Each year, Litquake asks authors to create and share short original stories on a common theme. This year, in conjunction with the citywide Evolve 2009 celebration of the life and work of Charles Darwin, Kathryn Ma, Lori Ostlund, Cornelia Nixon, Sylvia Brownrigg, Russell Hill, and Chelsea Martin will write and read on the theme: “Survival of the Fittest.”

Co-sponsored by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library

Sylvia Brownrigg

Sylvia Brownrigg is the author of five novels. Her latest, The Delivery Room, was winner of the 2009 Northern California Book Award in fiction. Her work has been on the New York Times list of notable fiction.

Russell Hill

Russell Hill, author of The Lord God Bird, a suspense novel set in the deep South, has been a writer and teacher for more than 50years. His novel Robbie’s Wife, was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award.

Kathryn Ma

Kathryn Ma is the winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award for her book, All That Work and Still No Boys, published in September 2009. She won the 2008 Meyerson Prize for Fiction.

Chelsea Martin

Chelsea Martin is the author of Everything Was Fine Until Whatever, published by Future Tense Books. She is 23 and lives in Oakland. Her website is jerkethics.com.

Cornelia Nixon

Cornelia Nixon’s published novels are Now You See It, Angels Go Naked and Jarrettsville. Her stories have won two O. Henrys (one a First Prize), two Pushcarts, a Nelson Algren and a Carl Sandburg Award.

Lori Ostlund

Lori Ostlund’s short story collection entitled The Bigness of the World won the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and will be published by the University of Georgia Press in October of 2009.