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Richard Cross will be reading two pieces: a personal narrative, "Days Like Wine," on the year he and his wife, newlyweds, spent in Würzburg, a charming university town in a winegrowing section of Lower Bavaria, and a short story-in-progress, "Love to Ashes, Dreams to Dust," which starts out in the area where Germany, France, and Switzerland come together and ends on the San Francisco Peninsula. The two pieces dovetail in that they're both stories of young love set in the late 1960s/early '70s and in similar locales; they diverge in that "Days Like Wine" is autobiographical while "Love to Ashes" isn't.

Following the reading, Richard would be happy to respond to any questions members might have. He's particularly interested in their reactions to "Love to Ashes," since it's unfinished and still fixable. Do the characters come to life? Is their story interesting and believable? Does the travel backdrop overwhelm them? Is there too much activity for the amount of space it's given? What could be done to make the story more compelling?

Richard Cross is an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland. He's published books on Flaubert and Joyce and on Malcolm Lowry as well as a number of essays and stories.