This reading will be held in conjunction with the reception for Mary Proenza: Memoir, paintings and works on paper. 5:00-8:00 p.m.
Jervey Tervalon was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and moved with his family as a young boy to the Jefferson Park/Crenshaw area of Los Angeles, California, the setting of many of his short stories and novels. The short story Truth Comes Slowly recounts an experience he had with gun violence, while visiting family members in San Francisco as a child with his mother.
Tervalon received his MFA in creative writing from UC Irvine studying with Thomas Keneally and Oakley Hall and was a Disney Screenwriting fellow and a Shanghai Writers Association fellow. His first novel Understand This, for which he won the 1994 New Voices Award from Quality Paper Books, was based on his experiences teaching at Locke High School. He has published five novels including the Los Angeles Times bestseller Dead Above Ground.  He also edited A Geography of Rage on the 1994 uprising against police abuse.  He coedited the Cocaine Chronicles and writes an ongoing series of memoir vignettes in the LA Review of Books. He is cofounder and literary director of Pasadena LitFest, the 2nd largest literary festival in California and the most diverse. and teaches fiction writing at the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara.