Reflections on the Watch Face: A Reading by Four Visiting Authors

Time and memory--are they gifts or curses? As time passes, memories may fade, but the number of memories we collect grows. And as time passes on, our growing memories gather new meaning, new weight, new potency, and they become part of larger stories.

Join Tulsa Lit Fest on Indie Bookstore Day at Magic City Books for prose writers Donald Quist, Morris Collins and Bailey Gaylin Moore and poet Paul Juhasz as they share literary works that dwell on the invetability, and inextrciability, of time and memory.

Author bios:

Donald Edem Quist is author of two essay collections, Harbors, a Foreword INDIES Bronze Winner and International Book Awards Finalist, and To Those Bounded. He has a linked story collection, For Other Ghosts. His writing has appeared in AGNI, North American Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, and was Notable in Best American Essays (2018 & 2025). He is creator of the online nonfiction series PAST TEN, and co-editor of . Quist has received fellowships from Sundress Academy for the Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Kimbilio Fiction. He is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at University of Missouri.

https://www.donaldquist.com/

Morris Collins’s first novel, Horse Latitudes, was published by Dzanc Books in January 2019. His new novel, The Tavern at the End of History was released in February 2026 from Dzanc Books in February 2026. Collins received an O. Henry Award in 2024. The winning story was selected by Amor Towles and appeared in the 2024 edition of The Best Short Stories 2024: The O. Henry Prize Winners. Other fiction and poetry has appeared in Subtropics, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review and The Florida Review, among others.
He has recently completed a new novel: Sleepwalkers of the North Atlantic.
He attended the University of Rochester where he studied English and Medieval Studies and received his MFA from Penn State University in 2008. He is a professor of creative writing and literature at the College of the Holy Cross in Boston, MA.
https://morris-collins.com/

Bailey Gaylin Moore is an Ozarks-based writer and serves as the Editor-in-Chief for the online nonfiction series, Past Ten, which asks contributors to consider where and who they were ten years ago. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Pleiades, Wigleaf, Willow Springs, Hayden’s Ferry Review, HuffPost and other journals. Her debut essay collection, Thank You for Staying with Me is out now.

https://www.baileygaylinmoore.com/

Paul Juhasz is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated author of five books: Fulfillment: Diary of a Warehouse Picker, a mock journal chronicling his seven-month term as a picker at an Amazon Fulfillment Center; As If Place Matters, a collection of short fiction; and three collections of poetry: Ronin: Mostly Prose Poems, a finalist for the 2022 Oklahoma Book Award, The Inner Life of Comics, and The Fires of Heraclitus, a finalist for the 2025 Oklahoma Book Award. He served as curator and coordinator of the Woody Guthrie Poets from 2020-2024, and currently lives in Oklahoma City.

Paul Juhasz is available for readings and presentations. Please contact the author directly at [email protected], or [email protected] .

Tulsa LitFest is brought to you by The Center for Poets and Writers at OSU Tulsa, Tri City Collective, and Magic City Books.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Tulsa LitFest