Bill Clegg has written two memoirs about addiction. He is also a literary agent. That means there are plenty of expectations about his debut novel Did You Ever Have a Family. He was at Greenlight Bookstore to talk about the book with Darin Strauss.
The Center for Fiction hosted Kate Walbert and Lily Tuck for a brief reading and conversation about their novels. Walbert’s The Sunken Cathedral follows the story of close friends who survived World War II and emigrate from Europe. Tuck’s latest The Double Life of Liliane examines the life of a Liliane splitting her time between parents on different continents, but draws on personal autobiographical elements of Tuck’s life.
The always spectacular H.I.P. Lit series hosted a Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend event last week inspired by Paris featuring authors Angie Niles, Courtney Maum, and Julie Orrginer.
H.I.P Lit is run by Erin Harris, Kim Perel, and Brittney Inman Canty. Harris and Perel are literary agents while Inman Canty works for Pushkin Press handling the publisher’s American publicity. The series is held irregularly, but only because each event is a major production. H.I.P. is much more than just a typical reading. The events are fully themed with decor, artwork, and the readers carefully chosen. With Très Brooklyn, H.I.P. promised Paris and H.I.P. delivered Paris.
Justin Taylor left New York City last year for Portland. He returned to Brooklyn to celebrate the release of the paperback edition of his story collection Flings. It was the first book he wrote that was released in hardcover, he explains, and so it also was the first book he had the opportunity to launch a second edition of. He was joined at Powerhouse Arena by Adam Wilson, author of Flatscreen and What’s Important is Feeling. Since leaving New York, Taylor has gotten married and adopted a cat.
The New York City Reading Series Census is an ongoing project to catalogue the contemporary literary scene. Any reading series curator in the New York area can take the survey here.
What is the name of the series, and what is the significance or meaning of the series name?
Boundless Tales. I chose this name to convey the idea that we feature a wide range of writing genres as well as diverse writers.
Julia Pierpont launched her debut novel Among the Ten Thousand Things with an over capacity crowd at McNally Jackson Books. She was joined by J. Courtney Sullivan in conversation. Among the Ten Thousand Things begins with a letter from a scorned lover confessing to the wife of her lover of the infidelity. Instead, the letter is found by the children, Kay and Simon. The wife already knew. From here, Among the Ten Thousand Things launches a portrait of a family living in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Jack, the unfaithful husband, is a famous artist. Deb, the cuckolded wife, a dance instructor. Kay, the precocious daughter, writes Seinfeld fanfiction.
Joshua Cohen’s latest novel, Book of Numbers, follows a technocrat billionaire ghostwriting an autobiography with Joshua Cohen. Joshua Cohen is a character, not the author. Cohen cleared this up at McNally Jackson Books. He was joined by his editor Sam Nicholson to discuss the new novel.
The Working Title 7 writing group and reading series held their most recent event at Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, NJ. The group, comprised mostly of Montclair residents, has been together for over twelve years. They meet monthly to workshop drafts and discuss craft. Once a year, they host a reading, calling it “grass roots fiction at its best” that’s open to the public to showcase their latest efforts, try out new material, or promote new titles. On June 10th in the back corner of Watchung’s children’s section, Nancy Burke, one of the founding members, emceed the evening of stories, which ranged from creative nonfiction to young adult to sci-fi.