Wednesday, March 28 - Dwight Yates Reads

Tonight at 8 PM on KPFK, 90.7 FM:  DWIGHT YATES.  I present a special performance edition of the program tonight, part of a series of recordings of important local authors who’ve generously come to the KPFK studios to record themselves reading a single, complete, stand-along short story or novel excerpt.  This week my guest is Dwight Yates, an extraordinary and much-esteemed writer of short stories.  He is the author of two collections:  Haywire Hearts and Slide Trombones, winner of the Serena McDonald Kennedy Award from Snake Nation Press and  Bring Everybody, which won the Juniper Prize.  His work has appeared widely, and he taught for many years at UC Riverside.  Dwight Yates’s stories are intimate, generous, sly considerations of family and relationships, of characters made strong in their weakness, or foolish or vulnerable, with the readers sorting out their affections as if we weren’t one of them.  Empathy and wisdom happen here, achieved in elegant and beautiful language.  Tonight Yates reads his lovely short story  “Persimmons.”  I hope you enjoy this as much as I do, being read to by the author.  (Pretty much only on our community radio station.)  Again, thanks for listening, live on the radio or online, and anytime you like as a free download from the KPFK archives.  Both of Yates’ books are in print, and available at your local independent bookseller.