According to a description on local resident Ian Stansel’s website, his new collection of short stories, Everybody’s Irish, is about “family, love, struggle, booze, drugs, art, football, horses, bicycles, death, sex, pain and protest in the great state of Illinois.” Hey, nobody said Stansel wasn’t ambitious, including the people who determine the works shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award Prize for debut fiction. The winner will be revealed Sept. 29, but, no matter the results, Stansel has now established himself as a significant new voice on the literary landscape. The author — who moved to Cincinnati in 2012 to be with his wife, writer Sarah Strickley — discusses Everybody’s Irish at Joseph-Beth Booksellers.
7 p.m. Tuesday. Free. 2692 Madison Road, Rookwood Pavilion, 513-396-8960, josephbeth.com.
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2014.