ACTORS & ARTISTS
Aimee Bender is the author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, An Invisible Sign of My Own, Willful Creatures, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, winner of the SCIBA award for best fiction and an Alex Award, and The Color Master. Her short fiction has appeared in Granta, GQ, Harper’s, Tin House, McSweeney’s, and The Paris Review, among other publications. Bender’s work has been honored with two Pushcart Prizes. Her third novel, The Butterfly Lampshade, was published in 2020 and was longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Award.
Hope Davis has appeared in the films About Schmidt; American Splendor; Synecdoche, New York; Captain America: Civil War; and Rebel in the Rye, among others. On television, Davis’s credits include In Treatment, The Newsroom, The Special Relationship, Allegiance, American Crime, Wayward Pines, with recent recurring roles in the series For the People, Strange Angel, Love Life, Succession, and the miniseries Your Honor. Her theater credits include Ivanov, Two Shakespearean Actors, Spinning Into Butter, Food Chain, Measure for Measure, God of Carnage, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award, and The Red Barn. Upcoming projects include Asteroid City and Cat Person.
Andrew Driver has been translating Japanese for nearly three decades. He is a former resident of Tokyo, where he kick-started the Hysterick Theatre project and was featured in the radio drama Woody's Week. In 2005 he conceived, compiled, and translated Salmonella Men on Planet Porno, the first English-language collection of Yasutaka Tsutsui’s short stories, followed by the novel Paprika.
Kennedy Kanagawa is a New York City - based actor who was born in Japan. His New York theater credits include Decky Does a Bronco with the Royal Family Theater; Saturday Night — In Concert at 2nd Stage; Lolita, My Love with the York Theatre Company; Dinner with Georgette at New York Theatre Workshop Next Door; The Good Swimmer at BAM; Into the Woods — In Concert at Prospect Theater with the National Asian Artists Project; We Have Apples at West End Theater; and Oedipus for Kids! at 54 Below. Kanagawa has appeared in the USA television series Donny! and the short film Screen Test for the New York Flash Film Festival.
John Cameron Mitchell is the co-creator of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He also directed the films Shortbus, Rabbit Hole, and How to Talk to Girls at Parties. His TV acting credits include Shrill, Girls, Mozart in the Jungle, and The Good Fight. He's toured internationally with The Origin of Love: The Songs and Stories of Hedwig. Mitchell is the co-creator of the musical podcast series Anthem: Homunculus with Bryan Weller, featuring himself, Glenn Close, Denis O'Hare, Patti Lupone, Cynthia Erivo, and Nakhane. His ongoing music project is New American Dream, a collaboration with Ezra Furman, Alynda Segarra, Wynton Marsalis, and many others. Mitchell is featured in the podcast Hot White Heist and will star in the forthcoming mini-series The Sandman and Joe Exotic.
Benjamin Rosenbaum is the author of the collection The Ant King and Other Stories. His stories have been nominated for Hugo, Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, BSFA, and World Fantasy awards, among others, and have been featured in publications such as Nature, Harper's, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov's Science Fiction, McSweeney's, and Strange Horizons. Rosenbaum’s novel The Unraveling was published in June 2021.
Marian Seldes (1928 - 2014) was a presence in film, television, and the theater for more than 60 years. A five-time Tony Award nominee, she performed on Broadway in Dinner at Eight, The Play About the Baby, The Butterfly Collection, Ring Around the Moon, Ivanov, Medea, Ondine, Father's Day, A Delicate Balance, for which she earned a Tony Award, and Deuce, among others. Her numerous film and television credits include Westinghouse Studio One, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Design for Loving, Truman, Sex and the City, Home Alone 3, and The Extra Man. Seldes was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame 1996. In 2006, she received the Drama League’s Unique Contribution to the Theatre Award, and in 2010, she received the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Yasutaka Tsutsui is a Japanese novelist, science fiction author, and actor. He won the Tanizaki Prize in 1987, the Izumi Kyoka Award in 1981, the Kawabata Yasunari Award in 1989, and the Nihon SF Taisho Award in 1992. His works include The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Gaspard in the Morning, What the Maid Saw, Salmonella Men on Planet Porno, Hell, Paprika, and The Bullseye!
CREDITS
“The Rememberer” by Aimee Bender. Copyright © 1998 by Aimee Bender. Used by permission of Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Agency. Collected in New Sudden Fiction: Short-Short Stories from America and Beyond (W.W. Norton).
“Rumors About Me” by Yasutaka Tsutsui, from Salmonella Men on Planet Porno. Copyright © 1979 by Yasutaka Tsutsui. Translation copyright © 2006 by Andrew Driver. Originally appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story. Used by permission of Robin Straus Agency, Inc.
“The Orange” by Benjamin Rosenbaum, from Flash Fiction Forward (Norton, 2006). First published in Quarterly West 54 (Spring/Summer 2002). Copyright © 2002 by Benjamin Rosenbaum. Used by permission of the author.
