Organized By Four Chambers Press
2828 N Central Ave,Phoenix (33.479870, -112.074540)
Four Chambers is proud to present AARON BURCH (of Hobart Magazine) and UZODINMA OKEHI with local literary hero MATT BELL Friday, July 29th, 2016 at MOD (2228 N Central Ave #100, Phoenix, AZ 85004) at 6:30 pm. AARON BURCH is the author Stephen King's The Body: Bookmarked, a memoir about the King novella and Stand By Me. He is also the author of the short story collection, Backswing, and is the Founding Editor of the literary journal Hobart. A collection of four novellas, Different Seasons includes some of Stephen King’s most enduring and well-known works, including “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” which was made into the film The Shawshank Redemption, and “The Body,” which was made into the movie Stand by Me. For this entry in the Bookmarked series, Aaron Burch touchingly reveals how “The Body” (and Stand By Me)—and their themes of nostalgia, coming of age, friendship and loss—have been important companions on his journey towards becoming a writer, as well as a husband and a friend. UZODINMA OKEHI spent 2 years handing out zines on the subway. Wasn’t as fun as he thought. His work has appeared in Pank, Hobart, Bartleby Snopes. He has an MFA in writing from New York University. He lives in Brooklyn. His son is 8 yrs old, smiles a lot, (too much?), and will absolutely, cross you over and drain a jumper in your face. "They say it takes an average person about 10 years to master a given thing. This was my thinking in 1995 when I dropped out of college in Iowa City to draw comics. Because I’d seen a lot of movies, I figured Hong Kong was the place, so I went there, hoping to put a tap on that excitement. After that plan went bust I tried another, then another. I put down the pen too many times to count, only to pick up again because there was nothing else. If there was a theme to come away with it was that nothing is ever as easy or even as worthwhile as “They” make it seem. The years passed and I was just as deluded, but also still excited, about drawing, though my life was just as ordinary. My name is Blue Okoye. Anyway, that’s the short version . . ." MATT BELL is the author of the novels Scrapper and In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods, the forthcoming story collection A Tree or a Person or a Wall, and a non-fiction book about the classic video game Baldur's Gate II. His writing has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Tin House, Conjunctions, Gulf Coast, and many other publications. Born in Michigan, he now teaches creative writing at Arizona State University. Detroit has descended into ruin. Kelly scavenges for scrap metal from the hundred thousand abandoned buildings in a part of the city known as “the zone,” an increasingly wild landscape where one day he finds something far more valuable than the copper he’s come to steal: a kidnapped boy, crying out for rescue. Briefly celebrated as a hero, Kelly secretly avenges the boy’s unsolved kidnapping, a task that will take him deeper into the zone and into a confrontation with his own past and long-buried traumas. The second novel from the acclaimed author of In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods, Scrapper is a devastating reimagining of one of America’s greatest cities, its beautiful architecture, its lost houses, shuttered factories, boxing gyms, and storefront churches. With precise, powerful prose, it asks: What do we owe for our crimes, even those we’ve committed to protect the people we love? For more information please e-mail [email protected] Hope to see you there!