Brad Buchanan Presents SPY'S MATE

Author Brad Buchanan joins Clio's Books to discuss Spy's Mate, a coming-of-age story set in the highest levels of Soviet chess during the last days of the Cold War.

Spy's Mate takes place in a world when chess was both a propaganda tool and a matter of deadly seriousness. It follows a young chess prodigy who defies the KGB, takes on the Soviet chess establishment, and plays for his life in the World Chess Championship. The novel is also an introduction to chess, with diagrams illustration key positions in the games, and explanatory notes about chess notation.

Join Brad and National Chess Master Daniel Vanheirzeele at 11am for casual games of rapid chess as well as a conversation about the real history behind Spy's Mate, chess culture, and the unusual process of writing and publishing a work of chess fiction.

Daniel Vanheirzeele is a National Master with a peak FIDE rating of 2300. Over a long playing career (spanning the 1980s through the 2020s) he has logged over 500 official games, with multiple victories over 2500+ rated opponents and Grandmasters. He also has extensive experience in coaching young talents, as well as Masters and Grandmasters, focusing on structured improvement and classical study. His most notable success was guiding GM Elshan Moradiabadi to a joint victory at the 2022 US Open, which qualified Elshan for the Closed US Championship later that year. He founded Thinkers Publishing (based in Belgium) with the mission of producing high-quality chess books authored by experts worldwide. Daniel is traveling from

Brad Buchanan is a lifelong chess player, online chess addict, and avid follower of chess culture. In his other life, he holds degrees in English Literature from McGill University, the University of Toronto, and Stanford University. He taught twentieth-century literature and creative writing at Sacramento State University until his retirement in 2016. His writings have appeared in more than 200 journals, including Canadian Literature, the Journal of Modern Literature, and Twentieth-Century Literature. He has also published four books of poetry, three scholarly books, and a medical memoir. Spy’s Mate is his first novel.

Influences for Spy's Mate include Vladimir Nabokov's chess novel, The Luzhin Defense, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, and Walter Tevis (The Queen's Gambit and The Hustler). Spy's Mate was partly modeled on complex sports books such as David Peace's novel The Damned United and Jim Bouton's memoir Ball Four. A non-fiction book called The KGB Plays Chess by Boris Gulko, Vladimir Popov, and Yuri Felshtinsky was another spur for the project.

Copies of Brad's book are available for purchase through Clio's in advance or at the event. Games will start at 11am, break for a conversation between Bradley and Daniel, and then resume alongside book signings until 1pm.

Also check out other Arts events in Oakland, Literary Art events in Oakland, Sports events in Oakland.