Chevalier’s Books is “All Lit Up” for Night of the Amazing Aimee/Amys

 It’s time for another installment of Chevalier’s Books‘ monthly Literary Series, recently christened “All Lit Up.” This month Chevalier’s has a fantastic lineup of writers for you, and all of them happen to be named Aimee/Amy. Join Chevalier’s on Thursday, February 4th, at 7:00 p.m., to hear the artistic stylings of Aimee Bender, Amy Gerstler, and Amy Wilentz, with a special appearance by Amy Uyematsu. As usual, Chevalier’s will have an open mic in between performers, so bring in your own writing! (Especially if it has to do with someone named Amy.)

Aimee Bender is the author of five books: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (1998), An Invisible Sign of My Own (2000), Willful Creatures (2005), The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (2010) and The Color Master, a NY Times Notable book for 2013. Her short fiction has been published in Granta, GQ, Harper’s, Tin House, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, and many more places, as well as heard on PRI’s “This American Life” and “Selected Shorts.” She has received two Pushcart prizes, was nominated for the TipTree award, and the Shirley Jackson short story award. Her fiction has been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches creative writing at USC.

Amy Gerstler is a writer of poetry, nonfiction and journalism. Scattered at Sea, a book of her poems, was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her book Dearest Creature (2009) was named a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, and was short listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry. Her previous twelve books include Ghost Girl, Medicine, Crown of Weeds, which won a California Book Award, Nerve Storm, and Bitter Angel, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. She was the 2010 guest editor of the yearly anthology Best American Poetry. She currently teaches in the MFA Writing Program at UC Irvine.

Amy Wilentz is the author of Farewell Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti (2013), The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier (1990), Martyrs’ Crossing (2000), and I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen: Coming to California in the Age of Schwarzenegger (2006). She is the winner of the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN Martha Albrand Non-Fiction Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Award, and also was a 1990 nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2014, she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Farewell, Fred Voodoo. Wilentz is the former Jerusalem correspondent for The New Yorker and a long-time contributing editor at The Nation. She teaches in the Literary Journalism program at UC Irvine, and lives in Los Angeles.

Amy Uyematsu is a sansei poet and teacher from Los Angeles. She has four published collections: The Yellow Door (2015), Stone Bow Prayer (2005), Nights of Fire, Nights of Rain (1998) and 30 Miles from J-Town (1992). Her first book won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize and was runner-up in the Poetry Society of America’s 1993 Norma Ferber First Book Award. Amy was also co-editor of the widely used anthology, Roots: An Asian American Reader (1971). Recently retired, she taught high school math for 32 years at Grant, Granada Hills, and Venice high schools.

“All Lit Up” is Chevalier’s monthly literary series, featuring authors from across the spectrum of our vibrant SoCal literary scene. It is a collaborative effort lovingly orchestrated under the aegis of our owners, Bert Deixler and Darryl Holter, in tandem with authors Rich Ferguson and Stephanie Barbé Hammer, and Chevalier’s co-manager Liz Newstat.