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SECOND ANNUAL IAAC LITERARY FESTIVAL
in collaboration with The English Department, Hunter College (West Building) at 68th Street and Lexington Avenue
OCTOBER 22-25, 2015 |
| October 25th, 2015 - 12 noon – 1 pm |
Session 2B
Women Fiction Writers
Authors: Tania James, Maya Lang, Mira Jacob
Moderator: Sujata Massey
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 Tania James is the author of the novels The Tusk That Did the Damage and Atlas of Unknowns, which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, an Indie Next Notable, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and a Best Book of 2009 for The San Francisco Chronicle and NPR. Her story collection Aerogrammes, was a Best Book of 2012 for Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Her stories have appeared in Boston Review, Granta, Kenyon Review, One Story, and A Public Space. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. From 2011-2012, she was a Fulbright fellow to India living in New Delhi. She lives in Washington DC with her husband and son and teaches creative writing at the University of Maryland. |
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 The Tusk That Did the Damage - A tour de force set in South India that plumbs the moral complexities of the ivory trade through the eyes of a poacher, a documentary filmmaker, and, in a feat of audacious imagination, an infamous elephant known as the Gravedigger. With lyricism and suspense, Tania James animates the rural landscapes where Western idealism clashes with local reality; where a farmer’s livelihood can be destroyed by a rampaging elephant; where men are driven to poaching. In James’ arrestingly beautiful prose, The Tusk That Did the Damage blends the mythical and the political to tell a wholly original, utterly contemporary story about the majestic animal, both god and menace, that has mesmerized us for centuries. |
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 Maya Lang is the first-generation daughter of Indian immigrants. Her debut novel, The Sixteenth of June, was longlisted for the 2014 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. She was awarded the 2012 Bread Loaf-Rona Jaffe Foundation Scholarship in Fiction, and was a finalist for Glimmer Train‘s Short Story Award for New Writers. Lang has appeared on television and radio, and been a guest speaker at numerous conferences, college campuses, and literary events. The Sixteenth of June was featured in The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer, and CBS called it “one of the summer’s hottest reads.” Her short work, focused on the immigrant experience, has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Publishers Weekly, Five Chapters, and others. A graduate of Swarthmore College, Lang earned her Master's from NYU and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from SUNY Stony Brook. |
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 The Sixteenth of June - Set in Philadelphia over the course of a single day, The Sixteenth of June is a modern riff on James Joyce's classic, Ulysses. A sharp depiction of modern American family life, The Sixteenth of June delves into the tensions and allegiances of friendships, the murky uncertainty of early adulthood, and the yearning to belong. It also raises questions about why we revere art that holds us at a distance. It is a novel about the secrets we keep, and the lengths we'll go to for acceptance and love. |
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 Mira Jacob is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, which was shortlisted for India’s Tata First Literature Award, honored by the APALA, and named one of the best books of 2014 by Kirkus Reviews, the Boston Globe, Goodreads, Bustle, and The Millions. She is the co-founder of much-loved Pete’s Reading Series in Brooklyn, where she spent 13 years bringing literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry to the city’s sweetest stage. Her recent writing and short stories have appeared in Guernica, Vogue, the Telegraph, and Bookanista, and earlier work has appeared in various magazines (RED, Redbook, i-D, Metropolis, STEP), books (Footnotes with Kenneth Cole; Simon & Schuster; Adios Barbie, Seal Press), on television (VH-1's Pop-Up Video), and across the web. She has appeared on national and local television and radio, and has taught writing to students of all ages in New York, New Mexico, and Barcelona. She currently teaches fiction at NYU. In September 2014, Mira was named the Emerging Novelist Honoree at Hudson Valley Writer’s Center, where she received a commendation from the U.S. Congress. |
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 The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing - When brain surgeon Thomas Eapen decides to cut short a visit to his mother’s home in India, he sets into motion a series of events that will forever haunt him and his wife, Kamala, their intellectually furious son, Akhil, and their watchful daughter, Amina. Now, twenty years later, in the heat of a New Mexican summer, Thomas seems to be derailing, and it’s up to Amina-a photographer in the midst of her own career crisis-to figure out what is really going on. But getting to the truth is far harder than it seems. From Thomas’ unwillingness to talk, to Kamala’s Born Again convictions, to run-ins with hospital staff that seem to know much more than they let on, Amina finds herself at the center of a mystery so tangled that to make any headway, she has to unravel her family’s painful past. With lush language, sharp dialogue, and an eye for detail, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is an epic, heartbreaking, hilarious debut. |
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 Sujata Massey is the author of 12 novels set in India and Japan that have won major awards and nominations in the mystery genre. Her 2013 book, The Sleeping Dictionary, is a historical novel set in Bengal. Her upcoming book is a short fiction collection titled India Gray: Historical Fiction. Sujata lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her family and is an active member of the Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. |
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