ann Doyle’s book World Gone Missing offers a page-turning collection of haunting and emotional stories based in the Bay Area about the many ways people can vanish from life. The bestselling New York Times author Edan Lepucki praises the book for delivering "astute portrayals of people who desire connection, hope, and renewal." Laurie is winner of the Alligator Juniper National Fiction Award, as well as nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart prize, with stories and essays appearing in publications such as McSweeney’s, Alta Journal, Under the Sun, Fourth Genre, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at The Writers Grotto and at UC Berkeley Extension, where she is an honored instructor.

Doug Henderson is the author of The Cleveland Heights LGBTQ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Role Playing Club, and a winner of the PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. His work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Short Édition, Michigan Quarterly Review Mixtape, and elsewhere. Originally from Cleveland, he lives in San Francisco with his husband and two children.

Dominic Lim’s debut novel, All the Right Notes, was named a 2023 best book by USA Today, Harper’s Bazaar, Goodreads, Library Journal, and Entertainment Weekly, which called it “a swoony, joyful rom-com to take readers into a love story worthy of a Broadway stage.” His second novel, Karaoke Queen, is out on September 17, 2024. He is a member of the Writers Grotto and co-hosts the long-running Babylon Salon reading and performance series in San Francisco. Dominic holds a Master of Music from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, is an alumnus of Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music, and has sung with numerous professional early music and choral ensembles. A proud member of Actors’ Equity Association, he has performed Off-Broadway and in regional productions throughout the U.S. He works as a paralegal for a Bay Area biotech company and lives in Oakland with his loving and supportive husband, Peter, and their whiny cat, Phoebe.  

Katherine Seligman is an award-winning journalist and author in San Francisco. She has been a reporter at USA Today, the San Francisco Examiner and a staff writer at the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine. Her work has been featured on NPR, and in Life, Redbook, The Sun Magazine, the anthology “Fresh Takes,” Best American Essays, and elsewhere. Her debut novel, At the Edge of the Haight, won the PEN/Bellwether Prize.