The PEN Cabaret

Swiss singer-songwriter Erika Stucky yodels like you’ve never heard before, and, of all things, plays a spade. Hungarian singer Bea Palya is making waves across the world with her brand of Hungarian and Bulgarian folk music, which draws inspiration from jazz as well as Persian and Hindi sung poems. Author Wesley Stace performs in his musical guise of John Wesley Harding. Bosnian-born author Aleksandar Hemon reads from his new novel, The Lazarus Project, while legendary dancer Bill T. Jones elevates the evening with a solo piece from his work Ballad.

Bill T. Jones

Bill T. Jones is a New York-based choreographer and dancer.
In 2007, he won the Tony Award for Best Choreography for his work on the Broadway musical Spring Awakening. Jones is also the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a co-founder of the Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company.

Bea Palya

Born in Hungary in 1976, Bea Palya has blended traditional Hungarian folk music with jazz, Gypsy, Indian, and Persian influences to develop a unique style.

Inspired by her experiences singing in regional competitions and touring with folk groups during her youth, Bea has studied the ancient song cultures of Hungary and Transylvania and the relationship between traditional and modern music. She has performed with such groups as the celebrated classical organist Laszlo Fassang, and Sebo, a traditional troubadour acclaimed for its representations of Hungarian ballads.

She has received numerous awards, including the Aphelandra Award and the Artisjus prize for music in Hungary.

Aleksandar Hemon

Born in Sarajevo, Aleksandar Hemon visited Chicago in 1992, intending to stay for a matter of months. While he was there, Sarajevo came under siege, and he was unable to return home. Hemon wrote his first story in English in 1995. He is the author of The Question of Bruno and Nowhere Man, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 2004. His most recent novel is The Lazarus Project, due out in May 2008. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter.

John Wesley Harding

Wesley Stace, who preforms under the name John Wesley Harding, is a novelist and a folk singer-songwriter from Hastings, England. In 2005, his novel Misfortune was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. Misfortune was also chosen by Amazon as one of the Ten Best Novels of 2005, and was one of The Washington Post's Books of the Year. The same year, Harding released Songs of Misfortune, an album of songs that were written for the book. Amazon listed the album as one of the Top Ten Folk Records for 2005.
Additionally, he has written chapbooks for some of his albums, and essays for various music publications, from Creem to Raygun. His essay, "Listerine: The Life And Opinions Of Laurence Sterne," published in Post Road #5, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His second novel, By George, was released in August 2007.
He currently lives in Brooklyn.

Erika Stucky

Swiss-American Erika Stucky is a musical and literary mix of Laurie Anderson, Frank Zappa, and Pippi Longstocking and, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, manages effortlessly to hit an irresistible spot between Alpine home life and urban nightmare. Her works are a mix of entertainment, avant-garde jazz and pop music, infused with American, Valais and Dadaist scraps of words.