Friends, countrymen, lovers of fiction. Introducing the Half King’s First Ever (potentially annual, potentially daily, it’s up to you) SPRING FICTION NIGHT. You know us mostly for offering the best in narrative nonfiction, politics and journalism, with a little fiction here and there. But on the 19th of April, 2010, the liars have the floor.
 
Please help us welcome three of literature’s brightest young voices, and get some perspective on this crazy world. Discover a new favorite writer or heckle one you can’t stand. Either way, you can say you saw them first at the Half King.

Alethea Black’s debut collection of short stories, Wise As Serpents, Harmless As Doves, will be published by Broadway Books (Random House) in 2011. Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Antioch Review, American Literary Review, and many other magazines, and has been cited in The Best American Short Stories. She was awarded the 2008 Arts & Letters Prize. Ms. Black’s short fiction is being read at numerous venues around the country, and has been presented alongside that of Denis Johnson, Andrew Vachss and N. Scott Momaday, among others. Her first two plays were recently presented at Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC. Sharon Pomerantz, author of Rich Boy, observes that “Alethea Black writes with a deceptively light touch, yet her work packs a serious punch...There's a spiritual hunger in her stories reminiscent of Flannery O'Connor, combined with a voice that is all her own.” 

Clay McLeod Chapman is the author of Rest Area, a collection of short stories, and Miss Corpus, a novel—both published by Hyperion books. Miss Corpus was recognized in part of The New Yorker's "Reading Glasses" series in 2003. "If Chapman keeps up with the oddball characters, well-crafted stories, and critical plaudits, that Faulkner guy better watch out," the Village Voice’s Alexis Soloski wrote of him; and author Tom Robbins said of Chapman’s work, “Like a demonic angel on a skateboard, like a resurrected Artaud on methadrine, like a tattletale psychiatrist turned rodeo clown, Clay McLeod Chapman races back and forth along the serrated edges of everyday American madness, objectively recording each whimper of anguish, each whisper of skewed desire. This is strong stuff, intense stuff, sometimes disturbing stuff, but I think the many who admire Chuck Palahniuk will admire Chapman as well.”

M. Z. Ribalow has had 24 of his plays receive some 180 productions worldwide, including at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and numerous times in London and NY. They have won awards in London, New York, and regionally. He has also won national awards for fiction, his widely published poetry, and musical lyrics; co-written ten children’s books; and published articles on sports, music, theatre, literature, film, travel, and chess. He is Artistic Director of New River, which presents New River Fiction, including public readings of stories by Alice Munro, Denis Johnson, Deborah Eisenberg and T.C. Boyle, among many others. He is full-time Artist-in-Residence at Fordham University. In 2010, three different presses will publish his fiction, a new play and a collection of his poetry. Recently, The New York Times described his writing as “deceptively savvy… wrapped inside a pitch-perfect satire.”