Percival Everett in conversation with Robert Mailer Anderson

What stories shape the writers who shape us?

Please join us for a special evening at Arion Press with bestselling author Percival Everett (James ; Erasure) as he shares the five books that have most changed his life as a writer, a reader, and a person.

Presented as the second installment of the 2026 Kirkpatrick Speaker Series at Arion Press, this conversation will weave personal stories and literary insights through Percival's reading life. The evening will be hosted by novelist Robert Mailer Anderson.

Doors open at 6 p.m. at the Bayfront Theater. A reception with drinks and light bites will follow in the Arion Press Gallery.

The Kirkpatrick Speaker Series is made possible by the generous support of Taylor Kirkpatrick.

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Percival Everett is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC. His latest novel, JAMES, was published in March of 2024 to great critical acclaim, winning both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His other titles include Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, Erasure, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award and The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. His next novel, Serious Music, will be published in 2027. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the writer Danzy Senna, and their children.

Robert Mailer Anderson is a writer, producer, activist, father of four, and 9th generation Californio. Anderson is the author of the forthcoming graphic novel “My Fairy Godfather,” co-writer/producer of the films “Windows on the World” (also made into a graphic novel), cult horror film “Pig Hunt”, the novel “Boonville,” play “The Death of Teddy Ballgame,” and has been a contributor to The Anderson Valley Advertiser for 40 years, among publishing work in other publications. He was appointed by Governor Newsom to the California Humanities Board in 2020, is a member of PEN Oakland, and on the advisory board of Los Cenzontles. As a music producer, he has been nominated for three Grammy Awards and won two NAACP Image Awards. He was the 2013 Colonial Standard Bearer for the Selkirk Common Ride and received the San Francisco Arts Medallion in 2016.

Photo by Charlotte Lesnick

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