New Yorker Festival -- When Reality Fails: Fantasy and invention in fiction September 24, 2005

When Reality Fails
Fantasy and invention in fiction

Deborah Treisman, moderator. With Martin Amis, Judy Budnitz, A. M. Homes, Stephen King, and George Saunders.

Deborah Treisman is the fiction editor of The New Yorker.

Martin Amis is the author of ten novels, including ?Money,? ?London Fields,? ?The Information,? and ?Yellow Dog?; two short-story collections; and six works of nonfiction, among them ?Koba the Dread,? about Stalin?s purges, and the memoir ?Experience.? He has been a contributor to The New Yorker since 1992.

Judy Budnitz has written the story collection ?Flying Leap? and the novel ?If I Told You Once,? which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. Her new story collection, ?Nice Big American Baby,? was published this year and includes the story ?Miracle,? which first appeared in The New Yorker.

A. M. Homes?s books include two short-story collections and four novels, among them ?This Book Will Save Your Life,? which will be published next April. She has been a contributor to The New Yorker for the past decade.

Stephen King has published more than forty books, including the novels ?Carrie,? ?The Shining,? and, most recently, ?The Dark Tower VII?; the story collections ?The Man in the Black Suit? and ?Everything?s Eventual?; and the personal history ?On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,? parts of which were originally published in The New Yorker.

George Saunders is the author of the short-story collections ?CivilWarLand in Bad Decline? and ?Pastoralia?; parts of both books were originally published in The New Yorker. His new book, ?The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil,? is out this month, and a story collection, ?The Red Bow,? is forthcoming next year.

Celeste Bartos Forum
The New York Public Library
Entrance on 42nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues