On the ground in Buffalo, New York, or on the web at www.tleavesbooks.

com
3158 Main Street 14214 (716) 837-8554 951 Elmwood Avenue 14222 (716) 884-9524
independent bookstores nourish independent minds

For immediate releaseaward-winning writers Sarah Yaw and Laura

Donnelly to read together at Talking Leaves, Thursday, April 2
Especially for beginning writers, finishing the book is just the beginning of the work
finding the reading public is the next great challenge. Contests in which the winning
manuscript is awarded publication have been a trend in the independent press literary
world for the past couple of decades. Talking Leaves..Books is pleased to announce that on
Thursday, April 2, at 7 pm, we will host a reading by two young writers from Central New
York, both of whom recently published work in this manner. In addition to reading from
their work, fiction writer Sarah Yaw and poet Laura Donnelly will lead a discussion about
publication contests in the contemporary literary landscape. We hope to have
representatives of local small press publishing houses Starcherone and White Pineboth
run publication contestsand local writers who have submitted work to and/or won such
contests, join the conversation. The event is free and open to the public. Anyone wishing to
have books signed by the authors is expected to purchase them from Talking Leaves, as an
act of support and respect for the authors, their publishers, and the bookstore hosting the
event.
Sarah Yaw's debut novel You Are Free to Go (Engine Books) looks closely at the intersection
between life on the inside and outside of a prison in central New York. In You Are Free to Go, an
old prisoners death reverberates, both within and outside the prison walls. The novel examines
the forbidden crossroads between a prison and the town that surrounds it. You Are Free to Go as
selected by Robin Black (Life Drawing) as the winner of the 2013 Engine Books Novel Prize,
and Kirkus called it an "intriguing debut" that explores "regret and anguish and separation in all
their forms." Sarah Yaw received an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is an assistant
professor at Cayuga Community College.
Donnellys poetry collection Watershed (Cider Press Review) focuses on small moments and
gestures, exploring the speakers coming of age and the depictions of women in art and culture.
Watershed won the 2013 Cider Press Review Editors prize and was a finalist for the University
of Wisconsin Press Brittigham and Pollak Prizes. Nancy Eimers (Oz) calls Watershed, a book of
crossings and encounters, observer with painting, musician with elusive notes, cloud shadow with
wharf, lover with lover.an exquisite debut collection. Laura Donnelly holds an MFA from
Purdue University and a PhD from Western Michigan University, where she was editor of the
literary magazine Third Coast. She is an assistant professor at SUNY-Oswego.
Talking LeavesBooks has been an active supporter and promoter of work from literary small
presses since it was founded 40 years ago, and has been actively engaged in national
conversations about the economics and politics of independent press publishing as well.
For more information please contact Jonathon Welch at Talking LeavesBooks, 716.837.8554,
or e-mail tleaves@tleavesbooks.com .