Here are my upcoming, recorded, and selected past events. Please note that some of these are free and others need tickets — the information is on the sites. And check back for new additions!

Recorded Events

Recorded on November 16, 2020. Virtual Launch for Ron Nyren’s The Book of Lost Light, in conversation with Ann Packer, Angela Pneuman, Ann Cummins, Lisa Michaels, Cornelia Nixon, Rafael Yglesias, and Vendela Vida, hosted by Evan Karp for The Booksmith/The Bindery.

Recorded on July 14, 2020. Image Journal’s Summer Stage with Tuesday Talks at noon PT and Friday Night Lights at 5 p.m. PT (film, theater watch parties, house concerts, dance, curator talks, and more). Now available in archives, by subscription. Discussion with Melissa Pritchard: the intersection of art, politics, and theater, writing short stories and novels, and give short readings from our new work, including my new post-apocalyptic Noah’s ark story, “Rising with the Seas.”

Recorded on April 12, 2020. Jewish Learning Works, StoryForward, "Exile at Home" series, with Dan Schifrin, Marika Brussel, and Caroline Kessler, a conversation on creativity and humor. Co-presented by JCC of the East Bay, Jewish Community Library, and jewishLIVE Connect. Youtube recording here.

Annie Kim’s “Way Off-Site 2020” virtual reading series gives us a chance to hear some of the writers who would have been at AWP San Antonio. You can find the list of writers and links to the short Youtube videos of us reading from our work here (click “Playlists” to see all the readers). And here is my own short reading from Hungry Ghost Theater.

Past Events

AWP 2023, Seattle, Saturday March 11, 2023, “The Other World in This: An Image Journal Reading (Scott Cairns, Joyelle McSweeney, Sarah Stone, Fady Joudah, Shane A. McCrae)” In-person event. Poets, novelists, and essayists from Image journal upend our assumptions about religion. Rather than escaping the world or evading humanity, writing that grapples with spiritual struggle is deeply attuned to the hopes and heartbreak of this world. Precisely because it doesn’t shy away from enduring themes of religious devotion, such writing probes the depths of human complexity and the visceral experience of being embodied.

Monday, January 11, 2021, 7:00 Pacific Time: Odd Mondays Reading Series Zoom event (free). In conversation with Ron Nyren: readings from The Book of Lost Light and Hungry Ghost Theater, with audience Q&A. Books available from Folio Books, either LIVE! at 3957 24th St. in Noe Valley or on foliosf.com. From the event description: “Partners in literature and love Ron Nyren and Sarah Stone chat about and read excerpts from their books…topics include how they met and became each other's beta readers; intersections between their characters & plots and their real-life histories; writing about art, theater, and mythology; and some of the surprising and interesting things they've learned while researching their books.”

Thursday, July 30, 2020, 8:30 p.m. PT. “Inappropriate Laughter.” The LABA East Bay events are going live and virtual at LABAZoom! Bruce Bierman, and I performing and reading new work, evening hosting and Inappropriate Laughter slide show by Sarah Wolfman-Robichaud.

November 23, 2019, LABA East Bay Launch Party: DRUNK, 7-10 p.m, JCC East Bay, reading, with readings, performances, and multi-media work by Rachel Berger, Bruce Bierman, Marika Brussel, Sara Felder, Caroline Kessler, Kiki Lipsett, Jake Marmer, and Dan Schifrin. You’ve seen wine paired with food, but how about wine paired with text? Help us launch LABA East Bay by joining local artists, an ancient text scholar, and a sommelier as we explore the complexities and contradictions of inebriation, with teachings, tastings, and performances.  

October 19, 2019, Litcrawl, “WTAW Press and Friends,” Third Haus, 6:30 p.m., Amber Butts, Olga Zilberbourg, Anita Felicelli, Meghan Flaherty, Ted Gioia, Louise Marburg, Ron Nyren, and Peg Alford Pursell.

June 20, 2019, The Story is the Thing, Kepler's Books, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, reading at 7:30 p.m., light refreshments and conversation at 7 p.m., with Kate Folk, Julie Lythcott-Haims, Jaya Padmanabhan, Ari Rosenschein, and Michael Shewmaker.

May 16, 2019, Octopus Literary Salon, Inside StoryTime, 7-9 p.m., 2101 Webster Street, Oakland, QUIDDITIES, James Warner, host, with Cheryl Ossola, Lynn Breedlove, Vincent Chu, and Linda Fiddler.

May 4, 2019, Bay Area Book Festival, 10:00 to 11:15 a.m., The Brower Center - Tamalpais Room, “Quest: Journeys Through Generations,” panel: Joan Frank, moderator, with Michael Levitin, Katja Petrowskaja. What if. Maybe. It could be. Where does seeking the truth slide into imagination? These three writers conjure compelling stories of Jewish generations past and present.

March 30, 2019, AWP Portland, Offsite reading: 6:00 p.m., Portland Northwest Hostel Cafe. Reading with Anita Felicelli, Jimin Han, Louise Marburg, Angela Mitchell, Barbara Roether, Naomi J. Williams, and Olga Zilberbourg. Read more about the event, including the authors' bios here.

March 28, 2019 AWP Portland, 9:00-10:15 a.m., A107-109, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1, “Writing the Transcendent,” panel with Courtney Sender, moderator, Goldie Goldbloom, Rahul Kanakia, and Yehoshua November. In our most enduring literature, the reader often experiences something ungraspable: a sudden sense of loss or delight or elevation, just beyond the realm of conscious reckoning. In this panel, we call it transcendence, and ask: What is that feeling, anyway? How do you write toward it? What's the relationship between the divine, the inspirational, the science fictional or fantastical? In this panel, five diverse writers of the numinous and otherworldly will discuss the deep mysteries of writing.

March 28, 2019, AWP Portland, 3:00 to 4:00 p.m., Bookfair, WTAW Press: 8096, book signing for Hungry Ghost Theater

March 22, 2019, Stories on Stage Sacramento, 7:00 p.m., doors open, 7:30 p.m., Sue Staats, host, staged reading from Hungry Ghost Theater. With Tim Foley.

March 13, 2019, Word Week 2019, Umpqua Bank Noe Valley, 3938 24th St., SF, Rick May, organizer, Cara Black, host. Publishers: J.K. Fowler, Nomadic Press; Jennifer Joseph, Manic D Press; Emily Wolahan, Two Lines Press; Peg Alford Pursell, Why There Are Words Press. 6:45/7pm to 7:15pm: display tables and refreshments, 7:15pm to 8pm, reading with Jon Longhi and James Cagney.

March 2, 2019, Babylon Salon, SF, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., Laurie Ann Doyle, Ryan Sloan, and Maury Zeff, hosts, reading with Joe Loya, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, Maw Shein Win, and Irving Ruan

February 28, 2019, “Shape,” The Racket Reading Series, Adobe Books, SF, Noah Sanders, host, reading with Brittany Ackerman, Hadas Goshen, James Cagney, Matt Carney, Kar Johnson, Laura Freymiller and Michelle Schlachta, 7:00 to 8:30 p.m.

February 3, 2019, “This is Definitely Not the Superbowl,” WTAW LA, 6:30 p.m., Patrick O’Neil and Ashley Perez, hosts, reading with Dennis Cruz, Alex Espinoza, Anita Gill, Natalie Graham, and Lauren Marks

January 27, 2019, Mrs. Dalloway’s, Berkeley, 3:00 p.m., reading and signing

January 5, 2019, Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, Blue Ridge Center, Region Room, Blue Ridge Assembly, Asheville, NC, 9:30 a.m., “Eruption/Incandescence,” craft lecture

January 3, 2019, Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, Blue Ridge Center, Region Room, Blue Ridge Assembly, Asheville, NC, 8:00 p.m., reading with Jane Hamilton, Reginald Gibbons, T. Geronimo Johnson, and Pablo Medina

November 29, 2018, Green Apple Books, Clement St., SF, 7:00 p.m., reading and signing

November 7, 2018, Book Passage, Corte Madera, 7 p.m., reading and signing

October 19, 2018, Litquake, Center for the Book in SF, 7 to 8:30 p.m., The Novel and the World panel (moderator) with Judy Juanita, Michael David Lukas, Nayomi Munaweera, and Ethel Rohan. A conversation exploring how the novelists on the panel work with political, social, and historical context in ways that feel true to the characters and story and also allow for bold, iconoclastic reinventions of the novel.

Oct 11, 2018, WTAW Sausalito, 7:15 p.m. reading, book launch for Hungry Ghost Theater and Angela Mitchell’s Unnatural Habitats & Other Stories. Reading with Lisa Locascio, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Louise Marburg, Angela Mitchell, Natalie Singer, and Terese Svoboda.