Event Description
GrubStreet and Porter Square Books: Boston Edition are excited to welcome Tell-All Boston for an evening celebrating personal essays on the theme of inheritance. Four local writers will share their work alongside featured reader Jason Prokowiew, acclaimed author of War Boys: A Father and Son Memoir.
The evening's program will be hosted by writer and educator Neema Avashia, who will read an excerpt from her forthcoming book Becoming Ammi: A Queer, Desi Journey into Parenthood.
Remote viewers can tune in on Crowdcast at https://www.crowdcast.io/c/tellallbostonnovember2026!
About the Readers
Jason Prokowiew received the PEN America/Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History, a Fulbright Scholar Award, the Aurora Polaris Nonfiction Prize, and a starred Kirkus review for War Boys. Alysia Abbott, author of Storyland, wrote, “Jason's War Boys is a tremendous feat of research, reporting, writing, and heart work. Never have I read a story that depicts family abuse with such vulnerability, compassion and insight. This book is a marvel. And this author, an exciting new voice in memoir.” Jason’s writing has appeared in The North American Review, People Magazine, Under the Sun, The Guardian, Salon, WBUR’s Cognoscenti, and on WORLD Channel’s Stories from the Stage, where his piece “Sing” is the most watched in the show’s history. His essay “The Demulcent of Shame,” originally published by Roxane Gay in her newsletter “The Audacity,” won the Lascaux Prize in nonfiction. His essay “Wound Care” took third place in the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards. He’s received additional support from Bread Loaf, Tin House, Ragdale, and the Mass Cultural Council. He’s an alum of the GrubStreet Memoir Incubator and a recovering disability attorney who lives on a lake in Massachusetts with his husband Dave and their greyhound Champ.
Neema Avashia is the proud daughter of Indian immigrants, and was born and raised in southern West Virginia. She has been an educator and activist in the Boston Public Schools since 2003. Her first book, Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place, was published by West Virginia University Press in March 2022. The book was named Best LGBTQ Memoir of 2022 by BookRiot, was one of the New York Public Library’s Best Books of 2022, and was a finalist for the New England Book Award, the Weatherford Award, and a Lambda Literary Award. Avashia was a recipient of the ACLU of West Virginia's 2024 Roger Baldwin Award for her work on behalf of LGBTQIA+ West Virginians. Her second book, Becoming Ammi, will be published by Beacon Press in April 2027. She lives in Boston with her partner, Laura, and their daughter, Kahani.
About Tell-All Boston
Tell-All Boston is Real Stories Read Live. We are Boston’s only live-on-stage literary reading series dedicated to the craft of memoir and personal essay. Award-winning writers, best-selling authors, and emerging stars share first-person stories that make meaning from lived experience.
Tell-All Boston is brought to you and curated by the alumni of GrubStreet’s Memoir Incubator and Essay Incubator.