The Sleeping Giant Reading Series brings writers and book lovers together on the third Thursday of the month. In the long shadow of Hamden’s Sleeping Giant, writers of every kind gather to hear professional readings, raise a glass, network, and support one another’s work. All are welcome, whether you’re a scribbler who hasn’t yet dared to call yourself a “writer” or an experienced published author.
For November’s Installment, our guest readers are novelist Marilyn Simon Rothstein and flash fiction writer Paul Beckman.
Join us for first-hour readings by our guest writers, including some of the great voices of our day, followed by Writers’ Happy Hour, a chance to meet fellow writers, ask questions, lend your support, and have fun together!
Curated by local writers Alice Mattison, Sandi Shelton (aka Maddie Dawson), Kathy Czepiel, and Heather Jessen, the Sleeping Giant Reading Series happens every third Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. at Best Video Film and Cultural Center in Hamden, Connecticut. The Sleeping Giant Reading Series is free to attend. Donations at the door for our guest readers are always appreciated.
Marilyn Simon Rothstein is the author of four comic novels: Who Loves You Best, Crazy to Leave You, Husbands and Other Sharp Objects, and Lift and Separate. She grew up in New York City, earned a degree in journalism from New York University, began her writing career at Seventeen magazine, married a man she met in an elevator, and owned an advertising agency for twenty-five years. Her work explores the fun of dysfunctional families, the joys of marriage and parenthood--and as the bestselling author Kristan Higgins puts it, “If you don’t laugh while reading Marilyn Simon Rothstein, you’re dead inside.”
Paul Beckman’s newest book of flash fiction, a finalist for Best Indie Collection 2024, is Becoming Mirsky. Nancy Stohlman wrote that in it “we traverse the full range of Beckman's talents—the ironic, the asinine, and the wonderfully ridiculous, yes, but also the difficult, the poignant, and the downright tragic.” Paul has published several other collections and more than 750 stories in magazines all over the world; a story of his was selected for the 2018 Norton Anthology New Micro Exceptionally Short Fiction.
