The
Hudson Valley Writers' Centerpresents a reading with
Joshua Furst
and Tanuja Desai Hidier
Thursday, July 24th, 2003, 7:30 pm
SHORT AND CONFUSED
Being young isn’t easy, and these two fiction writers set out to prove it in debut books that delight as well as reveal.
Tanuja
Desai Hidier’s Born Confused (Scholastic) tells the
story of an Indian-American teen in suburban New Jersey, Dimple Lala;
her blue-eyed, blonde, best friend Gwyn; the son of friends from India,
Karsh Kapoor; and others. Neela Banerjee, Editor-in-Chief of Asian
Week, calls this “The first-ever Indian American teen girl book. (Hidier)
sucked me in with her hilarious situations, larger-than-life characters
and unsinkable heart...I have been waiting for it all my life.” Booklist
says: “(Dimple’s) narrative is a feast for the senses, creating a reading
experience that is unusual in YA literature today.” It has also been a
popular success (Larry King Pick of the Week, etc.). www.thisistanuja.com
Joshua
Furst’s collection of ten stories, Short People (Knopf),
is also unsentimental, affectionate and humorous. Kirkus’s starred
review calls the work “harrowing” and summarizes: “A thoroughly original
take on the experience of being a kid, and wishing the whole baffling
business of growing and changing would just go away.” One story in the
book won a 1997 Nelson Algren Award, another was a finalist in the 2001
Playboy College Fiction Contest. His fiction has also been published
in The Chicago Tribune, The Crab Orchard Review and other periodicals.
Furst is an award-winning playwright as well and the recipient of a James
Michener - Paul Engle Fellowship.
Hidier now lives in London where she won the 2001 London Writers Award for fiction and where she is lead vocalist/lyricist in a melodic rock band that is working on a soundtrack of original songs based on her book. Furst has lived in various places in the U.S., has traveled extensively in Europe and Asia, and now lives in NYC. He is working on a novel about punk rock.
Suggested Donation: $5 ($3 for members)
The readings at the HVWC are made possible in part by a grant from the Bydale Foundation; the Taft Foundation; and the Thendara Foundation; with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts; and by Westchester Arts Council with funds from Westchester County Government, corporations and individuals.