Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient Anthony Marra’s New Book, Mercury Pictures Presents, Coming Soon

From Anthony:

In March 2018, I received a rather concerned email from Joe Di Prisco, the gist of which was: uh, Tony, I’ve left you multiple voicemails. Do you want this thing or not? At the time, I was in Tokyo for a family wedding. Because I am a writer, and because writers are… let’s say “careful” with money, I decided to forego adding international coverage to my cell phone plan before leaving for Japan. And thus, I nearly missed the opportunity of a lifetime.

With my heart hammering in my throat, I rushed to the hotel phone and tried to reach an outside line. I dialed 9. I was connected to the spa. No, I did not want a mud bath! I wanted Joe Di Prisco! When I finally got Joe on the line, I could hear the smile in his voice. He said, “What took you so long?”

Becoming the second recipient of what came to be called the Joyce Carol Oates Prize was transformative. It gave me the time to dedicate myself exclusively to working on my new book, Mercury Pictures Presents, a novel set in amid the European exile community that made a home in Hollywood during the 1940s. Over the course of that year, I wrote and wrote and wrote. And when I wasn’t writing, I was visiting high school English classes, speaking to students at Berkeley, and discussing literature with Joyce Carol Oates. You could calculate the effects of an award as generous as the New Literary Project’s Joyce Carol Oates Prize in so many ways, but I like to measure it this way: when I next took a research trip abroad, I didn’t think twice about adding international coverage to my cell phone plan.

On August 9th, I’m returning to celebrate the publication of Mercury Pictures Presents. Tickets are available below. If you’re in town, I’d love to see you again or meet you for the first time. Above all, I would like to thank you for making this novel possible.

Adaptation of 2021 JCO Prize Winner Danielle Evans's Short Story from The Office of Historical Corrections Now Showing at Z Space San Fransisco

A theatrical adaptation of Danielle Evans’s short story “Boys Go To Jupiter,” written by Danielle and directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, is now running through July 31st. If you are one of our Bay Area-based friends, we highly recommend catching this brilliant, incisive commentary on cancel culture.

A description of the production, from Z Space’s website:

Claire, a white college freshman grieving the recent death of her mother, unwittingly finds herself in the middle of a huge racial controversy. The hashtags and tweets are flying, the hate emails are piling up, and all because of a stupid photo that she didn’t even post. Why is she canceled and who’s to blame? Grief, friendship, responsibility, and the power of social media, all come together to make one hell of a story that will have you thinking and talking about it for days to come.

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