Alice + Freda Forever is a true-crime story set in 1892 Memphis, Tennessee. The teenage murderer provided a shocking sensation at the dawn of yellow journalism. Alexis Coe discussed her book with Margaret Eby at Community Bookstore, sponsored by Vol. 1 Brooklyn.
Stephanie Kallos was at Powerhouse Arena to read from her latest novel Language Arts and discuss the book with voice actor Tavia Gilbert and editor Lauren Wein. The book follows Seattle area high school English teacher Charles Marlow, a man who loves puzzles and language arts.
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.
Amanda Faraone, Laura Macomber and Sierra Troy-Regier founded the Flint Fiction reading series in September of 2014. Hosted at 2A, an East Village dive bar with a windowed, second-floor event space, Flint Fiction is the successor to the Fiction Addiction reading series. Fiction Addiction founder Christine Vines passed the torch onto Amanda, Laura and Sierra when she matriculated to Cornell University to pursue an MFA. The night of Tuesday, June 30, featured three readers with a diversity of backgrounds whose readings coincidentally united around a cinematic theme.
Caitlin Moran started her career as a teenage music journalist, much like Johanna Morrigan, the protagonist and narrator of Moran’s novel How to Build a Girl. The wildly funny book is now in paperback and Moran is reading around the United States. Moran, a British author, was at The Strand with editor Judith Regan to discuss the book.
Naomi Jackson launched her debut novel The Star Side of Bird Hill last week at Greenlight Bookstore. The novel explores two sisters from Brooklyn sent to live in Bird Hill, Barbados, when their mother can no longer care for them. She discussed the novel with Tiphanie Yanique, author of Land of Love and Drowning.
Claudia Cortes’s poems and lyric essays have found homes at Black Warrior Review, Blackbird, Crazyhorse, Kenyon Review Online, and Sixth Finch, among others. Cortese lives in New Jersey and is a poetry editor for Swarm. She has two chapbooks: Blood Medals (Thrush Poetry Press, 2015) and The Red Essay and Other Histories (forthcoming from Horse Less Press, 2015). Her chapbook, Blood Medals, was described by Winter Tangerine as “vicious and vibrant – [Cortese] writes girlhood as gorgeously fucked up, dolls-with-no-eyes hideous. Blood Medals follows Lucy, a shitty little princess that we can’t help but adore.” Poems from Blood Medals were also featured on Sundress Blog’s Wardrobe’s Best Dressed for June.
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.