Be sure to catch author Alissa Nutting reading tonight from her new (and already award-winning) short story collection, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls -- and not just because it's both satirical and surreal -- and tuned to a certain key of compressed hilarity that will have you WTF!ing between laughs. (Take, for instance, "Zookeeper," a flash fiction piece about a lonely woman who steals a panda from her job at the zoo, and quickly falls under suspicion: "'Aren't those panda droppings?' she asked, pointing to my hair. 'I don't think so,' I said. I put on a helmet. The panda and I were still working through bathroom and sleeping arrangements.")

But see her also because you'll be able to say you saw her before she got huge. "Here & Now" book critic Steve Almond recently chose Unclean Jobs as one of his favorite fall books.

Nutting reads at 7 p.m. tonight at UNLV's Greenspun Hall Auditorium.