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Greek Festival 2022 Page 23
Cathedral Tours, Concerts, and Oakland Author Throughout The Weekend
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ours of the award-winning Ascension Cathedral are offered throughout the weekend offering an opportunity for conversation and education about the cathedral and Orthodoxy. Ascension’s Father Tom Zaferes, Proistamenos, and Father Nicholas Mueller will present tours each day. The Ascension Liturgical Choir will also share hymns of the Orthodox Church at its mini concerts Friday through Sunday. In addition to singing the Divine Liturgy each Sunday, the choir presents its annual free Christmas concert the first Friday of December. The public is welcomed to join this special tradition which celebrates its 52nd concert this year. Visit ascensioncathedral.com for details. Also joining the festival once again is Oakland author Apollo Papafrangou. He is the author of the acclaimed debut novel Wings of Wax. He has also written for HBO Films, which optioned the
film rights to his story The Fence (20002004). His fiction and poetry have appeared in ZYZZYVA magazine, Oakland Review, The Bookends Review, Sparkle & Blink, and the Simon & Schuster anthology Trapped. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. Apollo will feature his latest book We Grew Here at the festival. Rife with vibrant prose and dialogue true to the mystique of “Oakland cool,” We Grew Here is a commanding novel-in-stories from this hometown author. He attributes his passion for storytelling to being raised in a Greek-American household where the epics of his ancestors were combined with contemporary family lore. Visit apollopapafrangou.net