KGB Bar

Donnetta Lavinia Grays is an actor, writer and director. She just got back from Dublin, where she was nominated for Best Actress in her role as Brown in Kathleen Warnock’s play, “Outlook.” She served as Artistic Director of Coyote REP Theatre Company in NYC. BROADWAY: Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play and Lisa Kron’s Well. NY THEATRE: The Wii Plays (Ars Nova), In the Footprint (The Civilians), Shipwrecked! An Entertainment (Primary Stages) and A Long and Happy Life (New York Stage and Film). REGIONAL: Ruined (Arena Stage), No Child… (Hartford Theaterworks), Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (Baltimore Centerstage), Well (Huntington Theatre, Arena Stage). WITH COYOTE REP: the cowboy is dying, Deception and Patriot Act (An Occurrence at Yankee Stadium). FILM: “The English Teacher,” “The Wrestler,” “Shook,” “Where do We Go From Here?” TELEVISION: “A Gifted Man,” “Rubicon,” “Mercy,” “L&O: SVU”. “Law and Order,” “L&O: CI” and “The Sopranos.” Donnetta’s plays The New Normal, and the cowboy is dying, were produced by Coyote REP. She is a member of AEA, SAG, AFTRA and The Dramatists Guild. Company member of Coyote REP, TOSOS and The Civilians. www.donnettagrays.com.

Martin Hyatt was born just outside of New Orleans. He is the recipient of an Edward F. Albee Writing Fellowship and The New School Chapbook Award for fiction. His stories have been published in such places as Lodestar Quarterly, The Electric Literature Blog and Blithe House Quarterly. His award-winning debut novel, A Scarecrow’s Bible, was published May 2006.  It was named a Stonewall Honor Book by the American Library Association and won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. He was recently named a “Star of Tomorrow” in a Literary Idol feature in NY Magazine. He recently completed a new novel entitled Beautiful Gravity.  He is currently working on a memoir entitled Greyhound Boy, 1976. He has taught writing at such places at Hofstra, Parsons, and St. Francis College. He is currently Associate Professor and Founding Coordinator of The Writing Center at ASA College. www.martinhyatt.com.

Meri Weiss was born and raised in New York. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in English. In 2002, she earned an MFA from Southampton College and in 2006, she earned the President’s Award and a Master of Arts in Literature from SUNY New Paltz. Meri’s debut novel, Closer to Fine, was published in 2008 and nominated for a Lambda Award. Her fiction has appeared in Confrontation, Hampton Shorts, Proteus and Shawangunk Review. The last time she read at KGB no one else listed fiction awards and she felt shallow and pretentious for doing so. Meri is currently an Assistant Professor and co-Chair of the Letters Department at the College of New Rochelle, South Bronx campus; she also teaches at Fordham College at Lincoln Center. Meri has been working on her second novel, entitled On Borrowed Time, for WAY too long! She vows to finish it this summer; if you have a spare room at your lovely beach house and would like to sponsor a novelist for the summer, please see Meri before you leave tonight. www.meriweiss.com.