at the opera house

At the Opera House, 2009

At the Opera House, 2009

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Cobwebbed curtains open at the opera house, and someone has built a bonfire on stage. Behind the fire is the orchestra. I sit in the balcony, trying to listen to the orchestra play Mozart’s Ein Musikalischer Spass. But everyone around me is throwing spitballs or calling each other on cell phones.

Nina Schuyler

Nina Schuyler’s novel, The Painting, published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, was named a Best Book by San Francisco Chronicle and nominated for the Northern California Book Award. It’s been translated into Chinese, Portuguese, and Serbian. Her short story, “Water Babies” won the Santa Clara Review’s Editor’s Choice Prize for Fiction, her short short, “Black Holes” won the Big Ugly Review Short Short Contest for 2008; and she was a finalist in the 2009 Stanford Fiction Contest.

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