Party On at the Garden Café

This Thursday from 6-8 PM, the Garden Café is hosting “A Strictly-For-Fun Gathering of Smart-Mouthed Fiction Writers and One Lucky Guitar, Trading Stories, and Songs. Writers in the Round: On Fiction, Truth, and Three Chords.” Translated: a wine and cheese reception with Austin singer/songwriter Trish Murphy, Dallas-based authors Will Clarke, Harry Hunsicker, and Melanie Wells. Sounds like a great night for songs and stories. Details after the jump.

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Recording artist Trish Murphy officially launched her music career after receiving a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Dallas, in Irving, and quitting her college job at The Wall Street Journal. Critically esteemed as a gender-defying songwriter who “stands toe to toe with the boys and rocks just as hard as they do,” her discography includes four solo albums, three of which she released on her own label. She tours the U.S. and Europe, and the annual all-female Lilith Fair tour was a career highlight in the late 1990s. Her songs have also been recorded by fellow Texan Pat Green and CMT favorites Cross Canadian Ragweed.

Melanie Wells began her writing career by telling lies on the playground. A licensed psychotherapist and accomplished fiddle player, she is the author of When the Day of Evil Comes, The Soul Hunter, and My Soul to Keep. She lives in Dallas with her dog, Gunner, who wishes she would not spend so much time at her computer and who very much dislikes swans.

Will Clarke is the author of Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles: A Spy Novel (sort of) and The Worthy: A Ghost’s Story. Both books have been selected as The New York Times Editors’ Choice. He is also the author of the controversial essay “How to Kill A Boy That Nobody Likes” which was published in the Free Press Anthology, “When I Was a Loser: True Stories of (Barely) Surviving High School”. Clarke is known for using the supernatural (a psychic dot-com millionaire and the ghost of a dead frat boy) to trick the cynical eye into seeing the madness of the mundane.

Harry Hunsicker lives in Dallas where he writes crime thrillers about a private investigator named Lee Henry Oswald. His debut, “Still River” was nominated for a Shamus Award for Best First Novel. His latest novel is entitled “Crosshairs” and was released in August 2007. Hunsicker, a fourth-generation native of Dallas, is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, the Private Eye Writers of American, the International Association of Crime Writers, and the International Thriller Writers. He currently serves as the Executive Vice President of the Mystery Writers of America.