Together in conversation, Bret Anthony Johnston and Colm Tóibín will share their expansive knowledge and expertise on the art of short fiction.
In Johnston’s Encounters with Unexpected Animals, teenagers search for love, parents yearn to connect with their children, and animals are reminders of the mystery and the beauty of being alive. Johnston’s humor, empathy, and mastery of prose shine in each story. Johnston is the bestselling author of We Burn Daylight, Remember Me Like This, and the award-winning Corpus Christi: Stories. He is currently the Director of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.
Tóibín’s new collection The News from Dublin examines the complexities of family dynamics, the haunting pull of the past, and the quiet revelations that define our lives. In these stories, he summons an extraordinary intensity of emotion in brief tales, crafting characters that are rendered with unforgettable empathy and insight. “One of the world’s best living literary writers” (The Boston Globe), Tóibín is the author of 11 novels, including Long Island and Brooklyn, as well as three story collections.
