Porter Square Books: Boston Edition and GrubStreet are delighted to present the latest installment of the Grubbie Debut event series, featuring Anu Kandikuppa! Join us for a celebration of her short story collection The Confines on Thursday, April 3 at Porter Square Books: Boston Edition (50 Liberty Dr. Boston, Ma 02210). Author Michelle Hoover will join Kandikuppa in conversation, and the author talk will be followed by a signing line.

This event is co-presented by GrubStreet and Porter Square Books

Fresh and provocative, the twelve stories in The Confines by Anu Kandikuppa deliver us into the cultural expectations, hierarchies, and taboos that define and limit our lives, especially the lives of women. A man's seemingly innocent gesture at a party unravels buried tensions in a marriage. A grieving doctor chronicles the peculiar ailments of an elderly couple yearning for their absent son. A young woman wrestles with her unrequited attraction to a colleague. Set in India and the U.S., these elegant and rare stories explore love, loss, and resilience, uncovering the compromises and hopes that shape our search for happiness.

“Inviting, expansive, and prismatic, Anu Kandikuppa’s THE CONFINES is anything but limited. Her sharply observed stories unfold in ever-surprising directions as her characters strain against the narrowness of their lives and their marriages. A nuanced portrait of women navigating old constraints and fresh expectations, THE CONFINES introduces a voice whose promise and powers are vast.”

—Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, author of National Book Award finalist Madeleine Is Sleeping, Ms. Hempel Chronicles, and Likes

“The sharp-edged stories in this smart and original collection are characterized by memorable girls and women whose desperation not to let life get the best of them is palpable; I read each of these psychologically complex portraits with my breath caught in my throat. An impressive debut.”

—Vauhini Vara, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist The Immortal King Rao and This is Salvaged

“From the first very captivating, subtly funny story, Anu Kandikuppa writes engrossing, thoughtful fiction that delves below the surface of ‘model minority’ lives. Reminiscent of Anne Tyler’s lovably maladjusted married couples, Kandikuppa uses a compassionate and irreverent view of marriage to illuminate Indian diaspora. You will enjoy this book.”

—Chaya Bhuvaneswar, PEN/Bingham finalist author of White Dancing Elephants: Stories

Anu Kandikuppa has worked as an engineer, software developer, and economics consultant, most recently as Principal. Her debut book, The Confines, is informed by the social structures of Indian families among which she grew up. Her writing has appeared in New England Review, Story, and other journals, and received special mention in Pushcart Prize anthologies. Kandikuppa’s work has been supported by grants, fellowships, and residencies from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, The Ragdale Foundation, and others. She holds a Ph.D. in Finance and an MFA in Writing from Warren Wilson College. She lives outside Boston. Her website is www.anukandikuppa.com.

Michelle Hoover has taught writing for more than 25 years and currently leads the GrubStreet Novel Incubator program, which she co-founded in 2011. Her students have signed 50+ book contracts. She is a 2014 NEA Fellow and has been a Writer-in-Residence at Brandeis University, a fellow at MacDowell, Bread Loaf, and Sewanee Writers Conferences, and a winner of the PEN/New England Discovery Award. Her debut, The Quickening, was a 2010 Massachusetts Book Award "Must Read," a finalist for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, and one of Susan Straight's 1001 "Library of America" Novels featured in the L.A. Times. Her second novel, Bottomland, was the 2017 All Iowa Reads selection and a 2016 Mass Book "Must Read." She is the creator of The 7am Novelist, the popular podcast and webinar series for writers. She is a native of Iowa and lives in Cyprus and Boston.

Celebrating over 25 years as the nation's leading and largest independent center for creative writing, GrubStreet is the place where writers develop their craft – and themselves – through the power of writing and sharing their work. GrubStreet offers hundreds of creative writing programs and events for writers from all backgrounds and ages at its Center for Creative Writing in the Seaport, in many Boston neighborhoods, and online. Scholarships are available for all offerings, and many programs are free. At its center, GrubStreet also hosts a community lounge, a podcast studio, Porter Square Books: Boston Edition, and a Writers’ Stage. Learn more at www.grubstreet.org.

Grubbie Debut: Anu Kandikuppa, author of The Confines, in conversation with Michelle Hoover