Fall for the Book 2019: Full Schedule

7:00pm EDT

Better Said Than Done Presents True Lies: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Join Catherine Calvin, Lisa Leibow, Miriam Nadel, Jessica Robinson, Jack Scheer, Cyndi Wish, and Sufian Zhemukhov for True Lies: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, a night of true (or maybe not?) personal storytelling about big lies, white lies, and big, fat liars. Better Said Than Done is an exciting community of professional storytellers who produce themed personal storytelling shows that are energetic, engaging, and highly entertaining.

Speakers

Jessica Robinson

Storyteller and author Jessica Robinson began performing stories in front of audiences in 2007, performing for Better Said Than Done, Story District, Tales in the Village, The Grapevine, Perfect Liars Club and GMU’s Fall for the Book Festival, and at such venues as Jammin’ Java... Read More →

Jack Scheer

Jack Scheer has been telling stories with Better Said Than Done since 2015. Prior to that, he spent nearly three decades telling other people’s stories as an actor and director in community theater, performing with groups including the Vienna Theatre Company, McLean Theatre Alliance... Read More →

Catherine Calvin

Catherine Calvin is employed by Richmond based Sandpiper Hospitality as the Corporate Director of Business Development. In this role, she leads a Division of 21 hotels across multiple states in developing and implementing a customized sales strategy as well as training and mentoring... Read More →

Lisa Lipkind Leibow

Author Lisa Lipkind Leibow writes and teaches writing in the DC Metro Area including George Washington University and Northern Virginia Community College. Visit http://www.LLLeibow.com for more information. Lisa Lipkind Leibow is the author of The Plastic World of Ruthie Rosenblum, a Faulkner-Wisdom Novel Finalist. She’s a grant recipient and resident at the Vermont Studio Center, and the winner of Pitchapalooza D.C. Lisa holds a Masters from Johns Hopkins Uni... Read More →

Miriam Nadel

Miriam Nadel is an aerospace engineer, craftswoman, blogger, and traveler. She is also the Virginia State Liaison for the National Storytelling Network and on the board of Voices in the Glen. For nearly 30 years, she has told personal stories, folk tales, and original fairy tales... Read More →

Cyndi Wish

As a child, Cyndi Wish wanted to become a surgeon, a mob wife, and a roller derby athlete. As an adult she has been a teacher, a cook, a migrant farmer, a waitress, a book store retail clerk, a babysitter, a veterinary technician, a consultant, and a non-profit administrator. Cyndi... Read More →

Sufian Zhemukhov

Sufian Zhemukhov is a storyteller and award-winning author. He told his stories for PBS, National Storytelling Festival, Better Said Than Done, Story District, and The Moth. He has performed solo shows, Flirting Like An American, at 2019 Fringe Festivals in Washington, DC and Rochester... Read More →

Thursday October 10, 2019 7:00pm - 8:15pm EDT
The Auld Shebeen

Performance

6:30pm EDT

Musical Barn Raising: How to Nurture Music in Your Community

Are you a music lover? Do you play an instrument or simply want to support more music in your community? Gayla M. Mills discusses her new book Making Music For Life: Rediscover Your Musical Passion, which explains the ways in which you can host your own house concerts or get involved with local music groups that depend on volunteers. She encourages musicians to teach music to novices, create jam groups, mentor the next generation, and perform in hospitals, schools, and other organizations. She also discusses how amateur musicians can use music to live and age well. Stay after the reading for a piano and cello duet. Sponsored by the City of Fairfax.

Speakers

Gayla Mills

Gayla M. Mills, author of Making Music for Life: Rediscover Your Musical Passion, is a hobbyist bass player, harmony singer, and former college writing instructor. Returning to music to help her husband record his songs, Gayla discovered a new life in a rich musical circle. Together... Read More →

Friday October 11, 2019 6:30pm - 7:45pm EDT
Old Town Hall

Performance

12:00pm EDT

A Celebration of 20 Years of Kid Pan Alley

Enjoy a 20th-anniversary concert celebrating Kid Pan Alley’s new album release and the donation of the Kid Pan Alley and Paul Reisler archives to Mason Libraries’ Special Collections. With over 2,700 hundred KPA songs written with 65,000 children, the Kid Pan Alley Band and Three Good Reasons will be performing some of their favorite songs from the vast KPA catalog along with Reisler’s compositions. Sponsored by George Mason University Libraries Special Collections Research Center and the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Speakers

Paul Reisler

Kid Pan Alley’s mission is to inspire and empower children to work together to become creators of their own music. Over the past 20 years, they have composed over 2,700 hundred songs with kids. Their songs have been recorded by artists including Amy Grant, Sissy Spacek, Delbert... Read More →

Saturday October 12, 2019 12:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
Harris Theater, George Mason University

Performance

8:00pm EDT

Literary Death Match

Enjoy Fall for the Book’s own Literary Death Match “after party” hosted by Adrian Todd Zuniga. Called “the most entertaining reading series ever” by the LA Times, it brings together three judges and four readers for a night of competition, literature, and fun. Tonight’s line up includes Rion Amilcar Scott, Christina Dalcher, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Randon Billings Noble, Kasha Patel, and Tayla Burney.

Like all Fall for the Book events (except where noted), this event is free and does not require a ticket.

Speakers

Zach Powers

Zach Powers is a native of Savannah, Georgia, and lives in Arlington, Virginia. His novel, First Cosmic Velocity, was published in August 2019 by Putnam, and his debut story collection, Gravity Changes, won the BOA Short Fiction Prize and was published in 2017. His work has been featured... Read More →

Kasha Patel

Science journalist by day and stand-up comic by night, Kasha Patel has a unique voice that couples life as an Indian-American and her love for science. She was listed on Thrillist magazine’s “Best Undiscovered Comedians in the US” where she was called a unicorn for her uniqueness... Read More →

Rion Amilcar Scott

Rion Amilcar Scott is the author of the story collection, The World Doesn't Require You (Norton/Liveright, August 2019). His debut story collection, Insurrections (University Press of Kentucky, 2016), was awarded the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Hillsdale... Read More →

Tayla Burney

Tayla Burney is a longtime journalist, writer, and an avid reader who curates a weekly newsletter highlighting author events and other literary happenings in and around the nation's capital called Get Lit D.C. Her book reviews have appeared in The Washington Post and the Washington Independent Review of Books and she is frequently in conversation with authors at D.C.'s local independent bookstores and at literary festivals... Read More →

Christina Dalcher

Christina Dalcher earned her doctorate in theoretical linguistics from Georgetown University. She specializes in the phonetics of sound change in Italian and British dialects and has taught at several universities. Her short stories and flash fiction appear in more than one hundred... Read More →

Randon Billings Noble

Randon Billings Noble is an essayist. Her collection Be with Me Always was publishedby the University of Nebraska Press in March 2019, and her lyric essay chapbookDevotional was published by Red Bird in 2017. Individual essays have appeared in theModern Love column of The New York... Read More →

Amaud Jamaul Johnson

Amaud Jamaul Johnson is the author of two poetry collections, Red Summer and Darktown Follies. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University, he is the winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Dorset Prize... Read More →

Adrian Todd Zuniga

Adrian Todd Zuniga is the author of the debut novel, Collision Theory (Rare Bird Books, 2018), a Foreword Indies Finalist for Fiction and a St. Louis Post-Dispatch best seller. He's the host/creator/CCO of Literary Death Match (now featured in over 60 cities worldwide) and host of... Read More →

Saturday October 12, 2019 8:00pm - 9:15pm EDT
Harris Theater, George Mason University

Performance