From San Diego weekend arts preview (KPBS): "A Tiny Upward Shove" is the debut novel from LA-based writer Melissa Chadburn, and it feels like a must-read. The story is inspired by Chadburn's own Filipino heritage and background in the foster care system, and one of the characters is the real-life serial killer Willie Pickton. The story promises supernatural magic, grisly crime and artfully crafted writing just from the first page. Chadburn will be in conversation with San Diego-based writer Jac Jemc (author of "The Grip of It," "False Bingo") at The Book Catapult. —Julia Dixon Evans, KPBS From the organizer: The Book Catapult is pleased to host debut novelist Melissa Chadburn on Friday, April 15 at 7 p.m. for a discussion of her new novel, "A Tiny Upward Shove." Melissa will be in-conversation with local author Jaclyn Jemc. Marina Salles’s life does not end the day she wakes up dead. Instead, in the course of a moment, she is transformed into the stuff of myth, the stuff of her grandmother’s old Filipino stories—an aswang, a creature of mystery and vengeance. She spent her time on earth on the margins; shot like a pinball through a childhood of loss, she was a veteran of Child Protective Services and a survivor, but always reacting, watching from a distance, understanding very little of her own life, let alone the lives of others. Death brings her into the hearts and minds of those she has known—even her killer—as she accesses their memories and sees anew the meaning of her own. In her nine days as an aswang, while she considers whether to exact vengeance on her killer, she also traces back, finally able to see what led these two lost souls to a crushingly inevitable conclusion. In "A Tiny Upward Shove," the debut novelist Melissa Chadburn charts the heartbreaking journeys of two of society’s castoffs as they make their way to each other and their roles as criminal and victim. What does it mean to be on the brink? When are those moments that change not only our lives but our very selves? And how, in this impossible world, full of cruelty and negligence, can we rouse ourselves toward mercy? Melissa Chadburn’s writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review Daily, The Best American Food Writing, and many other publications. Her extensive reporting on the child welfare system appears in the Netflix docuseries "The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez." Melissa is a worker lover and through her own labor and literary citizenship strives to upend economic violence. Her mother taught her how to sharpen a pencil with a knife and she's basically been doing that ever since. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Southern California and lives in greater Los Angeles.
