LONG LIVE SHORT STORIES

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
| Location of Session: Festival Room
Adult Sessions

Start of Signing: 4:15 pm
| Signing Location: Festival Marketplace

My Schedule

About the Event

Andrew Porter traces the threads of loss and displacement running through our lives in The Disappeared, his new collection of short stories. National Book Award Finalist Alejandro Varela contemplates gentrification, racism, and sexuality in The People Who Report More Stress, his new collection of short stories.

About the Authors

Photo Credit: Sarah E. Cooper

Andrew Porter

Andrew Porter is the author of the story collection The Theory of Light and Matter and the novel In Between Days. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has received a Pushcart Prize, a James Michener/Copernicus Fellowship, and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. His work has appeared in One Story, The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, Narrative, The Southern Review, and on National Public Radio’s Selected Shorts. Currently, he teaches fiction writing and directs the creative writing program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. His latest book is The Disappeared: Stories.

Photo Credit: Allison Michael Orenstein

Alejandro Varela

Alejandro Varela’s work has appeared in The Point Magazine, Boston Review, Harper’s, and the Offing, among other outlets. Varela is an editor-at-large of Apogee Journal. His graduate studies were in public health. His first book, The Town of Babylon, was a Finalist for the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction. The People Who Report More Stress, his second book, is a book of interconnected stories exploring modern stressors and anxieties as they relate to the body.

Moderator

Yvette Benavides

Yvette Benavides is a professor of English and creative writing at Our Lady of the Lake University. She hosts the Texas Public Radio podcasts “Book Public” and “The Lonely Voice with Peter Orner.” She is an editor-at-large with Trinity University Press. She co-authored the book San Antonio 365: On This Day in History with David Martin Davies. She is proud to be a founding member of the advisory board of the San Antonio Book Festival.