Danielle Evans is the author of the story collections The Office of Historical Corrections and Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, winner of the 2021 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, the PEN America PEN/Robert W. Bingham prize, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the Paterson Prize, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. Her stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Best American Short Stories. Evans teaches at Johns Hopkins University.

Reading is followed by discussion with the author and UCLA professor Mona Simpson, who organizes this series. Supported in part by the UCLA Department of English and the Friends of English.