BOOK STALKER

MONDAY: Jami Attenberg (THE MIDDLESTEINS) and Francesca Segal (THE INNOCENTS). [BOOKCOURT]

TUESDAY: Claire Messud (The WOMAN UPSTAIRS). [SYMPHONY SPACE]

WEDNESDAY: Max Barry (LEXICON). [B&N 86th ST]

THURSDAY: Book launch for MO META BLUES, by Questlove and Ben Greenman. [POWERHOUSE]

FRIDAY:Derangement of the Senses with Kevin Carter and Miracle Jones. [HAPPY ENDING]

Also, don’t forget to check out BookStalked with Cheryl Strayed (WILD, TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS) if you missed it on Friday!

Cheryl Strayed needs little introduction as a twice-over NYT bestselling author (WILD, TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS) and modern-day feminist guru. She’s known for her radical empathy—her uncanny ability to connect with people through her writing, whether it be memoir, advice columns or fiction. When people ask me for books recs I inevitably mention Cheryl, and I’m unsurprised by how many tell me they’ve already read her and love her. It’s always been a dream of mine to interview Cheryl, and today I’m delighted to offer some of her reading experiences. As you’d expect, they’re both deeply moving and very funny. Read on, after the jump!

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1. It’s only 50,000 words, bro. Perfect for the time-crunched.

2. Nick (the narrator) is bisexual! You remember that from high school? Yep. Just check out the end of Chapter 2.

3. You can have an informed opinion of the movie. (Which I freaking loved.)

4. Great pre-reading for all the Zelda Fitzgerald books that are coming out.

5. You can use it to plan your own Gatsby-esque party.

6. It will make you consider the recent recession in a new historical/cultural context.

7. Set in mostly sunny summertime, it will take you away from all the damn spring rain.

8. You may find yourself picking up a new term of endearment (“old chap”) or two.

9. You can find some sweet covers  in used bookstores (see: my version, above).

10. The writing. There’s a reason it’s a classic.

MONDAY: Book launch for Lisa Hanawalt’s My Dirty Dumb Eyes, a collection of her illustrations from places like the NYT, McSweeney’s and Vanity Fair. [POWERHOUSE]

TUESDAY: Khaled Housseini (The Kite Runner) reads from his newest novel, And the Mountains Echoed. [B&N UNION SQUARE]

WEDNESDAY: Bennett Sims will celebrate his debut novel A Questionable Shape along with Fiona Maazel (Woke Up Lonely) and Benjamin Hale (The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore). [HOUSING WORKS]

THURSDAY: National Book Award finalist Joan Silber (Fools) in convo with Stacey D’Erasmo (The Sky Below). [GREENLIGHT]

FRIDAY: John Strausbaugh will share tales from The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village. [BOOK COURT]

MONDAY: This Franklin Park event features Karen Russell (Vampires in the Lemon Grove), Elissa Schappell (Blueprints for Building Better Girls), Leigh Newman (Still Points North), Roxane Gay (Ayiti), and Michael Heald (Goodbye to the Nervous Apprehension). [FRANKLIN PARK]

TUESDAY: Kevin Powers (The Yellow Birds) in convo with Michael Pietsch (Hachette chief exec). [MCNALLY JACKSON]

WEDNESDAY: Richard Hell (Television) will read from Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp: An Autobiography. [BOOKCOURT]

THURSDAY: Mapping Manhattan: A Love (and sometimes Hate) Story in Maps by 75 New Yorkers with creator Becky Cooper and panelists Matt Green, Liana Finck, and Eugene Drucker. [POWERHOUSE]

FRIDAY: The Moth StorySLAM. Theme: envy. [HOUSING WORKS]

I am bewildered.

How does Penina Roth, founder of the Franklin Park Reading Series, do it? Not only does she bring in multiple amazing authors, but she does it several times a month (there are two FP events in May), and she draws in a huge crowd, every time. I BookStalked Penina a few weeks ago, and this is something I really should have asked.

This past Monday, I traveled to Crown Heights and had the pleasure of seeing the following authors: Ben Greenman, Touré, Amelia Gray, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Sam Lipsyte. (The next event, on May 13, features Karen Russell, Elissa Schappell, Leigh Newman, Roxane Gay, and Michael Heald.)

Some highlights:

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MONDAY: Franklin Park Reading Series has a seriously sweet lineup this week: Ben Greenman (The Slippage), Sam Lipsyte (The Ask), Toure (I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon), Claire Vaye Watkins (Battleborn) and Amelia Gray (Threats). [FRANKLIN PARK]

TUESDAY: Book launch for Gavin Edwards’s VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave. [POWERHOUSE]

WEDNESDAY: Sharp: A Discussion of Women and Criticism with Kate Bolick (The Atlantic), Ruth Franklin (The New Republic), Laura Miller (Salon), Miriam Markowitz (The Nation), Michelle Orange (The Rumpus), Parul Sehgal (New York Times Book Review) and moderator Michelle Dean (The Awl). [HOUSING WORKS]

THURSDAY: Celebrate new book of essays What My Mother Gave Me with Mary Morris, Maud Newton, Elissa Schappell, and Emma Straub. [GREENLIGHT]

FRIDAY: Aimee Molloy will read from However Long the Night, which is about Molly Melching, a women’s rights activist in Senegal. [BOOKCOURT]

Also, be sure to check out my writeup of last week’s Cheryl Strayed event — it was a fun one.

Cheryl Strayed has become a bonafide feminist guru.

Last Thursday I waited in line for fifteen minutes at Public Assembly to get into a sold-out Largehearted Lit event featuring Cheryl, Elissa Schappell and musical act Sweet Soubrette. Inside, it was so packed that I could barely make my way to friends.

Sipping drinks, the mostly female and twenty-somethings in the crowd waited with giddy anticipation. They weren’t just there to see an author—they were there to meet someone they felt they already knew. As I mentioned the last time I saw Cheryl, her memoir Wild made even her (male) New York Times reviewer weep. Cheryl has an uncanny ability to connect through her words (see: her collection of advice columns Tiny Beautiful Things) with a combo of searing honesty and an insistence that people lift themselves up.

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The Arabic saying “bukra fil mish mish” means “tomorrow, apricots may bloom.” Jessica Soffer’s debut novel Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots focuses on two surprising friends facing uncertain futures. Young Lorca, about to be sent off to boarding school, thinks that if she’s able to make her mother’s favorite Middle Eastern dish, she might be allowed to stay. Victoria, an Iraqi Jewish immigrant and grieving widow in New York, teaches cooking lessons to Lorca. As they uncover secrets from their pasts, they begin to suspect that their connection runs deeper than food. Apricots has been called “a profoundly redemptive story” (O Magazine) and “a work of beauty in words” (New York Journal of Books). Jessica has just started doing readings about town, and she was kind enough to share some of her most memorable event experiences thus far — after the jump!

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In light of this nonsense, I’d like to offer a week of events featuring awesome lady writers. (And wouldn’t you know it, there’s SO MANY.)

MONDAY: Meg Wolitzer (The Interestings) in convo with Jami Attenberg (The Middlesteins). [WORD]

TUESDAY: Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologue) on her memoir, In the Body of the World. {B&N UNION SQUARE]

WEDNESDAY: Whoa, get this:

-Rachel Kushner (The Flamethrowers) [STRAND]

-AND Claire Messud (The Woman Upstairs) [CENTER FOR FICTION]

-AND Marilynne Robinson (Housekeeping) [CUNY]

THURSDAY: Cheryl Strayed (Wild). [PUBLIC ASSEMBLY]

FRIDAY: PEN World Voice Festival: Master/Class with Fran Lebowitz and A.M. Homes. [NEW SCHOOL]

MONDAY: Noteworthy: A Conversation with the Women at the Forefront of the NYC Arts Community includes Rachel Chanoff (Celebrate Brooklyn!), Erika Elliott (Summerstage), Yoko Shioya (Japan Society), and Shanta Thake (Joe’s Pub), moderated by Elisabeth Vincentelli (New York Post). [HOUSING WORKS]

TUESDAY: Augusten Burroughs (Running With Scissors) celebrates the paperback launch of This is How. [POWERHOUSE ARENA]

WEDNESDAY: Novelists Christina Baker Kline (Orphan Train) and Caroline Leavitt (Is This Tomorrow) will discuss the importance of place and historical research in their works. [CENTER FOR FICTION]

THURSDAY: Debut novelist Jessica Soffer (Tomorrow there will Apricots) in convo with Collum McCann (Let the Great World Spin). [MCNALLY JACKSON]

FRIDAY: Colson Whitehead, Luis Jaramillo and Catherine Barnett will read alongside student contributors to 12 Street Magazine. [B&N UNION SQUARE]

Earlier this month I saw Renata Adler speak at The Strand. Renata wrote two underground experimental classics in the seventies and eighties: Speedboat and Pitch Dark, which NYRB Classics is now re-releasing. You can read more about Renata here—why she disappeared, fiction-wise, after writing these great works; what she thinks of the publishing industry; and how she became known for her sharp-edged criticism. When I saw Renata, I found her to be less intimidating than I’d have expected—she was funny, self-deprecating, and well aware of her tendency to meander, conversationally. The topics she brought up ranged from Evelyn Waugh, to Newtown, to Henry James, to computers vs. typewriters. She talked about first hating and then loving One Hundred Years of Solitude (“Everyone has the same name and I don’t know what it’s about. But then…I got it.”). She also seemed flummoxed by having to hold her microphone, then made a quick, did-she-say-that? joke about it looking like a vibrator.

Moral of the story? If you can make one of Renata’s events, go.  

MONDAY: Graphic novelist Ben Katchor (Hand Drying in America) and Nicholas Dawidoff (The Catcher was a Spy). [GREENLIGHT]

TUESDAY: Renata. [CENTER FOR FICTION]

WEDNESDAY: Mixer Reading Series: Alex Dimitriov, Laurie Weeks, Emily Toder, Natalie Diaz, and Rebecca Pronsky. [B&N 86TH ST]

THURSDAY: Nick Flynn (The Reenactments) and Sam Lipsyte (The Fun Parts). [PETE’S CANDY STORE]

FRIDAY: Book launch for Alfred Ryan Nerz’s Marijunamerica. Props for that title. [POWERHOUSE]

Jeanette Winterson published her first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, in her twenties. The semi-autobiographical book details a lesbian growing up in a Pentecostal Community in England. It won a slew of awards and was adapted by the BBC. Nearly thirty years later, Jeanette’s new memoir further explores her reality of growing up with a fanatical and sometimes cruel adopted mother—and what happens when she decides to track down her birth mother. The book is filled with beautiful and poetic prose, like this passage:

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MONDAY: The Franklin Park Reading series presents Heidi Julavits (The Vanishers), Fiona Maazel (Woke Up Lonely), Teddy Wayne (The Love Song of Jonny Valentine), David Gilbert (& Sons), and Maris Kreizman. [FRANKLIN PARK]

TUESDAY: The Moth StorySLAM. [HOUSING WORKS]

WEDNESDAY: Joshua Henkin (The World Without You). [BOOKCOURT]

THURSDAY: Comedy in Fiction: Fiona Maazel, Sam Lipsyte and Jim Shepard, moderated by Jason Diamond. [CENTER FOR FICTION]

FRIDAY: Junot Diaz (This is How You Lose Her). [THE STRAND]

The Franklin Park Reading Series is one of the most popular reading series in Brooklyn, and I’m constantly amazed by the big names it draws in (seriously, every time). Curator Penina is my social media guru, but I was also impressed to find out that she single-handedly got the series going — after meeting with various Crown Heights inhabitants to find out what they were interested in (literature and bars, natch). After the jump, Penina shares stories about how she started FPRS,  some of its most memorable moments, and, of course, the awesome events to look for this spring.  

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MONDAY: Taiye Selasi (Ghana Must Go) [CENTER FOR FICTION]

TUESDAY: Maya Angelou (Mom & Me & Mom) [B&N UNION SQUARE]

WEDNESDAY: Celebrating 50 Years of the New York Review of Books with Robert Silvers,Joseph Lelyveld, Ian Buruma, Andrew Delbanco, Alma Guillermoprieto and Zoë Heller [NYPL, STEPHEN A. SCHWARTZMAN BUILDING]

THURSDAY: Ben Marcus (The Flame Alphabet) + Glenn Kurtz (Practicing: A Musician’s Return to Music) [MCNALLY JACKSON]

FRIDAY: Renata Adler (Speedboat, Pitch Dark) and David Shields (Reality Hunger) [THE STRAND]

In happy Friday news, I just finished my awesome friend Leah Konen’s debut YA novel, The After Girls. Basically, I want to walk down the street and pass out copies to everyone I see. It’s so beautifully written, heart wrenching, suspenseful, and funny. The story concerns two girls who are left reeling after the suicide of their best friend. One retreats into alcohol and music, while the other becomes obsessed with finding out why—with seemingly supernatural results. I devoured this book in two days—it’s one where you look forward to your subway commute so you can read just a few more pages. I’m so proud of Leah and I can’t wait to read what she writes next. You can find the book here—it’s not “officially” out yet, but if you pre-order it will come right away.

MONDAY: Upstairs at the Square with debut novelist Taiye Selasi (Ghana Must Go) and singer Alice Smith. [B&N UNION SQUARE]

TUESDAY: Largehearted Lit with Michelle Orange (This is Running for Your Life: Essays) and Teddy Wayne (The Love Song of Jonny Valentine). [WORD]

WEDNESDAY: Women of Letters presents “To the Person I Misjudged,” with a group that includes The Hairpin founder Edith Zimmerman and Dahvana Headley (The Year of Yes). [HOUSING WORKS]

THURSDAY: Richard Ford (Canada). [BOOKCOURT]

FRIDAY: Prince dance party with Touré (I Would Die 4 U) and DJ  djFRiTZo. [GREENLIGHT]

MONDAY: Marc Spitz + Chuck Klosterman [HOUSING WORKS]

TUESDAY: Teddy Wayne + Owen King [COMMUNITY]

WEDNESDAY: Jonathan Lethem + Jessica Hagedorn [GREENLIGHT]

THURSDAY: M.G. Vassanji + Elizabeth Nunez [CENTER FOR FICTION]

FRIDAY: David Levithan [B&N UNION SQUARE]

I heard about the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop shortly after moving to New York. I thought the concept—workshops run out of the homes of lauded authors like Emma Straub, Karen Thompson Walker and Catherine Chung—sounded like an amazing idea. What I didn’t know then (and only just discovered) is that there’s literally one woman behind the operation: founder Julia Fierro. Julia reads all the applications, fills the classes, hires and trains new teachers, teaches her own classes, and consults with students, along with scheduling, curating and hosting the related reading series. Whew! Somehow, in the midst of this (and raising two totally adorable kids), Julia found time to write a book—Cutting Teeth, forthcoming from St. Martins Press in spring 2014.

Without further ado, I want to get to Julia’s remarkable stories about Sackett Street—why and how she founded it, her most memorable experiences, and some exciting upcoming events.

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