The Writer’s Center welcomes author Megan Howell to our monthly Fiction Book Club for a discussion of her debut short story collection, Softie at The Writer’s Center! Megan is joined by Book Club Host, Hannah Grieco.
We encourage you to order a copy of the book from your local, independent bookseller or online »
***Get a 25% discount on Softie through WVU Press with the order code SOFTIE25***
FREE & open to the public. RSVP below.
Megan Howell is a DC-based writer and a 2025 National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree. She earned her MFA in fiction from the University of Maryland in College Park, winning both the Jack Salamanca Thesis Award and the Kwiatek Fellowship. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s, The Nashville Review and The Establishment among other publications. Her debut short story collection Softie: Stories won a 2025 IPPY Book Awards gold medal and was short-listed for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection.
About Softie
In beautifully melancholy stories of magical realism, the women and girls in Softie transform their bodies and test their sanity, trying to find meaning in the loneliest of places.
A former child star haunted by a past she can’t remember. An Afro-French girl with an obsession for ear lobes. A loner whose only friend is hiding a terrible, otherworldly secret. Each of these stories shares situations that are sometimes fantastical, sometimes commonplace, but always strange. From a Corsican vacation town in its off-season to hospital rooms and a seedy hotel suite in Chicago, experience the every day come fully untethered from reality.
About Book Club
This is no run-of-the-mill book club. Visiting writers will read excerpts, join the discussion, and answer your questions about craft, process, the publishing industry, and getting advice for our own writing! We’ll hang and eat snacks with the authors and escape your doomscrolling.
Poetry Book Club will meet on Zoom every second Wednesday of the month with a new poet.
Fiction Book Club will meet every third Sunday of the month in person at The Writer’s Center with a new author.
Come build community and read amazing books that the Big 5 didn’t have the sense to publish!
If you need an accommodation for this event, please contact us at access@writer.org. We will attempt to fulfill all requests, but advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility services.
Enjoying our free events? Help us offer more programs to support writers with a $10 donation »