All-Star Reading From:

This Is Not Chick Lit:
Original Stories by America's Best Women Writers

With Contributors:

Jennifer Egan, author of The Keep

Lynne Tillman, author of
This Is Not It: Stories by Lynne Tillman

and more.

Hosted by
Elizabeth Merrick
editor of This Is Not Chick Lit and author of Girly

Talk • Booksigning

This is Not Chick Lit is a celebration of America’s most dynamic literary voices, as well as a much needed reminder that, for every stock protagonist with a designer handbag and three boyfriends, there is a woman writer pushing the envelope of literary fiction with imagination, humor, and depth. The original short stories in this collection touch on some of the same themes as chick lit–the search for love and identity–but they do so with extraordinary power, creativity, and range; they are also political, provocative, and, at turns, utterly surprising. Featuring marquee names as well as burgeoning talents, This is Not Chick Lit will nourish your heart, and your mind.

The collection features new short stories from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Aimee Bender, Jennifer Egan, Samantha Hunt, Francine Prose, Curtis Sittenfeld, Lynne Tillman and more.

“This Is Not Chick Lit is important not only for its content, but for its title. I’ll know we’re getting somewhere when equally talented male writers feel they have to separate themselves from the endless stream of fiction glorifying war, hunting and sports by naming an anthology This Is Not a Guy Thing.”
—Gloria Steinem

Jennifer Egan is the author of Look at Me, which was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award, The Invisible Circus, and the story collection Emerald City. Her nonfiction appears frequently in The New York Times Magazine. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.

Lynne Tillman is the author of the novels Haunted Houses; Motion Sickness; Cast in Doubt; and No Lease on Life, a New York Times Notable Book of 1998 and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and the story collections Absence Makes the Heart and The Madame Realism Complex. Tillman's fiction is anthologized in, among others, The New Gothic, The Norton Anthology of Postmodern Literature, The Time Out Book of New York Stories, and High Risk. She writes regularly on art, books, and culture and contributes frequently to artists' books and museum catalogues. She lives in New York.

Elizabeth Merrick is the founder and director of the Grace Reading Series and editor of forthcoming Random House anthology This Is Not Chick Lit. She received a BA from Yale, an MFA from Cornell, and an MA in Creativity and Art Education from San Francisco State. Recent honors include fellowships from the Saltonstall Foundation, the Ragdale Foundation, and VCCA. She has taught at NYU and Cornell, and currently lives in New York where she works as a writing coach and runs Elizabeth's Workshops , a popular writing school. Her first novel Girly was released in December 2005.

Photo © 2006 Joan Beard.

WORD FOR WORD is a Bryant Park lunchtime series presented in cooperation with Coliseum Books. Notable authors discuss their newest books at the Bryant Park Reading Room, alongside 42nd Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. Following the readings, the authors will sign books, for sale on site from Coliseum Books.

In case of rain, this event will be moved to the Coliseum Books Café.

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