The Writers' Block: KQED's weekly reading series featuring fiction, poetry, theater and whatnot.

Ben Joseph reads "It's Not You, It's Your Uncontrollable Telekinesis," a completely true story loosely based on actual events.

Dan White reads "Operation Water Dump," a chapter from his book, The Cactus Eaters, which revolves around the extremely bad decision that inspired the book's title.

Naomi Williams reads "Sunday School," the story of a woman asked to teach a second-grade Sunday school class and the various scenarios that might follow.

Sloane Crosley reads a selection from her debut collection, I Was Told There'd Be Cake. In "The Pony Problem" she worries about what people might find in her apartment after an imagined freak accident.

Playground presents Delia MacDougall and Eric Fraisher Hayes in Kenn Rabin's short play, Reunion, the story of a convicted sex offender's arrival at his new home after being recently released from prison. Please Note: This episode contains adult language and situations.

Masha Tupitsyn reads "Kleptomania," the story of three intergenerational female movie icons meeting for cocktails at a bar. "Kleptomania" is from Tupitsyn's short story collection, Beauty Talk & Monsters.

Peter Nathaniel Malae reads "Turning Point," the story of an ex-con who realizes that life outside prison is just as dangerous as life behind bars. "Turning Point" is from Malae's short story collection, Teach the Free Man. Please Note: This episode contains adult language and situations.

Toby Barlow reads a passage from Sharp Teeth describing the decisive battle between two rival werewolf packs in Los Angeles.

Peter Orner reads "Pampkin's Lament," his Pushcart Prize-winning story about a man running for governor of Illinois who is about to lose more than just the election. "Pampkin's Lament" was originally published in McSweeney's. (Running Time: 17:12)

In Garret Jon Groenveld's short play Missive, a letter holds the key to one man's troubled past and his surprising present. Presented by PlayGround, with Eric Fraisher Hayes as Bobby.

Samantha Hunt reads a selection from The Invention of Everything Else, in which Nicola Tesla, a young inventor, makes his way to the workshops of his hero, Thomas Edison.

Michael Krasny reads the introduction to Off Mike, his memoir of talk radio and public life. (Running Time: 8:10)

Tom Dolby reads a selection from his second novel, The Sixth Form, in which one of his main characters, Todd Eldon, has an unhappy reunion with his ne'er do well father.

Ellis Avery reads a selection from The Teahouse Fire, in which Aurelia, an young American orphan, recounts the events that led her to the grounds of a Japanese tea ceremony school.

Jean-Pierre Lacrampe reads his prose poem, "Objects Of My Disaffection."

Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman read the prologue to A Version of the Truth, in which Cassie Shaw describes the aftermath of the accident that sent her husband to an early grave.

Paul Auster reads the first section of Travels in the Scriptorium, in which a man awakes to discover that he cannot remember who he is or how he has arrived in an unfamiliar room.

Jane Rhodes reads a selection from Framing the Black Panthers, which chronicles the Panthers' May 1967 protest of a gun-control bill at the California state capitol building in Sacramento.

PlayGround presents Danielle Levin, Eric Fraisher Hayes, Cat Thompson and Mark Farrell in Brady Lea's Sewermonster Diaries, a comic portrait of a woman who withdraws from society and descends sewers of San Francisco.

Pia Ehrhardt reads "Stop," from her collection Famous Fathers and Other Stories. If you are in need of some New Year's resolution advice, have a listen as Ehrhardt describes what you should most emphatically NOT do to change your life for the better. Please Note: This episode contains adult language and situations.

Toni Mirosevich reads the first story from her nonfiction collection, Pink Harvest. "The View" involves a homeless man, an acute care clinic in an urban hospital, and a viewfinder. It's a few days before Christmas.

Veronica Gonzalez reads a selection from her debut novel, twin time: or how death befell me, in which her main character, Mona, recounts her father's early childhood. (Running Time: 14:17)

Nora Pierce reads "East Side/West Side," a story about choosing sides, in which two eleven year olds try to "dance their way out of the ghetto."

Tess Urize Holthe reads a story from her collection The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes. In "The Flame," Serena barr visits an open house, which she believes belongs to her husband's ex-lover.

Joseph Lease reads a selection of poems from his collection Broken World.

Jean Thompson reads "Lost," the story of a '70s era college romance that goes bad. "Lost" is from Thompson's short story collection, Throw Like a Girl. Please Note: This episode contains adult language and situations.

In this excerpt from his novel The Futurist, James P. Othmer reads the career ending speech given by Yates, a consultant, guru and keynote speaker at the "Futureworld" conference.

Wesley Stace reads from the first section of his book, by George the story of the Fisher family, as told by two different boys named George: one a dummy owned by one of the greatest ventriloquists in WWII-era England, the other the eleven-year-old grandson of that ventriloquist, who uncovers secrets about his famous grandfather. In this excerpt, George, the ventriloguist's dummy describes his origins.

M. Allen Cunningham reads from Lost Son, his fictional biography of poet Rainer Maria Rilke. In this excerpt Rilke meets his lifelong muse, Lou Andreas-Salomé.

Elizabeth Bernstein reads her very short story, "Laundry Day."

Kiara Brinkman reads selections from her debut novel, Up High in the Trees.(original release date: Oct 10, 2007) view full episode

Armistead Maupin reads the first chapter of Michael Tolliver Lives, where we find Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, one of the most beloved characters in contemporary fiction, grappling with what it means to be a middle-aged gay man today. Please Note: This episode contains adult language and situations.

Andrew Sean Greer reads "Wakefield," a retelling of the Nathaniel Hawthorne story of a man who walks out his door one day and does not return for twenty years.

David Lozell Martin reads selections from his new novel, Our American King. In a near-future America, devastated by a recent cataclysm, Tazza, a presumptive king rises to power. In this selection, Tazza makes a speech in front of the White House that speaks to the current state of leadership and democracy in America.

George Saunders Bonus Feature: George Saunders reads a second selection from his non-fiction collection, The Braindead Megaphone. In an excerpt from "The New Mecca," Saunders checks out Dubai, the Vegas of the Middle East, and thinks about world peace.

George Saunders reads a selection from his non-fiction collection, The Braindead Megaphone. In "Manifesto," a press release from the People Reluctant to Kill For An Abstraction (PRKA), the group touts the success of its most recent initiative.

Playwright Garret Jon Groenveld introduces us to the story of Ondine and Him, star-crossed lovers from completely different worlds. How far will the white knight go to be with his mythical water nymph? With Gabriel Marin and Gwen Loeb and presented by PlayGround.

Sean Beaudoin reads his short story "Guerrero," which provides a view from the floor of a Guerrero Street flat. The story is from the "Love" edition of Instant City, a San Francisco literary quarterly.

In Gina Apostol's short story "Imeldific," a cohort of the dethroned first lady, Imelda Marcos, goes nuts in the aftermath of her heroine's downfall. Her daughter reflects with grim irony on the perils of life for women with bouffant hairdos in a newly emerging democracy.

Mike Carey reads a selection from The Devil You Know in which freelance exorcist, Felix Castor goes out for a pint with a few of the workers from a library haunted by a particularly nasty ghost.

San Francisco theater company, Word for Word perform a few scenes from Cornell Woolrich's Angel Face, a suspense-driven story from the pages of the famous pulp magazine, Black Mask. Angel Face is a wisecracking chorine with a beautiful face using all her charms to save her brother from a date with the electric chair.

Kenneth Walton reads an excerpt from Fake: Forgery, Lies and eBay, which details the downward spiral of greed that ultimately led to his federal felony conviction for selling paintings of questionable origin.

In this excerpt from the first chapter of Min Jin Lee's novel, Free Food for Millionaires, the Han family dinner is disrupted when a violent argument breaks out between Joseph and his eldest daughter Casey, who is home for the summer after graduating from Princeton. Please Note: This episode contains adult language.

In this selection from The King of Methlehem, author Mark Lindquist introduces "Howard Schultz," the self-proclaimed monarch of methamphetamine production in Pierce County, Washington and Wyatt James, the veteran police officer on his trail.

Playground presents John Patrick Moore and Gabriel Marin perform Tom Swift's short play, The Beginning, about the sweet, awkward and sometimes painful moments at the beginning of a new relationship. Jim Kleinmann directs.

Jeremy Larner reads three selections about art and artists from his poetry collection, Chicken on Church.

Jennifer Belle reads a selection from Little Stalker, which enters the chaotic mind of Rebekah Kettle, a one-time successful novelist (now hopelessly blocked), as she attends a book party for an attractive British novelist, delivers a signed copy of his book to her ex-boyfriend and remembers a trip to Disneyworld.

Ayelet Waldman reads her essay "Darling, I Like You That Way," in which she defends her not-so-secret wish that at least one of her two sons would turn out gay.

Nicole Mones reads the from her novel, The Last Chinese Chef. In this selection, the first chapter of a fictional Chinese food classic, also called The Last Chinese Chef, chef Liang Wei recounts his early life as a slave in the Forbidden City's palace kitchen.

Book #3 in Kottie Paloma's "Books on Tape" series, The Immense Complexities of Love captures the brief history of a relationship. (Running Time: 2:19)

Elaine Beale reads "The Increasing Crime Rate," a first-person nonfiction story inspired by the author's personal experiences in Oakland for the last half of 2006.

Pagan Kennedy reads the first chapter of The First Man-Made Man, her biography of Michael Dillon, the first female-to-male transsexual. (Running Time: 30:45)

Kristen Yawitz reads "Rear Views," a story from her unpublished collection Reward Body. (Running Time: 7:31)

Lisa Lutz reads a selection from her debut novel The Spellman Files, in which Isabel "Izzy" Spellman describes her younger sister, Rae.

Aaron Nielsen reads his short story, "Jimmy," the story of a sometimes awkward and difficult high school friendship between two boys; one gay, the other not.

Kurt Andersen reads a selection from Heyday, his sprawling novel of nineteenth century America. In this excerpt, amateur photographer Timothy Skaggs and volunteer fireman Duff Lucking photograph a Manhattan dairy fire.

Elizabeth Bernstein reads "Alice," the darkly comic story of Joel and Alice Holding, a brother and sister with a big problem on their hands -- the Guinea worm that emerges through the skin just below Alice's belly button.

Ben Greenman reads "Black, Grey, Green, Red, Blue: A Letter From a Famous Painter on the Moon" from his short story collection, A Circle Is a Balloon and Compass Both: Stories About Human Love.

China Miéville reads a selection from Un Lun Dun, in which twelve-year-old Zanna and her friend Deeba find a secret entrance leading to Un Lun Dun, an urban Wonderland of strange delights where all the lost and broken things of London end up . . . and some of its lost and broken people, too.

Lalita Tademy reads a selection from her novel, Red River, which tells how former slaves Lucy and Israel came to be together in Louisiana during Reconstruction.

Alex Espinoza reads the first chapter of his novel, Still Water Saints, describing a day in the life of the Botánica Oshún.

Claire Phillips reads her short story, "Tove's Secret Letter Writing Campaign," an action-packed, erotically charged rags-to-riches tale set in the United States of Beef at an unknown time in the future.

Howard Norman reads a selection from his novel, Devotion, describing the first meeting between David Kozol and Maggie Field at the Durrants Hotel in London.

PlayGround presents Anthony Nemirovsky and Kerri Shawn in Geetha Reddy's short play, Honey, I'm Home. Jim Kleinmann directs.

Craig Clevenger reads the first two chapters of his novel, Dermaphoria, in which Eric Ashworth awakens in jail, unable to remember how he got there or why.

Daniel Alarcón reads a selection from Lost City Radio, an emotionally raw story of the consequences of war. In this excerpt, Victor, a young boy from the jungle village of 1797, is sent to the capital to deliver a list of his village's missing to Norma, the voice of Lost City Radio. Norma's weekly show broadcasts the names of those who disappeared during the long conflict, both to reunite families and to keep the memories of the departed alive.

Sigrid Nunez reads a passage from The Last of Her Kind, an examination of the revolutionary era in which two women came of age. Ann and George's turbulent relationship begins when they are assigned to the same dorm room at Barnard College in 1968. In this excerpt, the two deal with the aftermath of George's rape.

William P. Arney of San Francisco's Noir City Film Festival reads "It Was the Meat," the first chapter of Mark Coggins' novel CANDY FROM STRANGERS, in which jazz bass-playing private eye August Riordan's gig at the venerable House of Shields bar doesn't go exactly as planned.

Sharon Olson reads several selections from A Long Night of Flying, her first full-length collection of poetry. (Running Time: 8:34)

Pati Poblete reads a couple of selections from her book, The Oracles, a memoir about the clash of values in a Filipino American household.

Stephen Elliott reads a chapter from My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up, a collection of true stories that wrestle with the unknown and unspoken essences of love. In "Three Men and a Woman" Elliott struggles to share his girlfriend with her husband -- and another man.

"All this time I've been leading up to this. God knows why I never wrote this, but I LOVE Prince. It's indescribable. He's my favorite everything! He's SOOO cool." Inspired by Mortified, Christina Nunez shares selections from the diary she kept as a thirteen year old obsessed with Prince.(original release date: Dec 27, 2006) view full episode

A whirlwind exploration of poverty and dropouts, Rose of No Man's Land is the world according to Trisha -- a furious love story between two weirdo girls, brimming with snarky observations and soulful wonderings on the dazzle-flash emptiness of contemporary culture.

Janet Fitch reads a selection from Paint It Black, in which teen runaway turned art model, Josie Tyrell meets her fiancé's mother, Meredith Loewy, a concert pianist who disapproves of her son's lifestyle.

Kate Atkinson reads a selection from One Good Turn, wherein Gloria, after witnessing a brutal fit of road rage, thinks back on her life with Graham, an unscrupulous real estate tycoon.

Jennifer Kirmse reads "Horus Hears a Ho," a series of entries from the journal she kept as a teenager, wherein she attempts to gain the attention and affection of her classmate and neighbor Horus. The piece is from Mortified: Real Words Real People Real Pathetic, an anthology of people's actual childhood writings, ripped from the pages of their lives and shared with total strangers.

Meg Tilly reads a selection from her novel Gemma, a disturbing, yet compelling exploration of the complex dynamics between a sexual predator and his teenage victim, told from the perspective of both the pedophile and his prey.

Allison Burnett reads the introduction to his novel The House Beautiful, wherein B.K. Troop, a witty, middle-aged, bipolar, alcoholic homosexual, describes how his life is turned upside down when he inherits his best friend's Manhattan brownstone.

Katherine Noel reads the first chapter of her novel Halfway House, describing the day that Angie Voorster -- diligent student, all-star swimmer, and Ivy League-bound high school senior -- dove to the bottom of a swimming pool and stayed there, throwing her close-knit family into turmoil.

Kelly Link reads "The Hortlak," from her short story collection Magic for Beginners. "The Hortlak" is a Turkish word, meaning revenant, or ghost. Eric and Batu work at the All Night Convenience store across the road from the Ausible Chasm, at the bottom of which lies a vast zombie city. Zombies stop in at the All Night on their way to the chasm. Are Eric and Batu part of some kind of "new retail" experiment designed to study the shopping habits of zombies? Will Eric ever get the nerve to talk to Charley, the woman who works at the local SPCA putting dogs to sleep?

Michael Tolkin revisits his character Griffin Mill a decade after he made his murderous ascent to Hollywood power in The Player. Now, with his career stalled and only $6 million in the bank, he is, by Hollywood standards, broke. In this excerpt from The Return of the Player, Mill assesses his situation, says a prayer for guidance and forgiveness and begins to calculate his next move. Mill's anti-heroic effort to wring love and meaning from a loveless and meaningless life is heartfelt and cynical, resulting in a powerful dark comedy that transcends the shopworn genre of Hollywood satire.

Wes, a young Presidential aide, is about to have his life changed forever. An assassination attempt is made on the President of the United States and Wes is caught in the crossfire. Best-selling thriller author Brad Meltzer reads the first chapter to his novel "The Book of Fate."

Adverbs is a novel about love -- a bunch of different people, in and out of different kinds of love. The title of each chapter is an adverb that describes the "love" story contained therein. "collectively" is a story about a bunch of people who really love a guy they hardly know. There's just something about him that's lovable, who knows what it is? He's got it and now he also has a group of folks dropping in for a visit so they can get to know him better.

Ben Ehrenreich reads the second chapter of The Suitors, an audacious reimagining of The Odyssey, in which Penny waits alone at home while Payne, a modern-day Odysseus, gallivants around the world on battleships and attack helicopters, waging wars of conquest. A drinking, drugging crew of ne'er-do-well squatters surrounds Penny, eager for her attention. Even their most eyebrow-raising exploits can't distract her, though, as she angrily pines for Payne. But when a mysterious man with suspicious origins arrives on the scene, the suitors' precarious pecking order falls to pieces in the glow of Penny's newly ignited ardor. Brutal, playful, sexy, and subversive, The Suitors is a classic of its own kind.

Meet Blue Van Meer, the preternaturally erudite heroine of Marisha Pessl's hilarious yet heartrending debut novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Never having lived in a place longer than it takes for most people to get a mortgage approval, she has been raised and educated by her brilliant, handsome, big-hearted (even bigger-mouthed), academic tome-citing, neo-Marxist, womanizing, Swiss professor father, Gareth Van Meer. When Gareth decides to settle for one year in one place before Blue goes off to Harvard, she blossoms from a shy, impressionable girl into a truly wise, independent young woman.

Mary Todd Lincoln shares the story of her life, beginning with an account of the day her eldest son had her declared insane and committed to Bellevue Place, an asylum for women with nervous conditions.

Inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem about the folk legend of the fairy changelings, this beguiling and truly original tale moves from contemporary America to nineteenth-century Germany and deep into humankind's most basic fantasies and fears. The Stolen Child is the story of Henry Day, a seven year old kidnapped in the dark forest near his home. No ordinary kidnappers, they are the fairy changelings -- ageless beings whose secret community is threatened by encroaching modern life. They give Henry a new name, Aniday, and the gift of agelessness -- now and forever, he will be seven years old.

"The Adventure of the Giant Rat of Sumatra" is the long-lost story of one of Watson's most intriguing adventures, one for which the "world was not ready" during Holmes' lifetime. The story deals with Professor Moriarty, Colonel Sebastian Moran, and the infamous Dr. Culverton-Smith, who together collude to introduce the bubonic plague into England. Holmes and Watson nearly face their own ends in their efforts to foil this deadly and dastardly plot.

Set in and around the eerie expanse of Los Angeles International Airport, Slipstream is an intricately crafted tale of five people whose lives are quietly drawing toward a fateful collision as each struggles to stay afloat in the face of major setbacks, minor failures, and a reckless pursuit of elusive second chances.

With The Secret Language of Sleep, a couple finally unlocks the secrets hidden within their chosen sleeping position. Each pose (there are thirty-nine in all) is deciphered using an easy-to-identify illustration, an overview of the sleepers' traits and tendencies, along with tips about which stretches and diets to try to enhance the effectiveness of the pose. A legend of handy icons points the way to the poses that are most therapeutic for specific kinds of sleepers, including: snorers, outdoorsmen, couples suffering from intestinal ailments, and anyone confined to a twin-sized bed or tent. The book is color-coded based on the four Comfort Zones, and features a dream-blue cover embossed with an illustration of The Ticket Puncher, the favorite pose of couples whose schedules never quite mesh.

It's 1999 and Emile Poulquet awaits sentencing in a Paris court for deporting thousands to almost certain death during World War II. But haunted by ghosts from his past, and determined to confront his dark legacy, he escapes and heads toward his beloved Finier, a rural town in the south of France. In Finier, Poulquet finds shelter within the strange embrace of a group of teenage wastrels, and encounters new breeds of idealism, degeneracy, and friendship. He sets out to find Arianne -- a lifelong obsession and the widow of a Resistance hero -- in order to hand her his last will and testament. But as he begins his quest, he cannot help being drawn, inexorably, toward another circle of refugees and reporters in town for a wartime reunion. He doesn't yet know that his worst betrayal -- and the greatest test of his own ability to pardon another -- is yet to come.

In The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril, Paul Malmont draws upon his long fascination with the pulp era and the lives of the greatest pulp authors of them all -- Lester Dent, creator of Doc Savage, and Walter Gibson, author of The Shadow -- and brings a beloved genre roaring out of the past. Deftly weaving real-life biographies into a work of fiction, Malmont's adventure begins in 1937 at New York's legendary White Horse Tavern. Gibson tells a young, pre-scientology L. Ron Hubbard (then a pulp writer himself) the "Tale of the Sweet Flower War," asking him to identify what's real and what's pulp.

"Herman Melville, Metafictional Laff Riot" is an essay slated for an upcoming issue of Kitchen Sink Magazine. It celebrates the first three words of Moby Dick, and attempts to cast Mr. Melville's writing in a more "punk rock" light than it is usually thought of.

In a house trailer in the rural South, a married Vietnam veteran, addicted to drugs and haunted by memories of the past, is on the brink of collapse. Just when he thinks the dream of another life is over, the unspeakable happens. He falls in love with a frail, ghostly younger man who reminds him of youth, beauty, and the possibility of a life beyond the prison he has created for himself.

The City, Not Long After is a novel set in a future San Francisco. Half a generation before the novel takes place,a plague wiped out all but one in one thousand. The city is inhabited by artists, and they are transforming it with art and imagination. San Francisco is a haunted, dreaming place, peopled with memories. Invaded by an army from Sacramento, the artists fight back, using art as their weapon of choice.

"Made of Steel," the first chapter of Elizabeth Block's novel, A Gesture Through Time, introduces the forbidden love affair between the narrator and Magnitude Hortense Zappa.

The Golden Rule for a bedwetter: nobody can ever know. Well, maybe Mom and Dad can know, but nobody else. Unfortunately however, in "The Problem with ESP" a young bedwetter has to contend with a teacher's supernatural forces -- ESP. This humorous account of awkward adolescence details the narrator's lifelong struggle with chronic bedwetting and the various methods he employed to conceal his secret.

Joe Quirk reads from his novel The Ultimate Rush.