Books and Beer April 5, 2005

From the Ann Arbor News:

The national First Fiction Spring 2005 Tour makes a stop at Arbor Brewing Company, 116 E. Washington St., at 7 p.m. April 5. This event has clever marketing ("Bringing literature to the people and making it cool," "Four authors, six cities and tons of beer ...."). It is promoting four new authors "in the tradition of rock stars, readings in bars, with T-shirts and coasters."

The four stars are first-time fiction authors from different publishers who are traveling to six cities in April, partnering with independent bookstores and bars. Tour organizer Cindy Dach said she spent a lot of time talking with publishers about who would be good, going through catalogs watching what books would be out in the spring and pondering a couple of questions before deciding on the authors.

The authors are:

Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, author of "The Effects of Light," which is the story of two beautiful sisters whose lives are forever altered by a series of photographs. Beverly-Whittemore worked for the 92nd Street Y's Unterberg Poetry Center in Manhattan; she lives in Brooklyn.

Matthew Carnahan, author of "Serpent Girl," which takes readers to a world of freaks, geeks and petty thieves. The author is a California filmmaker and playwright.

Marya Hornbacher, author of "The Center of Winter." She is the author of a previous book, "Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulemia." "The Center of Winter," her first novel, explores the way children and adults experience tragic events and survive. Hornbacher lives in Minneapolis and is a senior editor at Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine.

Edward Schwarzschild, author of "Responsible Men," was a recent Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University and teaches at the State University of New York at Albany. This is his first novel, about a charming, ethically challenged salesman who returns to Philadelphia on the eve of his son's bar mitzvah in a last-ditch effort to become a better father and son.