Award-Winning Author Visits Triad Bookstores This Weekend

Clifford Garstang has volunteered with the Peace Corps in South Korea, practiced international law in Singapore, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and worked with the World Bank in Washington D.C. as Senior Counsel for East Asia.   

Garstang is also an author. He now resides in Staunton, Virginia, and has published two books with Winston-Salem-based Press 53.  His most recent book is titled What the Zhang Boys Know.  The stories in the novel tell of the intersecting lives of a group of tenants who live in a condominium building near Washington D.C.'s Chinatown.

Garstang says, "One of the things that I really like about writing short stories is exploring different character's points of view.  And so, in this book there are twelve stories, and each one is told from a different perspective. All together the stories tell a single story about one of the families in the building."

In 2013, Garstang received the Library of Virginia Literary Award for Fiction, an award given to outstanding Virginia authors.

"It's such an honor.  The two other finalists were The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers which was a finalist for the National Book Award and was also a New York Times bestseller.  And Christopher Tilghman's The Right Hand Shore which was a New York Times notable book and also was mentioned for a number of other awards.  And I think one thing that it [the award] means to me is that small presses are receiving more attention these days, that they are viable avenues for serious writers to get published."

Garstang is currently working on an upcoming anthology for Press 53, and serves as the editor-in-chief for Prime Number Literary Magazine. On Saturday, February 22^nd Clifford Garstang will read from his award-winning book What the Zhang Boys Know at two events in the Triad. The first one will take place at Scuppernong Books in Greensboro at 2:00pm and the second at Barnhill's in Winston-Salem at 6:00pm.