Kavi Yaga w/ Diana Xin, THE VANISHINGS

Kavi Yaga visits the store for her story collection The Vanishings. Tender, strange, and deeply human, these stories illuminate all the versions of ourselves we leave behind. Sometimes, what vanishes makes room for the transcendent. She'll be joined by Diana Xin, author of Book of Exemplary Women.

Registration is not required, but helps us anticipate audience size.

The George Garrett Fiction Prize: Judge’s Choice, selected by Kaveh Akbar

A woman seeks liberation from her bad luck and learns that magic can work too well. A lonely teacher befriends a beautiful moon bird. A cynical student discovers meaning in an temple with milk-drinking Ganeshas. Beautiful drawings in a servant girl's secret diary lead to a Godwoman’s ashram. The eight luminous stories in The Vanishings explore the space between presence and absence, where bodies fade, memories dissolve, and the self slips away.

Set against the vivid backdrop of South India, these tales follow characters grappling with magic fairness creams, giant birds who remember childhood games, and dinner parties lit by fireflies and laughter in the dark. With gentle humor and unflinching insight, The Vanishings examines what we lose when we're still here—to colorism, class divides, dementia, and the weight of others' expectations.

Kavi Yaga is a writer based in Hyderabad, India. The Vanishings, her debut short story collection, was selected by Kaveh Akbar for The George Garrett Fiction Prize and published by Texas Review Press. She is also the author of a popular travel memoir, Walking in Clouds (Harper Collins, 2018). Kavi is co-compiler and co-author of the anthology Work, Wisdom, Legacy: 31 Essays from India (Orient Blackswan, 2025), a 2023 Yaddo Fellow, and recipient of the Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction’s 2nd-Place Award selected by Matt Bell. Her stories and essays have appeared in One Story, Swamp Pink, River Teeth Journal, and elsewhere.

Born in the Hebei province of China and raised in the American Midwest, Diana Xin lived in Chicago, Beijing, and Missoula before landing in Seattle. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana and a BS in journalism from Northwestern University. She is a recipient of fellowships and residencies from Hedgebrook, Artist Trust of Washington State, The M Literary Residency in Beijing, and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. Her work has received a Pushcart nomination and other honors from Narrative Magazine, The Missouri Review, Third Coast Quarterly, and elsewhere. Book of Exemplary Women is her first full-length collection.