Spring Visiting Writer Laura Chow Reeve to Offer Reading

At 5 p.m. in Historic Downtown Pocatello’s Valentine Ballroom (100 S. Arthur), Chow Reeve will read from her acclaimed debut short story collection, A Small Apocalypse, followed by a Q&A session. The reading is free and the public is encouraged to attend; an adult audience is recommended. Book sales and signing will follow.

Exploring “cultural inheritance, hybridity, and queerness” (Triquarterly Books), the Florida-centered stories of A Small Apocalypse move between fantasy and realism, often following a specific group of friends. The characters navigate various hauntings, human-to-reptilian transformations, hurricanes, and dystopian dating websites in “stories that explore what it means to buck the status quo amid suspicion of—or hostility toward—anything different” (Kirkus Reviews). A Small Apocalypse was named a best debut book of 2024 by Debutiful and best queer book of 2024 by Autostraddle.

Chow Reeve is a winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize and was a Blackburn Fellow at the Randolph College MFA program. Her fiction and graphic work is published widely in journals such as LitHub, The Rumpus, and The Offing. Her story, “One-Thousand-Year-Old Ghosts,” was featured on the podcast Levar Burton Reads. She lives in Richmond, VA. 

During her visit, Chow Reeve will also hold a creative writing session for ISU students; seats can be reserved on a first-to-respond basis by emailing schubeth@isu.edu. Additionally, Chow Reeve will meet one-on-one with ISU’s advanced creative writing students about their works-in-progress.