Write On, Fairfax!
Genre: Short Stories

Sunday, February 23, 2 – 4 pm
Location: City of Fairfax Regional Library
FREE

Presenters include:

• Aziza Bayou
• Sharon Chang
• Janet Jaworski
• Genevieve Greer
• Mary Greer
• Padma Prasad Reddeppa

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS 

Aziza Bayou is an anthropologist, teacher, and PhD student in Cultural Studies at GMU.  She writes in a variety of forms including ethnography, essays, poetry, short stories, and academic works. She is currently revising her first novel, A Human Figure, in which a teenage girl visiting the ancient megalithic site of Gobeki Tepe travels back in time to the Neolithic era, where she encounters surprises and mysteries while learning to live as a hunter gatherer at the dawn of agriculture.   

Sharon Chang grew up in Richmond, Virginia. After an earlier career that featured domestic and foreign assignments with the CIA’s Clandestine Service, she worked in advocacy for minority Americans and for the right to life. Still later, formed a consultancy service for minority-owned small businesses.

Sharon has been writing in various genres (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, essays and articles) since the age of nine. She is the author of Escaped Alone: A Memoir of an Incomplete Southerner. For a variety of reasons, she is generally acknowledged by those who know her best to be thoroughly incorrigible. 

Genevive Greer has been educated at home since kindergarten and is now a junior in high school. A native of Fairfax, she enjoys party-planning for her American Heritage Girls troop and volunteering at her church’s events.  She takes an interest in the arts, especially in illustrating and writing. In March 2024, Greer won the high school level in the Language Arts 123 Competition for her entry “What’s Done is Done,” an ironic short story about a woman who murders her boyfriend and learns to forgive herself in spite of it.  Today, she still loves art and pursues many forms of it.  

Janet Jaworski is a wife, mother, lawyer, nature lover and community volunteer. She was born and raised in Northern California and enjoys learning new things and exploring. One of her fondest memories from childhood is summiting a 10,000-foot peak in the Cascades on her 8th birthday. In her spare time, Janet enjoys gardening, hiking, photographing pollinators, swimming, reading non-fiction, and learning to play pickleball. Janet recently started writing short story fiction and is enjoying the challenge. She lives in the City of Fairfax with her husband, Pete, and son, Will.

Padma Prasad Reddeppa was born in Chennai, India and is a poet writer, and painter. Her art and short stories have been published in various magazines. Padma has a postgraduate degree in English Literature and was an English Lecturer at Stella Maris College, Chennai, until she migrated to the U.S.  Her debut novel, Flying in Colors, will be launched May 6, 2025.  Today she will present an excerpt from her unpublished story, The Nest. 

Presented by the City of Fairfax Commission on the Arts.