In Holler Rat, Liftig masterfully interweaves family lore from her Appalachian childhood with her performance art pieces and scenes of the yearlong period in which her life fell apart, and plumbs the cathartic self-reckoning that followed. She takes us from her Mamaw's porch to Yale; from the site of a violent family land feud to a pre-gentrified Bushwick loft; and from a devastating childhood leg injury to having 243 raw eggs pelted at her in the name of art. In visceral, beautiful prose that ranges from raunchy and outrageous to sobering and tragic, Holler Rat is the origin story of an unconventional artistic life and a captivating account of the stumbling blocks, sacrifices, and discoveries along the way. (Abrams Press)

With Alexander Lumans, Fernando Flores, Ramona Ausubel, Kimberly King Parsons, Marisa Matarazzo.

The Sand Creek Massacre, Yucca Mountain, Area 51—the West’s desolate “emptiness” belies depths of the dangerous and the bizarre. Writing its mysteries, consequently, runs deeply: from Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine to Joy Williams’s The Quick and the Dead. In this panel, five established and emerging prose writers read within this regional tradition, ranging in subject from mesa megafauna to ghosts of annihilation. These writers present an updated essence of the phantasmagorical American West.

With Allison Amend, Adriana Ramírez, Dhipinder Walia, Jenny Yang Cropp and Marisa Matarazzo.

Fiction writer Marisa Matarazzo reads from her debut collection of interlinked short stories, Drenched: Stories of Love and Other Deliriums. These stories take love to another world, where a sex fever can sweep a town, a woman and her acrobat lover swim together through her flooded apartment building, and an androgynous CEO profits from pills called The Floodgates of Love. A master of depicting love’s fluid sorcery, Matarazzo visits Scripps from Otis College, where she’s an assistant professor in the MFA writing program. 

This program is presented in partnership with the Scripps College English Department. 

Please join as the author reads and discusses excerpts from her upcoming work. This event is sponsored by the Graduate Writing Program and open to the public.

Join authors Richard Bausch, Ron Carlson & Aimee Bender. Hosted by Marisa Matarazzo in conversation at Chevalier's Books.

To celebrate the fellowship’s 20th Anniversary, PEN Center USA is opening The Emerging Voices Author Evening Series to the public.

Chevalier's Books - 126 N North Larchmont Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90004

2016 AWP Annual Conference and Bookfair
"Living Fictions: Writing in L.A."
 (With Noel Alumit,  Francesca Lia Block,  Jim Gavin,  Maria Amparo Escandon)
UCLA Writers' Program Panel and Author Signing
L.A. Convention Center, Meeting Room Level, Room 405

along with writers Tim Taranto, Stephen Markley, Sara Deniz Akant and Matt Sumell.

with author Matt Sumell

Sarah Clarke (The Twilight Saga, 24) will be reading "Souvenirs" by Marisa Matarazzo

The Microsoft Lounge - Venice, CA

Soho House West Hollywood - Los Angeles, CA

Skirball Cultural Center - Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles, CA

With Kumail Nanjiani & Nina Hartley

Los Angeles, CA

Jubilee Fest - Los Angeles, CA

Whittier College - Whittier, CA

Ohio State University - Columbus, OH

West Hollywood, CA

Skirball Cultural Center - Los Angeles, CA

along with Stacy Bierlein

Stories Books and Cafe in Echo Park - Los Angeles, CA

along with Aimee Bender and Rachel Swirsky

Book Soup - Los Angeles, CA

along with Katie Arnoldi

Scape Gallery - Corona Del Mar, CA

along with Andrew Winer and Bo Caldwell

University of California, Irvine - Irvine, CA

Jancar Gallery - Los Angeles, CA

The Good Luck Bar - Los Angeles, CA

Squaw Valley, Lake Tahoe, CA

Palihouse Holloway - Los Angeles, CA

New York, NY