Leading up to the conference Communal Presence: New Narrative Writing Today, we present three readings exploring the New Narrative form, in addition to a Poets Theater performance. The first reading features Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian, iconic New Narrative writers of the Bay Area and coeditors of Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative 1977–1997.

Kevin Killian, one of the original New Narrative writers, has written three novels, a book of memoirs, four books of stories, and four books of poetry. He has become well known for his biographical and editorial work on the American poet Jack Spicer (1925–1965) and is now, with Kelly Holt, editing Spicer’s letters for Wesleyan University Press. For the San Francisco Poets Theater Killian has written forty-five plays, and the anthology he compiled with David Brazil—The Kenning Anthology of Poets Theater 1945–1985—has become the standard book on the subject. Recent projects include Tagged, Killian’s intimate photographs of poets, artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and intellectuals. 

Dodie Bellamy writes genre-bending works that focus on sexuality, politics, and narrative experimentation, challenging the distinctions between fiction, essay, and poetry. Her most recent collection is When the Sick Rule the World, from Semiotext(e). Her reflection on the Occupy Oakland movement, “The Beating of Our Hearts,” was published as a chapbook in conjunction with the 2014 Whitney Biennial.