The October Edition of Pete’s Reading series featured three authors and was hosted by Temim Fruchter and Brian Gresko, who curate the series.

Pete’s Reading series is hosted at Pete’s Candy store and enjoys support from the Authors Guild, a trade organization representing authors. The guild helps writers with legal concerns like contracts and recently with having their work stolen by tech companies building a.i. models.

John Manual Arias read from his book Where There Was Fire. He read from a section set in the 1990s. The scene included a cellular phone described as looking like a walkie-talkie, and Arias stopped reading for a moment to remind the audience that cell phones didn’t always fit in our pocket.

Stephen Buoro was born in Nigeria and now lives in the United Kingdom — and this reading marked his first trip to the United States. In the audience he pointed out his editor, his publicist, and even his brother-in-law to be.

Buoro is the recipient of a scholarship from the Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship while attending a Creative Writing MA program ata the University of East Anglia — but he also holds a degree in mathematics.

At the reading, Buoro read a section from his debut novel, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa. The selection was about blonde women — and the narrator’s affection for them.

Check out the episode of Chills at the Will Podcast where Buoro discusses the book on the eve of it’s US Publication.

Isle McElroy closed out the night reading from their second novel, People Collide. They joked with us that at previous readings, they had read a sex scene from the novel that probably broke some decency laws — but instead read from the opening chapter.

The Brooklyn-based writer previously authored The Atmospherians, which earned a New York Times Editors’ Choice.