GrubStreet and Porter Square Books: Boston Edition are excited to welcome Tell-All Boston for an evening celebrating personal essays on the theme of inheritance. Four local writers will share their work alongside featured reader Jason Prokowiew, acclaimed author of War Boys: A Father and Son Memoir.

The evening's program will be hosted by writer and educator Neema Avashia, who will read an excerpt from her forthcoming book Becoming Ammi: A Queer, Desi Journey into Parenthood.

Jason Prokowiew is a 2025-2026 Fulbright Scholar and won the 2023 PEN America/Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History for War Boys, his braided memoir about his Russian father's adoption by Nazis during World War II and the trauma his father carried into parenthood. He earned an MFA in creative nonfiction from George Mason University, where he was mentored by Bev Lowry. His writing has appeared in The North American Review, The Guardian, Salon, Roxane Gay's Emerging Writer Series, "The Audacity," WBUR's Cognoscenti, Brevity, Business Insider, and on PBS/WORLD Channel's Stories from the Stage. His Stories from the Stage piece, "Sing," has over 2.6 million views on Facebook and is the most viewed in the show's history. He's received additional support from Bread Loaf, Ucross, Tin House, Ragdale, and the Mass Cultural Council. A recovering disability attorney, he lives on a lake in Massachusetts with his husband Dave and their greyhound Champ. Find out more at www.jasonprokowiew.com.

Neema Avashia is the daughter of Indian immigrants, and was born and raised in southern West Virginia. Her first book, Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place, was published by West Virginia University Press in 2022. It was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the New England Book Award, and the Weatherford Award, and was a named best LGBTQ Memoir of 2022 by Book Riot, as well as a New York Public Library Best Book of 2022. She has been an educator and activist in the Boston Public Schools since 2003.

Tell-All Boston is Real Stories Read Live. We are Boston’s only live-on-stage literary reading series dedicated to the craft of memoir and personal essay. Award-winning writers, best-selling authors, and emerging stars share first-person stories that make meaning from lived experience.

Tell-All Boston is brought to you and curated by the alumni of GrubStreet’s Memoir Incubator and Essay Incubator.

Tell-All Boston Presents: Essays on Inheritance ft. Jason Prokowiew