Joan Silber and Karen Bender

Wednesday, October 28 7:00 PM

Concord Art Association
37 Lexington Rd A, Concord, MA

register today!

Novelists Joan Silber (MERCY) and Karen E. Bender (THE WORDS OF DR. L), both published by Counterpoint Press, will read from their newest novels followed by a Q&A. The Concord Bookshop will be there with copies for attendees to purchase and have signed by the authors.

Presenter: Tracy Winn, author of MRS. SOMEBODY SOMEBODY and the forthcoming RIVER IN THE HOUSE, and curator of the Independent Press Prose reading series at Concord Art, will introduce the authors.

Karen Bender

I am the author of the story collection Refund, published by Counterpoint Press in 2015; it was a Finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction, and it was also on the shortlist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize. It was also a Los Angeles Times bestseller. All three of my collections–Refund, The New Order, and The Words of Dr. L–were Longlisted for the Story Prize. The Words of Dr. L was one of Kirkus Reviews’ 100 Best Books of 2025. I’m also the author of the novels Like Normal People, (Houghton Mifflin) which was a Los Angeles Times bestseller, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and A Town of Empty Rooms (Counterpoint Press). 

Joan Silber

Joan Silber was raised in New Jersey and received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied writing with Grace Paley. She moved to New York after college and has made it her home ever since. She holds an M.A. from New York University.

She’s written ten books of fiction--most recently, Mercy, out in fall 2025.  Secrets of Happiness was a Washington Post Best Book of the year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction of the Year.  Improvement won The National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award.  She also received the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.  Her other works of fiction include Fools, longlisted for the National Book Award and finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, The Size of the World, finalist for the Los Angeles Times Prize in Fiction, and Ideas of Heaven, finalist for the National Book Award and the Story Prize.  She’s also written Lucky Us, In My Other Life, and In the City (to be reissued by Hagfish in 2026), and her first book, Household Words, won the PEN/Hemingway Award.