Join PUNCH and TASTE as we dive into the delicious world of cocktails. Jon Bonné, Megan Krigbaum, Brad Thomas Parsons and Robert Simonson with be in conversation with PUNCH editor in chief Talia Baiocchi about the refreshing world of spirits.
Talia Baiocchi is the founder and editor in chief of PUNCH, the author of Sherry, and co-author of Spritz, both of which were nominated for a James Beard Award. She has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, Bon Appétit, Elle, Eater and Saveur, among many others.
Jon Bonné is one of the leading American voices writing on wine. He is currently senior contributing editor for PUNCH, after nearly a decade as the award-winning wine editor of The San Francisco Chronicle. He is also the author of The New Wine Rules and The New California Wine, and is finishing his next book, The New French Wine. He lives in Brooklyn.
Megan Krigbaum is a Brooklyn-based wine and drinks writer. She's currently a contributing editor for PUNCH and writes for a number of other publications, including Afar, Saveur and Bloomberg Pursuits. Before all this, she spent a decade as a wine editor at Food & Wine magazine.
Brad Thomas Parsons is the author of Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-All, (winner of the James Beard and IACP Cookbook Awards), Amaro: The Spirited World of Bittersweet, Herbal Liqueurs and Distillery Cats: Profiles in Courage of the World's Most Spirited Mousers. Parsons received an MFA in writing from Columbia University, and his work has appeared in PUNCH, Bon Appétit and Food & Wine, among others. He lives in Brooklyn.
Robert Simonson writes about cocktails, spirits, bars and bartenders, primarily for PUNCH, where he is a contributing editor, and The New York Times, where he has been a contributor since 2000. He is the author of the books The Old-Fashioned, A Proper Drink and 3-Ingredient Cocktails, which was nominated for a 2018 James Beard Award. He lives two blocks to the north.
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Maeve Higgins: Maeve in America w/ Phoebe Robinson
Thursday August 16 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Join us in celebrating a timely essay collection about life, love, and becoming an American from breakout comedy star and podcaster Maeve Higgins.
Maeve Higgins was a bestselling memoirist and comedian in her native Ireland when, at the grand old age of thirty-one, she left the only home she’d ever known in search of something more. Like many women in their early thirties, she both was and was not the adult she wanted to be. At once smart, curious, and humane, Maeve in America is the story of how Maeve found herself, literally and figuratively, in New York City.
Here are stories of not being able to afford a dress for the ball, of learning to live with yourself while you’re still figuring out how to love yourself, of the true significance of realizing what sort of shelter dog you would be. Self-aware and laugh-out-loud funny, this collection is also a fearless exploration of the awkward questions in life, such as: Is clapping too loudly at a gig a good enough reason to break up with somebody? Is it ever really possible to leave home?
Together, the essays in Maeve in America create a startlingly funny and revealing portrait of a woman who aims for the stars but hits the ceiling, and the inimitable city that has helped shape who she is, even as she finds the words to make sense of it all.
Maeve Higgins is a contributing writer for The New York Times and the host of the hit podcast Maeve in America: Immigration IRL. She is a comedian who has performed all over the world, including in her native Ireland, Edinburgh, Melbourne, and Erbil. Now based in New York, she cohosts Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk, both the podcast and the TV show on National Geographic, and has also appeared on Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer and on WNYC’s 2 Dope Queens.
Phoebe Robinson is a stand-up comedian, writer, and actress. She is best known as the co-creator and co-star of the hit WNYC Studios podcast 2 Dope Queens, which was turned into four one-hour, critically-acclaimed HBO specials. She is a New York Times best-selling author of the book You Can’t Touch My Hair and Other Things I Still Have to Explain. Her sophomore book Everything's Trash, But It’s Okay will be published by Dutton October 16, 2018.
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Assignment Magazine Launch: Rachel B. Glaser, Gemma Sieff, and Edward Dzialo
Thursday August 23 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Please join us to celebrate the launch of Assignment #4. The event will feature short readings from Assignment contributors:
Rachel B. Glaser
Gemma Sieff
Edward Dzialo
Assignment is a literary magazine published annually by the Mountainview Master in Fine Arts program. Previous contributors have included Joshua Cohen, Jen Percy, Justin Taylor, Christine Smallwood, and Amie Barrodale.
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Sara Batkie: Better Times w/ Marie-Helene Bertino
Friday August 31 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, the stories in Better Times focus on what’s happening in places people don’t think to look. Women, sometimes displaced, often lonely, are at the heart of these stories. In Better Times Sara Batkie focuses on the moments in women’s lives when the wider world is wrapped up in other matters: a father and daughter, separated by time and an ocean, dreaming of each other; a girl in a home for “troubled women” imagining the journey of the first dog in space; a phantom breast returning to haunt a woman after her mastectomy; a young woman giving birth to a litter of eggs. Such are the ordinary women weathering extraordinary circumstances in Better Times.
Sara Batkie was born in Seattle and raised in the wilds of Connecticut and Iowa. Her stories have been published in various journals, received mention in the 2011 Best American Short Stories anthology, and honored with a 2017 Pushcart Prize. Currently she lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan as the Writing Programs Director for the Center for Fiction.
Marie-Helene Bertino is the author of the novel 2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas and the story collection Safe as Houses, and was the 2017 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Fellow in Cork, Ireland. Her work has received The O. Henry Prize, The Pushcart Prize, The Iowa Short Fiction Award, The Mississippi Review Story Prize, and has been twice featured on NPR's Selected Shorts. She teaches at NYU, The New School, and Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM, and lives in Brooklyn, where she was the Associate Editor for One Story. For more information and film recs, please visit: www.mariehelenebertino.com.
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Back 2 Back: Melissa Iwai & Elizabeth Lilly
Saturday September 01 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators presents Back 2 Back, a series celebrating veterans and new comers in the industry.
This month we welcome Melissa Iwai and Elizabeth Lilly.
Melissa Iwai has wanted to write and illustrate children's books since she was a little kid. She started with stapling paper together and making tiny books for her dolls, and now she's illustrated over 30 books. She lives with her husband, and teenage son in a teeny, tiny apartment in Brooklyn.
Elizabeth Lilly is an author-illustrator, animator and graphic designer. Her first picture book, entitled Geraldine, is about a giraffe who has trouble fitting in (figuratively and literally) when she moves to a human school was published by Neal Porter Books/Roaring Brook Press, an imprint of Macmillan, in June 2018.
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Jane Mount: Bibliophile w/ Nicole Caputo, Rachel Fershleiser, and Jason Polan
Tuesday September 04 | 7:00PM - 8:00PM
In the ultimate gift for book lovers, Jane Mount brings literary people, places, and things to life through her signature and vibrant illustrations. Inside these pages, you can tour the world's most beautiful bookstores, test your knowledge of the written word with quizzes, find your next great read in lovingly curated stacks of books, and so much more. Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany is sure to enchant book clubbers, English majors, poetry devotees, inspiring writers, and any and all who identify as bookworms.
Jane Mount draws, writes, and makes things for people who love books at Ideal Bookshelf. Her first book, My Ideal Bookshelf, earned praise from Kirkus as "A bibliophilic feast for the eye, mind, heart and soul." Jane Mount lives mostly in Maui with her Swiss husband and two weird cats.
Nicole Caputo is an award-winning New York graphic designer who specializes in book and book cover design. She is the Creative Director of Counterpoint Press and the Art Director of Catapult. Nicole is also co-founder of She Designs Books, an organization that celebrates and promotes women designers in book publishing. Her work has been published in Graphic Design Solutions, 5th Edition, Communication Arts, How magazine, Print magazine, the Type Director's Club and Art Director's Club annuals, and elsewhere. Her work appears frequently in Spine Magazine and has also been celebrated by Lit Hub, Electric Literature, Paste Magazine and The Casual Optimist.
Rachel Fershleiser is the senior director of marketing for Alfred A. Knopf, Pantheon, Schocken Books. Previously she led audience development at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, publisher outreach at Tumblr, community at Bookish, and public programs at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, where she now serves on the board of directors. She is the co-creator of Six-Word Memoirs and co-editor of the New York Times bestseller Not Quite What I Was Planning and three other books.
Jason Polan is an artist living in New York City. He has exhibited work all over the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia. He is a founding member of Taco Bell Drawing Club. He has made over 100 books including The Every Piece of Art in the Museum of Modern Art Book (twice). Mr. Polan’s drawings have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and ARTnews. He has done projects with The Criterion Collection, Uniqlo, the Whitney Museum, and The Ford Foundation. Polan is currently drawing every person in New York (he has drawn over 80,000 people so far). Polan is from Michigan.
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Alexandra Tweten: Bye Felipe: Disses, Dick Pics, and Other Delights of Modern Dating, w/ Kerensa Cadenas
Wednesday September 05 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
In an online world increasingly filled with harassment and trolling, women mostly bear the brunt of hostile sexual messages. Over half of young women say they've been sent explicit images that they didn’t ask for, according to Pew. After one too many of these hostile encounters, Alexandra Tweten created the viral Instagram account @ByeFelipe, which calls out men who turn hostile when rejected or ignored. Taking examples from her new book, Bye Felipe: Disses, Dick Pics, and Other Delights of Modern Dating, Alexandra will lead a workshop on the best online dating safety tactics, followed by a Q&A with Kerensa Cadenas.
Alexandra Tweten is the creator of the viral Instagram account @ByeFelipe. The Atlantic has referred to her as a "Feminist-Tinder-Creep-Busting Web Vigilante." She has been featured in national media outlets including The New York Times, Huffington Post, The Guardian, and Cosmopolitan, and has appeared on Good Morning America and Nightline. Tweten co-hosts the V Single Podcast on iTunes and has been a guest speaker at universities, the L.A. Museum of Broken Relationships, and the Sexting Art Festival in NY.
Kerensa Cadenas is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn. She was previously the Entertainment News Editor at Bustle. And before that the Deputy Editor of Complex Pop Culture. She has previously written for Jezebel, Esquire, The Hairpin, The Guardian, The Week, Us Weekly, Women and Hollywood, Ms. magazine, Broadly and other outlets. She has a BAS in English and Women Studies from Ohio University and an MA in Cultural Studies from Carnegie Mellon University. Her interests include speed reading, celebrity gossip and constantly googling if she has a vitamin deficiency.
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DeRay Mckessen: On the Other Side of Freedom at St. Ann's Church, w/ Hasan Minajh and Touré
Wednesday September 05 | 8:00PM - 9:00PM
Join DeRay Mckesson - the internationally recognized civil rights leader and host of the podcast Pod Save the People - for a timely conversation on culture, social justice, and politics. Drawing from his own experiences as an organizer, educator, and public official, DeRay will explore the issues of the day and discuss the subtle structures and inherent biases that impact our communities. The conversation will also examine the core themes of DeRay's upcoming first book, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF FREEDOM: The Case for Hope, a meditation on resistance, justice, and freedom, and an intimate portrait of the Black Lives Matter movement from the front lines. DeRay will be joined by special guests for a live, no-holds-barred conversation about inclusion, community, and progress designed to empower a new generation of leaders.
Hasan Minhaj is a comedian, actor, host, and writer. This fall he will become the first Indian-American to host his own weekly comedy show for Netflix, which will explore the modern cultural and political landscape with depth and sincerity. Since November 2014, Minhaj has worked on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," where he was Jon’s last hire, continuing in the correspondent role after Trevor Noah took over as host the following year. He departs Summer 2018, after nearly 4 years on the show. His solo show Homecoming King debuted off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre in 2015 to critical acclaim and a subsequent sold-out national tour. Homecoming King received rave reviews and won a 2018 Peabody Award. In 2017, Hasan had the prestigious honor of hosting the annual White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington DC.
Touré is an author, TV host, and podcaster. He’s the host of the podcast Toure Show. He was the co-host of The Cycle on MSNBC as well as a host at BET, MTV2, and Fuse. He’s the author of five books including I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became An Icon (2013). He’s currently at work on two books: a memoir of the legendary rapper Rakim and a study of male infidelity. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and kids.
Every ticket includes a copy of ON THE OTHER SIDE OF FREEDOM by DeRay Mckesson (a $25 value).
From National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Ada Limón comes The Carrying—her most powerful collection yet.
Vulnerable, tender, acute, these are serious poems, brave poems, exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance. A daughter tends to aging parents. A woman struggles with infertility—“What if, instead of carrying / a child, I am supposed to carry grief?”—and a body seized by pain and vertigo as well as ecstasy. A nation convulses: “Every song of this country / has an unsung third stanza, something brutal.” And still Limón shows us, as ever, the persistence of hunger, love, and joy, the dizzying fullness of our too-short lives. “Fine then, / I’ll take it,” she writes. “I’ll take it all.”
In her first National Book Award finalist, Bright Dead Things, Limón showed us a heart “giant with power, heavy with blood”—“the huge beating genius machine / that thinks, no, it knows, / it’s going to come in first.” In her follow-up collection, that heart is on full display—even as The Carrying continues further and deeper into the bloodstream, following the hard-won truth of what it means to live in an imperfect world.
Ada Limón is the author of four books of poetry, including Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and American Poetry Review, among others. She lives in both Kentucky and California.
Dawn Lundy Martin is a poet, essayist, and conceptual-video artist. She is the author of four books of poems: Good Stock Strange Blood; Life in a Box is a Pretty Life, which won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry; DISCIPLINE, A Gathering of Matter / A Matter of Gathering, and three limited edition chapbooks. Her nonfiction can be found in the New Yorker, Harper's, and elsewhere. Martin is Professor of English in the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh and Co-director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics.
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Ingrid Fetell Lee: Joyful
Friday September 07 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Designer and TED star Ingrid Fetell Lee explains how to cultivate a happier, healthier life by making small changes to your surroundings.
Have you ever wondered why we stop to watch the orange glow that arrives before sunset, or why we flock to see cherry blossoms bloom in spring? Is there a reason that people -- regardless of gender, age, culture, or ethnicity -- are mesmerized by baby animals, and can't help but smile when they see a burst of confetti or a cluster of colorful balloons.
We are often made to feel that the physical world has little or no impact on our inner joy. Increasingly, experts urge us to find balance and calm by looking inward -- through mindfulness or meditation -- and muting the outside world. But what if the natural vibrancy of our surroundings is actually our most renewable and easily accessible source of joy?
In Joyful, designer Ingrid Fetell Lee explores how the seemingly mundane spaces and objects we interact with every day have surprising and powerful effects on our mood. Drawing on insights from neuroscience and psychology, she explains why one setting makes us feel anxious or competitive, while another fosters acceptance and delight -- and, most importantly, she reveals how we can harness the power of our surroundings to live fuller, healthier, and truly joyful lives.
Ingrid Fetell Lee is a former Design Director at global innovation firm IDEO and founder of the blog The Aesthetics of Joy, a leading resource in the field of emotional design. She has over a decade of experience in design and branding, and holds an MA in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and a BA in English and Creative Writing from Princeton University. She has been featured as an expert on design and joy by outlets such as The New York Times, Wired, PRI’s Studio 360, CBC’s Spark, and Fast Company.
Small Victories, one of the most beloved cookbooks of 2016, introduced us to the lovely Julia Turshen and her mastery of show-stopping home cooking, in what Real Simple called "an inspiring addition to any kitchen bookshelf." In her second book,Feed the Resistance, she moved a nation, winning Eater Cookbook of the Year in 2017. In Now & Again, Turshen shares more than 125 delicious and doable recipes and 20 creative menu ideas help cooks of any skill level to gather friends and family around the table to share a meal (or many!) together.
Now & Again will change the way we gather, eat, and think about leftovers, and, like the name suggests, you'll find yourself reaching for its pages time and time again.
Julia Turshen is the bestselling author of Feed the Resistance, named the Best Cookbook of 2017 by Eater, and Small Victories, named one of the Best Cookbooks of 2016 by the New York Times and NPR. She has coauthored numerous cookbooks and hosted the first two seasons of Radio Cherry Bombe. Epicurious has called her one of the "100 Greatest Home Cooks of All Time" and she sits on the Advisory Board of the National Museum of American History’s Kitchen Cabinet. She is the founder of Equity At The Table (EATT), an inclusive digital directory of women and non-binary individuals in food. Julia lives in the Hudson Valley with her wife and pets.
Jia Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker whose recent work includes a Profile of the attorney Gloria Allred, a review of the literature on the millennial generation, and essays on the ongoing cultural reckoning about sexual assault. Previously, she was the deputy editor at Jezebel and a contributing editor at the Hairpin. She grew up in Texas, attended the University of Virginia on a Jefferson Scholarship, served in the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan, and received an M.F.A. in fiction from the University of Michigan. Her criticism has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Grantland, the Awl, Pitchfork, The Fader, Time, and Slate.
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Bookforum presents Backlash: The Legacy of 1968, a Brooklyn Book Festival Event
Monday September 10 | 7:00PM - 8:30PM
Books Are Magic is teaming up with Bookforum for this Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Event! Join panelists Andrea Long Chu, Elizabeth Schambelan, and Charlotte Shane, moderated by Bookforum editor Michael Miller, as they discuss the political reverberations of 1968.
A year of radical hope, groundbreaking art and literature, and passionate activism, 1968 left a longstanding legacy of reactionary movements and counterrevolutions, galvanized by political uprisings of the time. Based on articles in the "1968 Now" Bookforum issue about Yukio Mishima’s ideological impact on today’s white nationalists, Kristin Ross's book May '68 and its Afterlives, Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge, and the generative conflicts of second-wave feminism, this panel will explore how the books of the time heralded a backlash that continues to shape our culture and politics today.
Andrea Long Chu is a Brooklyn-based writer, critic, and doctoral candidate at New York University. Her essay “On Liking Women” has been hailed by Sandy Stone as launching “the second wave” of trans studies. Her writing has appeared inn+1, Artforum, Women & Performance, and TSQ, with writing forthcoming indifferences, The New Inquiry, LIES, and the Journal of Speculative Philosophy. She is working on two book projects, Bad Politics and The Impossibility of Feminism.
Elizabeth Schambelan is deputy editor of Artforum. She has taught critical writing at the School of Visual Arts and the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies and has written for publications including Art in America, Artforum, Bookforum, Film Comment, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and n+1.
Charlotte Shane is the author of Prostitute Laundry, N.B., and 3 Conversations with merritt k, and the editor of the anthology On Balance. In 2015, she co-founded TigerBee Press, and since 2016, she has hosted the monthly reading series Bad Advice From Bad Women, which has been held in NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. She has written for The New Inquiry, The Nation, The New Republic, and Bookforum.
Michael Miller has worked at the Village Voice Literary Supplement, Spin Magazine, and Time Out New York. He is currently an editor at Bookforum magazine.
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Brian Phillips: Impossible Owls
Monday September 10 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
A globe-spanning, ambitious book of essays from one of the most enthralling storytellers in narrative nonfiction.
In his highly anticipated debut essay collection, Impossible Owls, Brian Phillips demonstrates why he’s one of the most iconoclastic journalists of the digital age, beloved for his ambitious, off-kilter, meticulously reported essays that read like novels.
The eight essays assembled here—five from Phillips’s Grantland and MTV days, and three new pieces—go beyond simply chronicling some of the modern world’s most uncanny, unbelievable, and spectacular oddities (though they do that, too). Researched for months and even years on end, they explore the interconnectedness of the globalized world, the consequences of history, the power of myth, and the ways people attempt to find meaning. He searches for tigers in India, and uncovers a multigenerational mystery involving an oil tycoon and his niece turned stepdaughter turned wife in the Oklahoma town where he grew up. Through each adventure, Phillips’s remarkable voice becomes a character itself—full of verve, rich with offhanded humor, and revealing unexpected vulnerability.
Dogged, self-aware, and radiating a contagious enthusiasm for his subjects, Phillips is an exhilarating guide to the confusion and wonder of the world today. If John Jeremiah Sullivan’s Pulphead was the last great collection of New Journalism from the print era, Impossible Owls is the first of the digital age.
Brian Phillips is a former staff writer for Grantland and a former senior writer for MTV News. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, Slate, and Poetry, among other publications, as well as in Best American Sports Writing and Best American Magazine Writing. He lives in Los Angeles.
This event is free!
Sarah Weinman: The Real Lolita w/ David Grann
Tuesday September 11 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is one of the most beloved and notorious novels of all time. And yet, very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of eleven-year-old Sally Horner.
Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner’s full story for the very first time. Drawing upon extensive investigations, legal documents, public records, and interviews with remaining relatives, Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing Lolita.
The Real Lolita casts a new light on the dark inspiration for a modern classic.
Sarah Weinman is the editor of Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s (Library of America) and Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives (Penguin). She covers book publishing for Publishers Marketplace, and has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Republic, the Guardian, and Buzzfeed, among other outlets. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
David Grann is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the bestselling author of The Lost City of Z and National Book Award Finalist Killers of the Flower Moon, both of which were chosen as one of the best books of their respective year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. He is also the author of The Devil and Sherlock Holmes and The Old Man and the Gun. His work has garnered several honors for outstanding journalism, including a George Polk Award and an Edgar Award.
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Patrick deWitt: French Exit w/ Emma Straub
Wednesday September 12 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
From bestselling author Patrick deWitt, a brilliant and darkly comic novel about a wealthy widow and her adult son who flee New York for Paris in the wake of scandal and financial disintegration.
Frances Price – tart widow, possessive mother, and Upper East Side force of nature – is in dire straits, beset by scandal and impending bankruptcy. Her adult son Malcolm is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there’s the Price’s aging cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral litigator and world-class cad whose gruesome tabloid death rendered Frances and Malcolm social outcasts.
Putting penury and pariahdom behind them, the family decides to cut their losses and head for the exit. One ocean voyage later, the curious trio land in their beloved Paris, the City of Light serving as a backdrop not for love or romance, but self destruction and economical ruin – to riotous effect.
Patrick deWitt is the author of the critically acclaimed Undermajordomo Minor, Ablutions: Notes for a Novel, as well as The Sisters Brothers, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Born in British Columbia, he has also lived in California and Washington, and now resides in Portland, Oregon.
Emma Straub is from New York City. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Modern Lovers and The Vacationers. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published by Tin House, The Paris Review Daily, Time, Slate, and the New York Times, and Rookie. She lives with her husband in Brooklyn, where she co-owns Books Are Magic.
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Lydia Kiesling: The Golden State w/ Vinson Cunningham
Thursday September 13 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
In Lydia Kiesling’s razor-sharp debut novel, The Golden State, we accompany Daphne, a young mother on the edge of a breakdown, as she flees her sensible but strained life in San Francisco for the high desert of Altavista with her toddler, Honey. Bucking under the weight of being a single parent—her Turkish husband is unable to return to the United States because of a “processing error”—Daphne takes refuge in a mobile home left to her by her grandparents in hopes that the quiet will bring clarity.
But clarity proves elusive. Keenly observed, bristling with humor, and set against the beauty of a little-known part of California, The Golden State is about class and cultural breakdowns, and desperate attempts to bridge old and new worlds. But more than anything, it is about motherhood: its voracious worry, frequent tedium, and enthralling, wondrous love.
Lydia Kiesling is the editor of The Millions. Her debut novel, The Golden State, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. Her essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Slate, and The New Yorker online, and have been recognized in The Best American Essays 2016. Kiesling lives in San Francisco with her family.
Vinson Cunningham is a staff writer at The New Yorker. His essays, reviews, and profiles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, FADER, Vulture, The Awl, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. A former White House staffer, he now teaches an MFA Writing course at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York City.
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Korwin Briggs: Gods and Heroes
Friday September 14 | 4:00PM - 5:00PM
Before there was Batman, Wonder Woman, or Black Panther there was Indra, Hindu king of gods, who battled a fearsome snake to save the world from drought. Athena, the powerful Greek goddess of wisdom who could decide the fate of battles before they even began. Okuninushi, the Japanese hero who defeated eighty brothers to become king and then traded it all for a chance at immortality.
Featuring more than 70 characters from 23 cultures around the world, this A-to-Z encyclopedia of mythology is a who's who of powerful gods and goddesses, warriors and kings, enchanted creatures and earthshaking giants whose stories have been passed down since the beginning of time—now refreshed for a new generation of young readers.
Korwin Briggs is a writer and illustrator who grew up in a small town halfway between Philadelphia and Amish country. He went to an old Quaker boarding school where he shot lots of nerf guns and then to the Rhode Island School of Design where he drew lots of chickens. Since graduating, he’s been working as a professional freelance artist in a couple of different cities (currently New York).
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Kate Schatz & Miriam Klein Stahl: Rad Girls Can
Friday September 14 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
From the New York Times best-selling authors of Rad Women Worldwide and Rad American Women A-Z, a bold and brave collection of stories and art about inspiring and accomplished girls who have made positive impacts on the world before the age of 20.
In Rad Girls Can, you'll learn about a diverse group of young women who are living rad lives, whether excelling in male-dominated sports like boxing, rock climbing, or skateboarding; speaking out against injustice and discrimination; expressing themselves through dance, writing, and music; or advocating for girls around the world. Each profile is paired with the dynamic paper-cut art that made the authors' first two books New York Times best sellers.
Kate Schatz is a feminist writer, activist, and educator. She is the author of the New York Times best sellers Rad American Women A-Z and Rad Women Worldwide, and the accompanying journal, My Rad Life. Kate is the co-founder of Solidarity Sundays, a nationwide network of feminist activist groups, and she speaks often about politics, resistance, feminism, race, parenting, and more. Visit radgirlscan.com.
Miriam Klein Stahl is an artist, educator, and activist and the illustrator of Rad American Women A-Z and Rad Women Worldwide, and My Rad Life. In addition to her work in printmaking, drawing, sculpture, and paper-cut and public art, she is also the cofounder of the Arts and Humanities Academy at Berkeley High School, where she has taught since 1995.
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Claudia Dey: Heartbreaker w/ Leslie Feist
Saturday September 15 | 7:00PM - 8:00PM
The love between a daughter and her mother—and the dark secrets they keep from each other—are at the heart of this wildly imaginative novel that combines elements of The Handmaid’s Tale, Stranger Things, and Twin Peaks.
Startling in its humor and wrenching in its wisdom about the powers, limits, and dangers of love, Heartbreaker is an electrifying page-turner about a woman reinventing herself in order to survive—and a daughter who must race against the clock to untangle the mysteries left in her mother’s wake.
Claudia Dey is the author of Stunt, a Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire Book of the Year. Her plays have been produced internationally and nominated for the Governor General’s Award and Trillium Book Award. Dey’s writing and interviews have appeared in many publications, including The Paris Review and The Believer. Dey has also worked as a horror film actress and a cook in lumber camps across northern Canada, and is co-founder of the design studio and clothing label Horses Atelier. She lives in Toronto.
Claudia will be joined by singer and songwriter Leslie Feist, known for her solo career and as a member of pop indie band Broken Social Scene.
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Sarah Ruhl: Letters from Max w/ Timothy Donnelly
Monday September 17 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
In 2012, Sarah Ruhl was a distinguished author and playwright, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Max Ritvo, a student in her playwriting class at Yale University, was an exuberant, opinionated, and highly gifted poet. He was also in remission from pediatric cancer. Over the next four years—in which Ritvo’s illness returned and his health declined, even as his productivity bloomed—the two exchanged letters that spark with urgency, humor, and the desire for connection. Reincarnation, books, the afterlife as an Amtrak quiet car, good soup: in Ruhl and Ritvo’s correspondence, all ideas are fair, nourishing game, shared and debated in a spirit of generosity and love. Studded with poems and songs, Letters from Max is a deeply moving portrait of a friendship, and a shimmering exploration of love, art, mortality, and the afterlife.
Sarah Ruhl is the playwright of In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play (Pulitzer Prize finalist, Tony Award nominee); The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize finalist, winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize); Passion Play, a cycle; Dead Man’s Cell Phone (winner of the Helen Hayes Award); and, most recently, Stage Kiss and Dear Elizabeth. She has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award, the Whiting Writers’ Award, and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a midcareer playwright. Her collection of essays 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2014. She is currently on the faculty of the Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family.
Timothy Donnelly is the author ofThe Cloud Corporation, winner of the 2012 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and the chapbook Hymn to Life. A new collection, The Problem of the Many, is forthcoming next year. A Guggenheim fellow, he has published poems in Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. He is Director of Poetry at Columbia University’s School of the Arts and lives in Brooklyn with his family.
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Tamara Shopsin: Arbitrary Stupid Goal w/ John Hodgman
Tuesday September 18 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
In Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin takes the reader on a pointillist time-travel trip to the Greenwich Village of her bohemian 1970s childhood, a funky, tight-knit small town in the big city, long before Sex and the City tours and luxury condos. The center of Tamara’s universe is Shopsin’s, her family’s legendary greasy spoon, aka “The Store,” run by her inimitable dad, Kenny—a loquacious, contrary, huge-hearted man who, aside from dishing up New York’s best egg salad on rye, is Village sheriff, philosopher, and fixer all at once. All comers find a place at Shopsin’s table and feast on Kenny’s tall tales and trenchant advice along with the incomparable chili con carne.
Filled with clever illustrations and witty, nostalgic photographs and graphics, and told in a sly, elliptical narrative that is both hilarious and endearing, Arbitrary Stupid Goal is an offbeat memory-book mosaic about the secrets of living an unconventional life, which is becoming a forgotten art.
Tamara Shopsin is a well-known cook at the distinctly New York City eatery Shopsin’s, a New York Times and New Yorker illustrator, and the author of 5 Year Diary and What Is This?, as well as the coauthor of This Equals That and Mumbai New York Scranton. She lives in New York City with her husband.
John Hodgman is a writer, comedian, and actor. He is the author of Vacationland and three books of fake facts and invented trivia, all of them New York Times Bestsellers, and his writing has also appeared in The Paris Review, This American Life, The New Yorker, and Mad Magazine. He has appeared on The Daily Show, FX's Married, HBO's Bored to Death, and Cinemax's The Knick.
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Jen Doll: Unclaimed Baggage w/ MJ Franklin
Thursday September 20 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Doris—a lone liberal in a conservative small town—has mostly kept to herself since the terrible waterslide incident a few years ago. Nell had to leave behind her best friends, perfect life, and too-good-to-be-true boyfriend in Chicago to move to Alabama. Grant was the star quarterback and epitome of "Mr. Popular" whose drinking problem has all but destroyed his life. What do these three have in common? A summer job working in a store called Unclaimed Baggage cataloging and selling other people's lost luggage. Together they find that through friendship, they can unpack some of their own emotional baggage and move on into the future.
Jen Doll is the author of the debut young adult novel, Unclaimed Baggage. She's written for The Atlantic, Elle, Esquire, Glamour, GQ, New York Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Vice, The Village Voice, The Week, and many other publications. She grew up in Alabama and lives in Brooklyn.
MJ Franklin is a Brooklyn-based journalist and book nerd. He is currently a social editor at The New York Times. Previously he worked at Mashable as an assistant editor and host of the MashReads podcast, an audio book club that about the books you should know and authors you should be obsessed with. Find him on Twitter and talk to him about what books you're loving at @heyitsfranklin
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Lisa Hanawalt: Coyote Doggirl
Friday September 21 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Celebrate the raucous and fierce Western by the BoJack Horseman producer/production designer and award-winning cartoonist, Lisa Hanawalt.
Coyote is a dreamer and a drama queen, brazen and brave, faithful yet fiercely independent. A gifted equestrian, she’s half dog, half coyote, and all power. With the help of her trusty steed, Red, there’s not much that’s too big for her to bite off, chew up, and spit out right into your face, if you deserve it. But when Coyote and Red find themselves on the run from a trio of vengeful bad dogs, get clobbered by arrows, and are tragically separated, our protagonist is left fighting for her life and longing for her displaced best friend. Taken in by a wolf clan, Coyote may be wounded, but it’s not long before she’s back on the open road to track down Red and tackle the dogs who wronged her.
An homage to and a lampoon of Westerns like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Lisa Hanawalt’s Coyote Doggirl is a self-aware, playful subversion of tropes. We see a journey in understanding and misunderstanding, adopting and co-opting. The story of these flawed, anthropomorphized characters is nothing if not relentlessly hilarious and heartbreakingly human. Told in Hanawalt’s technicolor absurdist style, Coyote Doggirl is not just a send-up of the Western genre but a deeply personal story told by an enormously talented cartoonist.
Lisa Hanawalt draws illustrations and funnies for places like The New York Times, Hazlitt, McSweeneys, Chronicle Books, and Vanity Fair and she writes and draws a quarterly food column for Lucky Peach, for which she won a James Beard Award in 2014. She currently lives in Los Angeles, CA, and is the character designer for and co-producer of the Netflix original series, Bojack Horseman.
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Storytime with Christina Matula: The Shadow in the Moon
Saturday September 22 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
Join us for storytime with The Shadow in the Moon, a unique blend of traditional folklore and contemporary customs that brings the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival to life.
Two sisters and their grandmother celebrate a popular Chinese holiday with family. Their favorite part? Mooncakes, of course--along with Ah-ma's story of the ancient Chinese tale of Hou Yi, a brave young archer, and his wife, Chang'E. A long, long time ago, Hou Yi rescued the earth from the heat of ten suns. The Immortals rewarded him with a magic potion that could let him live in the sky with them forever. But when a thief tries to steal the potion, what will Chang'E do to keep it out of dangerous hands? The sisters are mesmerized by Ah-ma's retelling and the fact that the very mooncakes they enjoy each holiday are a symbol of this legend's bravest soul.
Christina Matula is half Taiwanese, but raised in Canada and loves learning about her heritage through legends and festivals. She hopes her stories will spark in an interest in Chinese culture for readers of all backgrounds. The Shadow in the Moon is her first picture book. Christina now lives in Hong Kong.
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Storytime with Mike Perry: Z Goes First
Sunday September 23 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
The letter Z is tired of being in last place—she wants to go first! So she and her best friend, Y, decide to move to the front of the alphabet.
There are a lot of letters in the way! D blocks the path with his belly (too many doughnuts). I is too full of himself (“I am incredible”). And L, M, N, O, and P stick together like a brick wall. They all teach Z and Y that the full alphabet is lot more complicated than just ABC.
With Mike Perry’s eye-popping artwork and Sean Lamb’s clever twists on everyday letters, this new kind of alphabet book takes you on an unforgettable adventure all the way from A to Z and back again.
Mike Perry is a designer and artist working in numerous media: books, magazines, films, newspapers. He is originally from Kansas City, Missouri. His creative adventure began at age thirteen when his grandfather gave him a tackle box full of paint. From then on, it has been one canvas, silkscreen, notebook page, paper, and poster print after another. Perry went to Minneapolis College of Art and Design for a degree in graphic design, and his first job was designing for Urban Outfitters.
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NYRB Book Club: In The Freud Archives
Monday September 24 | 7:00PM - 8:00PM
Books Are Magic is proud to host the (NYRB) Books Are Magic Book Club, a book club that discusses a different book by a female author in the New York Review Books catalog every other month.
This month we are discussing In the Freud Archives by Janet Malcolm.
In the Freud Archives tells the story of an unlikely encounter among three men: K. R. Eissler, the venerable doyen of psychoanalysis; Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, a flamboyant, restless forty-two-year-old Sanskrit scholar turned psychoanalyst turned virulent anti-Freudian; and Peter Swales, a mischievous thirty-five-year-old former assistant to the Rolling Stones and self-taught Freud scholar. At the center of their Oedipal drama are the Sigmund Freud Archives--founded, headed, and jealously guarded by Eissler--whose sealed treasure gleams and beckons to the community of Freud scholarship as if it were the Rhine gold.
Janet Malcolm's fascinating book first appeared some twenty years ago, when it was immediately recognized as a rare and remarkable work of nonfiction. A story of infatuation and disappointment, betrayal and revenge, In the Freud Archives is essentially a comedy. But the powerful presence of Freud himself and the harsh bracing air of his ideas about unconscious life hover over the narrative and give it a tragic dimension.
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Ben Fountain: Beautiful Country Burn Again w/ Malcolm Gladwell
Tuesday September 25 | 7:00PM - 8:00PM
In a sweeping work of reportage set over the course of 2016, The New York Times bestselling author Ben Fountain recounts a surreal year of politics and an exploration of the current American existential crisis. Beautiful Country Burn Again is a searing indictment of how we came to this point, and where we may be headed.
Twice before in its history, the United States has been faced with a crisis so severe it was forced to reinvent itself in order to survive: first, the struggle over slavery, culminating in the Civil War, and the second, the Great Depression, which led to President Roosevelt’s New Deal and the establishment of America as a social-democratic state. In this sequence of essays that excavate the past while laying bare the political upheaval of 2016, Ben Fountain argues that the United States may be facing a third existential crisis, one that will require a “burning” of the old order as America attempts to remake itself.
Charting the early days of the Iowa Caucus to the crystalizing moments of the Democratic and Republican national conventions and culminating in the aftershocks of the weeks following election night, Fountain probes deeply into history, illuminating the forces and watershed moments of the past that mirror the present, from Richard Nixon’s southern strategy, to our weaponized conception of American exceptionalism, to the cult of celebrity that gave rise to Donald Trump. In an urgent and deeply incisive voice, Ben Fountain has fused history and the present day to paint a startling portrait of the state of our nation.
Ben Fountain was born in Chapel Hill and grew up in the tobacco country of eastern North Carolina. A former practicing attorney, he is the author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, and the novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, winner of the National Book Critics' Circle Award and a finalist for the National Book Award. His series of essays published in The Guardian on the 2016 U.S. presidential election was subsequently nominated by the editors of The Guardian for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary. He lives in Dallas, Texas.
Malcolm Gladwell has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1996. He is the author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, What the Dog Saw and David and Goliath. Prior to joining The New Yorker, he was a reporter at the Washington Post. Gladwell was born in England and grew up in rural Ontario. He lives in New York.
Please note that this event will take place at St. Francis College.
180 Remsen St, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Elliot Ackerman: Waiting for Eden & Lea Carpenter: Red, White, Blue
Tuesday September 25 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Join us for a conversation between Elliot Ackerman and Lea Carpenter, discussing their respective new novels, Waiting for Eden, and Red, White, Blue.
Ackerman’s Waiting For Eden is a breathtakingly spare and shattering new novel that traces the intersection of three star-crossed lives. Eden Malcom lies in a bed, unable to move or to speak, imprisoned in his own mind. His wife Mary spends every day on the sofa in his hospital room. He has never met their young daughter, and he will never again see the friend and fellow soldier who didn't make it back home--and who narrates the novel. But on Christmas, the one day Mary is not at his bedside, Eden's reordered consciousness comes flickering alive. As he finds a way to communicate, troubling truths about his marriage and his life before the war come to the surface. Is Eden the same man he once was: a husband, a friend, a father-to-be? A piercingly insightful meditation on loyalty and betrayal, love and fear, Waiting for Eden is a tour de force of profound humanity.
Carpenter’s Red, White, Blue is a dark and subtly crafted novel that traces the intertwined fates of a CIA case officer and a young woman who is forced to confront her dead father's secret past--at once a gripping, immersive tale of duplicity and espionage, and a moving story of love and loyalty. Anna is the beloved only child of the charismatic Noel, a New York City banker--and a mother who abandoned her. When Noel dies in a mysterious skiing accident in Switzerland, Anna, consumed by grief, grows increasingly distant from her husband. While on her honeymoon in France, Anna meets an enigmatic stranger. Soon, everything Anna knows about her father is called into question, launching her into a desperate search for truth. Smart and suspenseful, Red, White, Blue plunges us into the inner workings of the CIA, a China Ops gone wrong, and the consequences of a collision between personal ties and professional commitment.
Elliot Ackerman is the author of the novels Dark at the Crossing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Green on Blue. His writings have appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New York Times Magazine, among other publications, and his stories have been included in The Best American Short Stories. He is both a former White House Fellow and Marine, and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.
Lea Carpenter graduated from Princeton and has an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was valedictorian. She is a Contributing Editor at Esquire and has written the screenplay for Mile 22, a film about CIA’s Special Activities Division, directed by Peter Berg and starring Mark Wahlberg and John Malkovich, coming out in July. Her debut novel, Eleven Days, is in development for television with Lucy Donnelly (Grey Gardens) and Gideon Raff (Homeland). She lives in New York.
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Can We All Be Feminists?: A Panel on Intersectionality
Wednesday September 26 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Join us for a panel following the release of Can We All Be Feminists?, featuring contributing writers and the editor of “the intersectional feminist anthology we all need to read” (Bustle).
Why do some women struggle to identify as feminists, despite their commitment to gender equality? How do other aspects of our identities – such as race, religion, sexuality, gender identity, and more – impact how we relate to feminism? Why is intersectionality so important? In challenging, incisive, and fearless essays – all of which appear here for the first time – seventeen writers from diverse backgrounds wrestle with these questions. A groundbreaking book that elevates underrepresented voices, Can We All Be Feminists? offers the tools and perspective we need to create a 21st century feminism that is truly for all.
June Eric-Udorie, the editor of Can We All Be Feminists?, is a British writer and feminist activist. Named Elle UK’s “Female Activist of the Year” for 2017, she has been included on lists of influential and inspiring women by the BBC, the Guardian, and more. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Independent, New Statesman, the Telegraph, ESPN The Magazine, and Fusion, among others. She is currently in her first year at Duke University, where she is a recipient of the University Scholars merit scholarship.
Nicole Dennis-Benn is the author of the debut novel, Here Comes the Sun (Norton/Liveright, July 2016), which was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a NPR Best Books of 2016, and an Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Entertainment Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2016. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, ELLE Magazine, Electric Literature, Lenny Letter, Catapult, Red Rock Review, Kweli Literary Journal, Mosaic, Ebony, and the Feminist Wire. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College.
Mariya Karimjee is Brooklyn-based writer. She is a contributor at This American Life, and her work has appeared in Marie Claire Magazine, Buzzfeed, VICE and Al Jazeera America. She graduated with a MS in Magazine Journalism from Columbia University and a BA from Mount Holyoke College. She was a Logan Nonfiction Fellow at the Carey Institute of Global Good and a GlobalPost/Kaiser Family Foundation Global Health reporting fellow.
Charlotte Shane is the author of Prostitute Laundry, N.B., and 3 Conversations with merritt k, and the editor of the anthology On Balance. In 2015, she co-founded TigerBee Press, and since 2016, she has hosted the monthly reading series Bad Advice From Bad Women, which has been held in NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. She has written for The New Inquiry, The Nation, The New Republic, and Bookforum.
Gabrielle Bellot is a staff writer for Literary Hub. She grew up in the Commonwealth of Dominica. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Shondaland, Guernica, Slate, Tin House, The Paris Review Daily, The Los Angeles Review of Books, New York Magazine's The Cut, VICE, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2016 Poynter Fellowship from Yale and also holds a Legacy Fellowship from Florida State University. Bellot holds both an MFA and a PhD in Fiction from FSU.
This event is free!
Tiana Clark: I Can't Talk About the Trees Without the Blood w/ Donika Kelly, Mahogany L. Browne, and Cortney Lamar Charleston
Saturday September 29 | 7:00PM - 8:00PM
For poet Tiana Clark, trees will never be just trees. They will also and always be a row of gallows from which Black bodies once swung. This is an image that she cannot escape, but one that she has learned to lean into as she delves into personal and public histories, explicating memories and muses around race, elegy, family, and faith by making and breaking forms as well as probing mythology, literary history, her own ancestry, and, yes, even Rihanna. I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood, because Tiana cannot engage with the physical and psychic landscape of the South without seeing the braided trauma of the broken past—she will always see blood on the leaves.
Tiana Clark is the author of Equilibrium, selected by Afaa Michael Weaver for the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. She is the winner of the 2017 Furious Flower’s Gwendolyn Brooks Centennial Poetry Prize, 2015 Rattle Poetry Prize, and winner of a 2019 Pushcart Prize. Clark was the recipient of the 2017-2018 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellowship at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing. Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from The New Yorker, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Best New Poets 2015, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
Donika Kelly is the author of the chapbook Aviarium (500 Places 2017) and the full length collection Bestiary (Graywolf 2016), winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and long listed for the National Book Award. She is an Assistant Professor at Baruch College, where she teaches creative writing.
Mahogany L. Browne is a writer, organizer and educator. Currently the Artistic Director of Urban Word NYC, Browne has received literary fellowships from Air Serenbe, Cave Canem, Poets House & Rauschenberg. Browne is the author of several books including Redbone (nominated for NAACP Outstanding Literary Works), and Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out On-line. Mahogany is the author of best-selling illustrated book Black Girl Magic (Roaring Press/Macmillan) and co-editor of The Break Beat Poets: Black Girl Magic anthology. Browne currently teaches at Pratt and Adelphi University and facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country.
Cortney Lamar Charleston is the author of Telepathologies, selected by D.A. Powell for the 2016 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. He was awarded a 2017 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and he has also received fellowships from Cave Canem, The Conversation Literary Festival and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Winner of a Pushcart Prize, his poems have appeared in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, New England Review, AGNI, Granta and elsewhere. He serves as a poetry editor at The Rumpus.
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Curtis Sittenfeld Presents Samuel Park's The Caregiver w/ Lisa Grubka and Zachary Knoll
Monday October 01 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Join us for the posthumous release of Samuel Park's The Caregiver, a gorgeous, emotionally wise tale about a daughter who unearths the hidden life of her enigmatic mother. Set in the 1980s, the novel follows protagonist Mara Alencar from Brazil to California, where she grapples with her turbulent past as she cares for a young woman dying of stomach cancer. Told with vivid, poignant imagery, The Caregiver is a moving and profound story that asks us to investigate who we are—as children and parents, immigrants and citizens, and ultimately, humans looking for connection.
Following a long battle with stomach cancer, Samuel Park passed away in April, 2017; his close friend Curtis Sittenfeld presents his final book, joined by his agent, Lisa Grubka, and his editor, Zachary Knoll.
Samuel Park is the author of the novel This Burns My Heart, the novella Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and the writer-director of a short film of the same name, which was an official selection of numerous film festivals. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times and elsewhere. A graduate of Stanford Universtiy and the University of Southern California, he was an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago.
Curtis Sittenfeld is the bestselling author of five novels—Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, Sisterland, and Eligible—and one story collection, You Think It, I’ll Say It. Her books have been selected by The New York Times, Time, Entertainment Weekly, and People for their “Ten Best Books of the Year” lists and translated into thirty languages. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Esquire, and her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Slate, and on “This American Life.”
Lisa Grubka is a literary agent at Fletcher & Company. She represents both fiction and non-fiction, and her authors include a National Book Award winner and many New York Times bestsellers. Previously, she was an agent at the William Morris Agency and is a graduate of the University of Michigan.
Zachary Knoll is the editor of The Caregiver, as well as various fiction and nonfiction titles, including Mother Winter: A Memoir by Sophia Shalmiyev, Going Dutch by James Gregor, and Women’s Work by Chris Crisman. He has been an Assistant Editor at the flagship Simon & Schuster imprint since 2016. He is a graduate of the Columbia Publishing Course and Oberlin College, where he studied creative writing.
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Jessica Hopper: Night Moves
Thursday October 04 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Written in taut, mesmerizing, often hilarious scenes, Night Moves captures the fierce friendships and small moments that form us all. Drawing on her personal journals from the aughts, Jessica Hopper chronicles her time as a DJ, living in decrepit punk houses, biking to bad loft parties with her friends, exploring Chicago deep into the night. And, along the way, she creates an homage to vibrant corners of the city that have been muted by sleek development. A book birthed in the amber glow of Chicago streetlamps, Night Moves is about a transformative moment of cultural history—and how a raw, rebellious writer found her voice.
Jessica Hopper is a music critic and the author of The First Collection of Criticism By A Living Female Rock Critic. She was formerly the Editorial Director at MTV News, and an editor at Pitchfork and Rookie. Her essays have appeared in Best Music Writing for 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010, and 2011. Her book The Girls' Guide to Rocking was named one of 2009's Notable Books For Young Readers by the American Library Association.
This event is free!
Casey Gerald: There Will Be No Miracles Here
Friday October 05 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Casey Gerald's story begins at the end of the world: Dallas, New Year's Eve 1999, when he gathers with the congregation of his grandfather's black evangelical church to see which of them will be carried off. His beautiful, fragile mother disappears frequently and mysteriously; for a brief idyll, he and his sister live like Boxcar Children on her disability checks. When Casey--following in the footsteps of his father, a gridiron legend who literally broke his back for the team--is recruited to play football at Yale, he enters a world he's never dreamed of, the anteroom to secret societies and success on Wall Street, in Washington, and beyond. But even as he attains the inner sanctums of power, Casey sees how the world crushes those who live at its margins. He sees how the elite perpetuate the salvation stories that keep others from rising. And he sees, most painfully, how his own ascension is part of the scheme.
There Will Be No Miracles Here has the arc of a classic rags-to-riches tale, but it stands the American Dream narrative on its head. If to live as we are is destroying us, it asks, what would it mean to truly live? Intense, incantatory, shot through with sly humor and quiet fury, There Will Be No Miracles Here inspires us to question--even shatter--and reimagine our most cherished myths.
Casey Gerald grew up in Oak Cliff, Texas and went to Yale, where he majored in political science and played varsity football. While studying for an MBA from Harvard Business School, he cofounded MBAs Across America. He has been featured on MSNBC, at TED and SXSW, on the cover of Fast Company, and in The New York Times, Financial Times, and The Guardian, among others.
This event is free!
Bilingual Storytime with Adam Rubin: El Chupacabras and Dragones y Tacos 2
Saturday October 06 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
Join us for a bilingual storytime with Adam Rubin, bestselling author of Dragons Love Tacos (Dragones y Tacos) and El Chupacabras.
El Chupacabras is a whimsical re-telling of the chupacabra folktale, written in a blend of English and Spanish. A long time ago, a girl named Carla lived on a goat farm with her father, Hector. One night, a goat disappeared from the farm and turned up flat as a pancake. Only one creature could do that--El Chupacabras, the goatsucker! Legend has it that El Chupacabras is a fearsome beast, but you can't believe everything you hear...and sometimes the truth is even more interesting.
Each sentence is half-Spanish/half-English followed by a repetition of the same line translated the other way around. This mirroring technique allows the languages to intermingle equally. A fun and unique way to introduce either Spanish or English to new readers.
Dragones Y Tacos 2: News alert! It has just been discovered that there are NO MORE TACOS left anywhere in the world. This is a huge problem because, as you know, dragons love tacos. If only there was a way for the dragons to travel back in time, to before tacos went extinct. Then they could grab lots of tacos and bring them back! It’s the perfect plan, as long as there’s no spicy salsa. You remember what happened last time...
Adam Rubin is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of nine critically-acclaimed picture books including the Those Darn Squirrels trilogy, Dragons Love Tacos, Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel, Secret Pizza Party and Robo-Sauce. He spent ten years working as a creative director in the advertising industry before leaving his day job to write full time. Adam has a keen interest in puzzles, hiking and magic tricks. He currently lives in Barcelona, Spain.
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Luke Pearson: Hilda and the Hidden People
Saturday October 06 | 2:00PM - 3:00PM
Join us for reading and illustration from Hilda and the Hidden People, based on the Netflix animated series, Hilda, coming to screens in fall 2018.
Meet Hilda: explorer, adventurer, avid sketchbook-keeper and friend to almost every creature in the valley! Join our beloved heroine as she encounters her very first troll, negotiates peace with some very persnickety elves, and reunites two lovelorn ancient giants. Fantastic creatures and daring adventures are all just part of another average day for Hilda, but what will she do if she is forced to move to Trolberg city, far away from her beloved valley home? Dive into the adventure with this illustrated chapter book, based on the first two episodes of the show.
Luke Pearson is an illustrator and cartoonist who has fast become one of the leading talents of the UK comics scene. He recently worked as a writer and storyboard artist on the cult show Adventure Time. He is the author and illustrator of the Hilda graphic novel series.
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Nicole Chung: All You Can Ever Know w/ Alexander Chee
Tuesday October 09 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
In her startling debut memoir, Nicole Chung explores identity, race, and home with eloquence and honesty. Placed for adoption by her Korean parents and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town, Chung faced prejudice that her adoptive family couldn’t see. With the same warmth, candor, and startling insight that has made her a beloved voice, Chung tells of her search for her biological parents, which coincided with the birth of her own child. All You Can Ever Know is a profound, moving chronicle of surprising connections and the repercussions of unearthing painful family secrets—vital reading for anyone who has ever struggled to figure out where they belong.
Nicole Chung has written for The New York Times, GQ, Longreads, BuzzFeed, Hazlitt, and Shondaland, among other publications. She is the editor-in-chief of Catapult magazine and the former Managing Editor of The Toast. All You Can Ever Know is her first book.
Alexander Chee is the best-selling author of the novels The Queen of the Night and Edinburgh. He is a contributing editor at the New Republic, an editor at Virginia Quarterly Review, and a critic at the Los Angeles Times. His work has appeared in The Best American Essays of 2016, the New York Times Magazine, Slate, Guernica, and Tin House, among others. He is an associate professor of English at Dartmouth College.
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John Wray: Godsend
Wednesday October 10 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Inspired by the story of John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban,” Whiting Award–winning author John Wray's novel explores the circumstances that could impel a young American to abandon identity and home to become an Islamist militant.
Like many other eighteen-year-olds, Aden Sawyer is intently focused on a goal: escape from her hometown. Her plan will take her far from her mother’s claustrophobic house, where the family photos have all been turned to face the wall; far from the influence of her domineering father—a professor of Islamic studies—and his new wife.
Aden’s dream, however, is worlds removed from conventional fantasies of teen rebellion: she is determined to travel to Pakistan to study Islam at a madrasa. To do so, she takes on a new identity, disguising herself as a young man named Suleyman. Aden fully commits to this new life, even burning her passport to protect her secret. But once she is on the ground, she finds herself in greater danger than she could possibly have imagined. Faced with violence, disillusionment, and loss, Aden must make choices that will test not only her faith but also her most fundamental understanding of who she is, and that will set her on a wild, fateful course toward redemption by blood. John Wray’s Godsend is a coming-of-age novel like no other.
John Wray is the author of critically acclaimed novels including Lowboy, The Right Hand of Sleep, and Canaan’s Tongue. He was named one of Granta magazine’s Best of Young American Novelists in 2007. The recipient of a Whiting Award, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.
This event is free!
Sarah Perry: Melmoth
Tuesday October 16 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
For centuries, the mysterious dark-robed figure has roamed the globe, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have fed into the rapids of history’s darkest waters—and now, in Sarah Perry’s breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent, it is heading in our direction.
It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts—or, at least, refuge. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she persuades to join her to a damnation of timeless, itinerant solitude. To Helen it all seems the stuff of unenlightened fantasy.
But, unaware, as she wanders the cobblestone streets Helen is being watched. And then Karel disappears. . . .
Sarah Perry was born in Essex in 1979. She has been the writer in residence at Gladstone's Library and the UNESCO World City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague. After Me Comes the Flood, her first novel, was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Folio Prize, and won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2014. Her next novel, The Essex Serpent, was a number one bestseller in hardback, Waterstones Book of the Year 2016, the British Book Awards Book of the Year 2017, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and Dylan Thomas Award, and longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction 2017. Her work has been translated into twenty languages. She lives in Norwich.
This event is free!
Meghan O'Gieblyn: Interior States
Thursday October 18 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
A fresh, acute, and even profound collection that centers around two core (and related) issues of American identity: faith, in general and the specific forms Christianity takes in particular; and the challenges of living in the Midwest when culture is felt to be elsewhere.
What does it mean to be a believing Christian and a Midwesterner in an increasingly secular America where the cultural capital is retreating to both coasts? The critic and essayist Meghan O'Gieblyn was born into an evangelical family, attended the famed Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for a time before she had a crisis of belief, and still lives in the Midwest, aka "Flyover Country." She writes of her "existential dizziness, a sense that the rest of the world is moving while you remain still," and that rich sense of ambivalence and internal division inform the fifteen superbly thoughtful and ironic essays in this collection.
The subjects of these essays range from the rebranding (as it were) of Hell in contemporary Christian culture, a theme park devoted to the concept of intelligent design, the paradoxes of Christian Rock, Henry Ford's reconstructed pioneer town of Greenfield Village and its mixed messages, and the strange convergences of Christian eschatology and the digital so-called Singularity. Meghan O'Gieblyn stands in relation to her native Midwest as Joan Didion stands in relation to California - which is to say a whole-hearted lover, albeit one riven with ambivalence at the same time.
Meghan O’Gieblyn is a writer who was raised and still lives in the Midwest. Her essays have appeared in Harper's Magazine, n+1, The Point, The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, Best American Essays 2017, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. She received a B.A. in English from Loyola University, Chicago and an MFA in Fiction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband.
This event is free!
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Friday Black
Monday October 22 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
A piercingly raw debut story collection from a young writer with an explosive voice; a treacherously surreal, and, at times, heartbreakingly satirical look at what it’s like to be young and black in America.
From the start of this extraordinary debut, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s writing will grab you, haunt you, enrage and invigorate you. By placing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, Adjei-Brenyah reveals the violence, injustice, and painful absurdities that black men and women contend with every day in this country.
These stories tackle urgent instances of racism and cultural unrest, and explore the many ways we fight for humanity in an unforgiving world. In “The Finkelstein Five,” Adjei-Brenyah gives us an unforgettable reckoning of the brutal prejudice of our justice system. In “Zimmer Land,” we see a far-too-easy-to-believe imagining of racism as sport. And “Friday Black” and “How to Sell a Jacket as Told by Ice King” show the horrors of consumerism and the toll it takes on us all.
Entirely fresh in its style and perspective, and sure to appeal to fans of Colson Whitehead, Marlon James, and George Saunders, Friday Black confronts readers with a complicated, insistent, wrenching chorus of emotions, the final note of which, remarkably, is hope.
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is from Spring Valley, New York. He graduated from SUNY Albany and went on to receive his MFA from Syracuse University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous publications, including Guernica, Compose: A Journal of Simply Good Writing, Printer’s Row, Gravel, and The Breakwater Review, where he was selected by ZZ Packer as the winner of the 2nd Annual Breakwater Review Fiction Contest. Friday Black is his first book.
This event is free!
Kelsey Miller: I'll Be There For You: The One About Friends
Tuesday October 23 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Today, Friends is remembered as an icon of 90s comedy and the Must See TV years. But when the series debuted in 1994, no one anticipated the sensation it would become. From the first wave of Friends mania to the backlash and renaissance that followed, the show maintained an uncanny connection to its audience, who saw it both as a reflection of their own lives and an aspirational escape from reality. In the years since, Friends has evolved from prime-time megahit to nostalgic novelty, and finally, to certified classic.
I’ll Be There for You is a deep dive into Friends history and lore, exploring all aspects of the show, from its unlikely origins to the societal conditions that amplified its success. Journalist and pop culture expert Kelsey Miller relives the show’s most powerful moments, sheds light on its sometimes dated and problematic elements, and examines the worldwide trends that Friends catalyzed. Taking readers behind the scenes, Miller traces the cast’s rise to fame and untangles the complex relationship between the actors and their characters. Weaving in revelatory interviews and personal stories, she investigates the role of celebrity media, world-changing events and the dawning of the digital age—all of which influenced both the series and its viewers.
I’ll Be There for You is the definitive retrospective of Friends, not only for fans of the series, but for anyone who’s ever wondered what it is about this show—and television comedy—that resonates so powerfully.
Kelsey Miller is a journalist and the author of Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life. Her work has been featured in Glamour, Allure, Teen Vogue, Salon, People, Good Housekeeping, Women's Health and other outlets. She is the founder of The Anti-Diet Project, one of Refinery29's most popular franchises, and was the recipient of the Project HEAL Social Impact Award. She lives in Brooklyn.
This event is free!
Natalka Burian: A Woman's Drink
Thursday October 25 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
A chic and empowered approach to mixing drinks in style, A Woman's Drink is the ultimate cocktail book for ladies. Filled with gorgeous cocktails and favorite drinks from notable women, this chic package celebrates a new cocktail culture that's distinctly and unapologetically feminine. Inspired by Brooklyn bars Elsa and Ramona, the cocktails here capture the joys and pleasures of making the perfect drink at home. Whether you're drinking solo, drinking with a plus one, or drinking with a crowd, there's a recipe for every occasion. Featuring 50 mixed drinks—including classics like Cosmos and Negronis, as well as new spins like Elderflower Bellinis—the cocktails in this book are strong, spirited, and bold, just like the women who drink them.
Natalka Burian is the co-owner of two bars, Elsa and Ramona, as well as the co-founder of The Freya Project, a feminist fundraising reading series. She is the author of Welcome to the Slipstream, a novel, and A Woman's Drink, a cocktail book. She received an MA from Columbia University where she studied Eastern European literature. Natalka grew up on a farm in Maryland, and now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.
This event is free!
Storytime with Alex Beard: The Lying King
Sunday October 28 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
Can warthogs fly? Do tigers eat tomatoes? For answers, follow along as Warthog lies his way to the throne in this timeless, yet most timely, Tale from the Watering Hole.
With his trademark style that’s been called “quirky and original” (Wall Street Journal) and “lush, invigorating” (New York Times Book Review), Alex Beard illuminates real world truths for children of all ages in The Lying King as the warthog lies his way to the top. With a nod to Aesop and Kipling, this funny and pointed parable has lessons for everyone about the importance of being honest, fair, and authentic.
Alex Beard is a painter, author, and adventurer who has emerged as one of his generation’s most creative and successful artists. Alex studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts. He is the author and illustrator of the critically-acclaimed Tales From the Watering Hole collection of illustrated children’s picture books, as well as the creator of a unique series of puzzles for adults. Alex is also the founder of The Watering Hole Foundation, a public charity he created in 2012 to help save endangered wildlife and the environments in which they live. Alex is a NYC native who now lives with his family in New Orleans, where his studio is located at the heart of the Art’s District on Julia Street.
This event is free and family-friendly! Let us know you’re coming on Facebook.
Joseph Fink: Alice Isn't Dead at St. Francis College
Tuesday October 30 | 7:00PM - 8:00PM
From The New York Times bestselling co-author of It Devours! and Welcome to Night Vale comes a fast-paced thriller about a truck driver searching across America for the wife she had long assumed to be dead.
Keisha Taylor lived a quiet life with her wife, Alice, until the day that Alice disappeared. After months of searching, presuming she was dead, Keisha held a funeral, mourned, and gradually tried to get on with her life. But that was before Keisha started to see her wife, again and again, in the background of news reports from all over America. Alice isn’t dead, and she is showing up at every major tragedy and accident in the country.
Following a line of clues, Keisha takes a job with a trucking company and begins searching for Alice. She eventually stumbles on an otherworldly conflict being waged in the quiet corners of our nation’s highway system—uncovering a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman.
Why did Alice disappear? What does she have to do with this secret war between inhuman killers? Why did the chicken cross the road? These questions, and many more will be answered in Alice Isn’t Dead.
Joseph Fink created the Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn't Dead podcasts. He lives with his wife in New York.
Please note that this event will take place at St. Francis College.
180 Remsen St, Brooklyn, NY 11201
