Stories. Performed.

Stellar writing showcased by professional actors.

Featuring

  • LORI OSTLUND's third book is the story collection Are You Happy? (Astra House, May 2025). Her novel After the Parade (Scribner, 2015) was a B&N Discover pick, a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and a NYTimes Editors’ Choice. Her first book, The Bigness of the World (UGA, 2009; Scribner, 2016), received the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, and the California Book Award for First Fiction. Her stories have appeared in the Best American Short Stories, the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, ZYZZYVA,  and New England Review, among other places. Lori has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award and was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. She has served as the series editor of the Flannery O’Connor Award since 2022 and is on the board of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She lives in San Francisco with her wife, the writer Anne Raeff. 

    Photo Credit: Dennis Hearne

  • CHRISTINE MURPHY has lived, worked, and traveled in more than a hundred countries, including living for eleven months in a tent across the African continent and a year as a resident in a Buddhist nunnery in the Himalayas. A trained Buddhologist, Murphy has a Ph.D. in religious studies. This is her first novel.

Performed By

  • Kelley Ogden is reading “The Bus Driver” by Lori Ostlund

    Kelley Ogden is an actress, director, and producer who has performed locally with Capital Stage, Davis Shakespeare Festival, Main Street Theater Works, Falcons Eye Theatre, Celebration Arts, Sacramento Shakespeare Festival, and Theater Galatea among others. She also co-founded KOLT Run Creations, an award-winning experimental theater company, with her wife, local director Lisa Thew. Kelley has a BFA in Performance from The Theatre School at DePaul University and spent her youth working with companies all over the country, including Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago and Stages Repertory in Houston. Currently, Kelley works primarily behind the mic as voice talent for short films and podcasts. She loves gardening, baking, sports, and reading amazing works from local authors.

  • Kaitlin Richards is reading from Notes on Surviving the Fire by Christine Murphy

    Kaitlin Richards holds a BA in Theatre from Sac State and is currently pursuing a M.eD in Theatre Pedagogy. Her original plays If We Shadows Have Offended, Graceland, and Waiting for Cortado have all been produced in the Sacramento area. Recent acting credits include The Flick (Big Idea Theatre), Self Torture and Strenuous Exercise (Resurrection Theatre), and Much Ado About Nothing (Big Idea Theatre).

CapLit’s next event takes place on Friday, May 9th at the CLARA auditorium, featuring the work of writers Lori Ostlund and Christine Murphy.   

These two writers are a powerhouse duo. Lori Ostlund’s Are You Happy, received a starred review in Kirkus Reviews. "These nine startling stories capture the subtleties of feeling—and being made to feel—out of place ... These stories are not comfortable worlds to inhabit, but they are precise and endlessly fascinating ones. Ostlund proves herself a master of the form."   

Christine Murphy's Notes on Surviving the Fire received this praise in The New Yorker: "The narrative is ... layered, with a thriller’s bones, a satire’s glare, and a comeuppance story’s anarchic spirit."

While our reading series comes with a suggested donation of $10, we actively encourage audience members from all income levels to participate. We never want our requested donation to be the reason you stay home.

Doors open at the CLARA auditorium at 6:30 PM.  We look forward to welcoming you!