ADA, Okla. - Dr. Joshua Grasso from East Central University’s Department of English and Languages will be presenting an upcoming Book Talk at the Linscheid Library, Tuesday Feb. 24 at 3:30 p.m.
Grasso will be discussing his first “book of stories” released in print, titled, “Vanishing Acts.” The collection will feature five previously published short stories along with two stories slated for publication in magazines later this year.
Although this is his first printed collection of stories, Grasso has previously published dozens of stories and digital novels over the course of his decades-long career.
“I always said I would never publish a collection of stories because no one reads stories, people only read novels,” said Grasso. “But after I had written about 70 stories and published a bunch of them, then you start getting more paternalistic. I want them to live.”
“Most of what I write is so-called speculative fiction,” he continued. “Speculative means science fiction, fantasy or horror, it has those elements. Most people expect fiction to be literary fiction, to be realism, and I do that to an extent, but I always veer off into speculative fiction.”
Discussing the stories he chose to include in “Vanishing Acts,” Grasso stated, “there’s a little bit of science fiction, a little bit of fantasy, a little bit of horror and plenty of literary fiction but it’s all crammed together. I like to play with genres and I like literature that doesn’t commit to one genre.”
Grasso will read excerpts from his collection during the Book Talk but will focus primarily on discussing speculative fiction as an umbrella genre and why he has chosen it as his preferred genre, “I hope to write stories to challenge what people think they want to read. I want people to realize that good stories are good stories and you need to let them take you where they go.”
A member of ECU’s Department of English and Language since 2006, Grasso teaches a wide-variety of literature, humanity and composition courses. He received ECU’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2014 and 2021 and presented the prestigious Hedgehog and Fox Faculty Lecture in 2022, among many other accolades.
In 2024, Grasso was named the new faculty advisor for ECU’s long-running literary magazine, “Originals.”
Copies of “Vanishing Acts” will be available for purchase after the Book Talk for $5 per copy.
For more information on “Vanishing Acts” or how to purchase a copy, contact Grasso at jgrasso@ecok.edu.
-ECU-