Join American Short Fiction for their second installment of Story Sessions, a literary series that brings exceptional authors together for a freewheeling discussion about the power of stories and the ways we share them. ASF welcomes the National Book Award–winning novelist Susan Choi to the stage alongside acclaimed novelist (and First Light member!) Deb Olin Unferth.

This event is free and open to the public and ASL interpretation will be provided. Books will be available for purchase onsite from First Light.

About the authors

Susan Choi's latest novel is Flashlight, which is currently longlisted for the Booker Prize. She is also the author of Trust Exercise, which received the National Book Award for fiction, and the novels The Foreign Student, American Woman, A Person of Interest, and My Education. She is a recipient of the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction, the PEN/W. G. Sebald Award, a Lambda Literary award, the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Deb Olin Unferth is the author of six books, including the novels Barn 8 and Vacation, the story collection Wait Till You See Me Dance, and the memoir Revolution, finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award. Her next novel, Earth 7, is forthcoming in 2026. Her work appears in Harper’s, the Paris Review, Granta, and the New York Times Magazine.  A recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and a professor at the University of Texas in Austin, she teaches for the Michener Center for Writers and the New Writers’ Project.