Spillers № 4 proved Phoenix both a great city for literature and a great city, period.

First, the great literature part.

Fiction-hungry Phoenicians came out in droves to pack Crescent Ballroom’s expertly-appointed main room. The biggest Spillers audience yet had the good fortune to hear:

• Joel Salcido — “Spirals”
• Michael Holladay — “Mother of Pearl”
• David Waid — “Picture Perfect”
• Tara Ison — “A Heart, Beating”
• Paul Mosier (our first returning Spiller!) — “Freedom Figures”
• Matt Bell — “Her Ennead”

The Spillers were tremendous, the stories great, and the atmosphere incredibly supportive and receptive. To be there was to experience why Spillers has quickly become Phoenix’s premier short fiction storytelling event.

Highlights from Spillers № 4 include:

• Selling out of the Spillers № 4 book that features each story read that night
• Quaffing the super delicious Spillers cocktail (the “Pastor Lemonade“) mixed especially for the event by Crescent Ballroom’s barkeeps
• Paul Mosier reading from a scroll (a scroll!)
• Choosing Matt Bell’s walk-on music for him (listen to Matt’s live reading podcast episode to hear what we mean)
• Spotting Spillers alums Ed Tankersley, Leah Newsom, Ed Kearns & David Nicol in the crowd

Now, the great city part.

Phoenix has rallied around Paul Mosier and family for his seven-year-old daughter’s fight with cancer. Paul is one of the original six writers from Spillers № 1, and it was an easy decision to donate Spillers № 4’s ticket sales proceeds to the Harmony Mosier GoFundMe campaign. Phoenix is populated with people who step up when friends and neighbors need it, and we’re proud to live and work among such generous folks.

Of course, such a special night doesn’t happen without a ton of work from dedicated individuals. We’d be remiss if we didn’t offer up big thanks to:

• Dina at Crescent Ballroom for making the venue look so damn good
• The Four Chambers duo of Kelsey Pinckney and Jake Friedman for manning the merch table and assisting the book printing
• The entire Crescent Ballroom staff–bartenders, door people, sound guy–for being friendly and professional
• Andrew Rogers for snapping all the photos
• Steve Wiesenthal for editing the podcast

(Couldn’t make it to Spillers № 4? The Spillers After Show podcast has your back with soon-to-be-released episodes of the night’s live readings, plus exclusive author interviews with each Spiller. Joel Salcido’s reading of “Spirals” will drop on May 9th. After that, it’s a new podcast episode each week until Spillers № 5 in August.)

As always, a huge thank you to everyone who came out to support both Phoenix short fiction and Harmony Mosier. We’re honored to share with you some of the great literature being generated right here in our good city. Your attending the event, buying the book, and listening to the podcast makes it all possible.

The tremendous response to Spillers № 4 has us redoubling our efforts to make Spillers № 5 (August, 2016) the best thing we’ve done. We hope you’ll come along for the ride. See you there.