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For fans of Gregory Maguire, author of One Story #4 and Wicked, the acclaimed novel and Broadway musical, the new Oz-based novel “Son of a Witch” is out today.

Roxana Robinson, author of One Story #55 “A Perfect Stranger” and several highly-acclaimed novels, is reading tonight, September 26, at 6:30 PM, to benefit the Nature Conservancy.

The reading will take place at The Cosmopolitan Club, 122 East 66th Street. The suggested donation is $50. There will also be a Q&A session and refreshments.

Next Monday, September 25, in the Enormous Room One Story #58 author Paul Yoon takes part in a night of readings by four Post Road writers.

The event is called “Hitting the Road: Four Stories” and will also feature Lise Haines, Richard Hoffman, and Randy Triant. Paul will be reading something new, and would love to meet One Story readers!

This is a great collection of short stories by fabulous female writers–many of them featured in One Story in the past. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jennifer S. Davis, Judy Budnitz, Dika Lam, Roxana Robinson, Martha Witt, wow! “This is Not Chick Lit” is edited by Elizabeth Merrick.

What is most interesting, perhaps, is the chick lit versus literary fiction scandal. I wonder how Lauren Baratz-Logsted, the editor of “This is Chick Lit”, would feel at Amazon offering her book with “This is Not Chick Lit” for a special price. In her Amazon blog she is careful to stress that she has no beef against literary fiction, but creating a rival collection born out of “anger” towards “This is Not Chick Lit” seems to paint a contradictory picture. Small Spiral Notebook has a great Roundtable Discussion with the contributors to “This is Not Chick Lit” while Village Voice seems to side with “This is Chick Lit”. While the “Is Not” collection is described as “clever”, the witty title is dismissed as a reactionary acceptance of the idea that chick lit is “somehow a threat to literary fiction”. My question is, why is what I see as a reasonable and somewhat witty reaction against labelling being read so widely as Bitter?

One Story will be booth #59 lining the garden on Saturday (.pdf).

This Saturday, September 16, from 10 AM to 6 PM, One Story will be at the Brooklyn Book Festival. We’ll be setting up shop at table number 59 (five-nine) where we plan to draw attention to ourselves with yellow plastic ducks–think of them as the Labor Rat of the literary world.

Martha Witt, who penned One Story #23 and the acclaimed novel BrokenAs Things Are will be at the One Story table from 11 AM to 12 PM.

Margo Rabb, author of One Story #24 and several young adult mysteries, will be at the table from 3 PM to 4 PM. Check out Bookslut’sprofile or a profile focusing on her teen writing here. Margo also has a new book called Cures for Heartbreak on the way in February 2007. For some thoughts on writing and success from the author check out her piece “Howto Tell a Story” published in Zeotrope: All Story.

We plan to have a variety of back issues (including those by our lovely guests) for sale at a discount, and hopefully some of the books mentioned. Stop by, say hello, and get a free tattoo!

Brooklyn-born author Sara Gran mentioned One Story in her piece, “Call It Brooklyn” for the New York Times yesterday. According to Gran, Brooklyn seems like a utopia for writers right now, but in fact, it’s the worst place to be:

“SHE dreams, our young writer, of the day when she, too, can walk her blond Lab down Seventh Avenue on a Sunday afternoon, stopping at the organic bakery for a $7 loaf of whole grain winter wheat bread, and maybe give her new best friend Elissa Schappell (“Use Me”) a call to see how she’s coming along with the new issue of Tin House — the issue, of course, that’s publishing our writer’s own brilliant first works. If the hip-lit magazines One Story or Small Spiral Notebook haven’t already snapped up all her stories, that is.”

Has Brooklyn been ruined by too many writers? Tell us what you think.

Alix Ohlin read last night from her new story collection, Babylon & Other Stories at One Story’s monthly reading & cocktail hour. We all sipped Alix’s choice, vodka tonics, and listened to her read “The Tennis Partner”, which was published with One Story in 2004. There were some old faces and some new ones at Piano’s, including literary agent Deborah Carter, who worked the crowd, looking for unpublished authors.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who wrote One Story issue #27, “Transition to Glory” has just published her new book, Half of a Yellow Sun, about Biafra’s struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria. To find out more, visit www.halfofayellowsun.com.

First of all, Alix Ohlin will be reading for us at Pianos tomorrow night, Friday September 8, around 7pm. There is a drink special and for this reading it is the Vodka Tonic, for only $3.

Second, for anyone who missed Scott Snyder last month, Void magazine is hosting a free concert called “Get Lit” at Northsix in Brooklyn. This concert is to benefit Behind the Book, so be sure to make it out!