SYNOPSIS: 

What Happened Here delivers a wildly different cast of characters living on the same block in North Park, San Diego, site of the PSA Flight 182 crash in 1978. The crash is history, but its legacy seeps in the stories of the neighborhood’s inhabitants, bringing grief, anxiety, and rebellion to the surface and eventually assists in burning clean the lives of those who live in the shadow of disaster. Amidst the pathos of contemporary life, humor flits through these stories like the macaws that have taken to the trees of North Park. The birds ensure that there’s never a dull moment in the neighborhood, and their outrageous colors and noisome squawks serve as constant reminds of regrowth.

TOUR SCHEDULE:

MONDAY: Head over to the [PANK] blog to read why Bonnie wrote about this particular crash.

TUESDAY: At Book Puke, check out an interview with Bonnie that focuses on characters.

WEDNESDAY: Read Bonnie’s rant about why it’s okay for the elderly to get it on at HTMLGIANT.

THURSDAY: What she was thinking while writing? Read an excerpt + insights at Booked in Chico.

FRIDAY: Watch a video, including moving interviews from those who experienced the chaos of the crash, at The Next Best Book Club blog.

PURCHASE WHAT HAPPENED HERE!

BONNIE ZOBELL:

Bonnie ZoBell’s new connected collection, What Happened Here, a novella and stories centered on the site PSA Flight 182 crashed in the North Park area of San Diego, was published in February 2014 by Press 53. Her chapbook, The Whack-Job Girls was released by Monkey Puzzle Press in March 2013. She has received an NEA fellowship in fiction, the Capricorn Novel Award, A PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, the Los Angeles Review nominated one of her stories for a Pushcart Award, a place on Wigleaf’s Top 50, and a story published by Storyglossia was named as a notable story in story South’s Million Writers Award.  Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Night Train, The Greensboro Review, New Plains Review, PANK, and The Connotation Press. ZoBell has been a fellow at such residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, Wurlitzer, and Villa Montalvo, and attended such conferences as the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Tin House Summer Workshop, and the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. After receiving an MFA from Columbia on fellowship, she has been teaching at San Diego Mesa College where she is a Creative Writing Coordinator. Currently she is Associate Editor for The Northville Review and Flash Fiction Chronicles. She lives in a casita in San Diego with her husband, two dogs, two cats, and quite a few succulents.