Events

Featuring:Shawna Kenney Rodney Lofton Anne Thomas Soffee And your host, Nicole Anderson Ellis Thursday, August 27, 2009 6:30-8:30 pm $10 in advance $12 at the door $5 students Panelists: Shawna Kenney is the author of Imposters (Mark Batty Publisher) and I Was a Teenage Dominatrix (Last Gasp), which won a Firecracker Alternative Book award, has been translated abroad and was recently optioned for television. She has covered arts and pop culture for Swindle Magazine, Juxtapoz, Veg News, Transworld Skateboarding and the Indianapolis Star, among others. Kenney teaches creative writing online for UCLA Extension and lifesabitchbooks.com. Anne Thomas Soffee earned her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1995. She has published two books of memoir, Snake Hips: Belly Dancing and How I Found True Love (Chicago Review Press: 2002) and Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City (Chicago Review Press: 2005). She currently writes a column and blog for Richmond magazine and has a short story in Akashic Books’ forthcoming Richmond Noir anthology. The New York Times calls her “funny, trashy and smart,” which pretty much says all there is to say. Rodney Lofton’s debut memoir, The Day I Stopped Being Pretty, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. He is also the author of the recently released No More Tomorrows: Two Lives, Two Stories, One Love, addressing HIV/AIDS in the African-American community. Mr. Lofton has served as a keynote speaker and requested facilitator by the New Jersey World AIDS Day Celebration, the United States Conference on AIDS among others. He is a former freelance writer and public relations professional. Nicole Anderson Ellis has a BA in Environmental Science from UCLA and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from VCU. She is an award-winning investigative journalist, the recipient of the 2009 Phillip D. Reed Memorial Award for Outstanding Writing on the Southern Environment from the Southern Environmental Law Center, and a finalist in James River Writers’ 2009 Best Unpublished Novel Contest. Nicole teaches critical thinking and writing at VCU and writes a monthly “green” column for Virginia Business magazine. She lives on a tree farm in Henrico County, VA, with her husband, the writer and musician Joseph William Cates, and their story-craving daughter.