Queens Library at Bayside

212-19 Northern Boulevard, Bayside, NY 11361-3341

Featuring noir writers Denis Hamill, Shailly Agnihotri and Ken Wishnia as they discuss their craft and writing about Queens!

Crimes occur every day behind the purview of newspapers in the most diverse county in America and the melting p…ot of the world, and they need writers to bring them to the forefront. What happens behind that riverfront home in Bayside, that bodega in Corona, or that Indian matrimonial service in Jackson Heights? The authors will read from their stories in Queens Noir, a collection published by Akashic Books, and talk about their creative and research processes.

This event is a collaboration between the biweekly Writer’s Workshop at the Bayside Community Library and Neighborhood Word, an Asian-American Writers Workshop programming series that brings Asian American writers and artists to Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx—the boroughs most Asian-American New Yorkers call home.

Copies of Queens Noir are available at the library for checkout with QL library card. Refreshments will be served, and admission is free and open to everyone.

Moderator Tejas Desai is an Adult Services Librarian and conducts the Writer’s Workshop at the Bayside Community Library in Queens. He holds a MFA in Creative Writing and Literary Translation from CUNY-Queens College and has won the Wesleyan Fiction Award. He writes novels, short stories and plays and acted in the film version of Tao Lin’s surreal novel Eeeee eee eeee. Though he travels frequently, he was born, raised and lives in Queens.

Denis Hamill was born and raised in Brooklyn. He attended public high schools and CUNY. He has written for The Village Voice, NY Newsday, and currently writes a column twice a week for the NY Daily News. He has appeared on Conan O’Brien, The O’Reilly Factor, Good Day New York, Sam Roberts, The Early Show, The History Chanel, and Leonard Lopate. He is the author of ten novels, most recently “Sins of Two Fathers”, “Empty Stockings” and “Ten Spot.” An original screenplay he wrote, “Under New Management”, is currently airing on Showtime. He lives in Queens.

Shailly Agnihotri is an award-winning independent filmmaker living and working in New York. Her feature length documentary examining the suicide rate amongst US soldiers deployed in Iraq, Three Soldiers, was fancast movie of the week and played in festivals throughout the United States. Ms.Agnihotri is a practicing public defense attorney. Her newest project is full length play about her experiences in the criminal justice system entitled American Tune.

Kenneth Wishnia’s novels include 23 Shades of Black, an Edgar Allan Poe Award and Anthony Award finalist; Soft Money, a Library Journal Best Mystery of the Year; Red House, a Washington Post Book World “Rave” Book of the Year; and The Fifth Servant, an Indie Notable selection, winner of a Premio Letterario ADEI-WIZO, and a finalist for the Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery Award (Macavity Awards). His short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, Queens Noir, Long Island Noir, Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail, and elsewhere. He teaches writing, literature and other deviant forms of thought at Suffolk Community College on Long Island.