BookSwell

Join debut author K. X. Song in conversation with author Amanda Glaze to celebrate the launch of AN ECHO IN THE CITY at Skylight Books.Skylight Books welcomes author K. X. Song for a discussion and signing of her debut release, An Echo in the City, in conversation with Amanda Glaze, bestselling author of The Second Death of Edie and Violet Bond. The evening will begin with a moderated discussion and Q&A, followed by a signing. Light refreshments will be provided. About the Book:Two star-crossed teenagers fall in love during the Hong Kong protests in this searing contemporary novel about coming-of-age in a time of change.Sixteen-year-old Phoenix knows her parents have invested thousands of dollars to help her leave Hong Kong and get an elite Ivy League education. They think America means big status, big dreams, and big bank accounts. But Phoenix doesn’t want big; she just wants home. The trouble is, she doesn’t know where that is…until the Hong Kong protest movement unfolds, and she learns the city she’s come to love is in danger of disappearing.Seventeen-year-old Kai sees himself as an artist, not a filial son, and certainly not a cop. But when his mother dies, he’s forced to Read More ...

Arthur Kayzakian's Book of Redacted Paintings is here! Please join Arthur (and special guests) for a night of reading and art!Please join Arthur for his first book launch, celebrating the release of The Book of Redacted Paintings (Black Lawrence Press, 2023)! There will be drinks, snacks, readings (featuring Arthur, Brendan Constantine and Cynthia Dewi Oka) and music, as well as, of course, book signing. In The Book of Redacted Paintings, the narrative arc follows a boy in search of his father’s painting, but it is unclear whether the painting exists or not. The book, a poetry collection, is also populated by a series of paintings. Some are real, incomplete, and/or missing, while most are redacted from reality. The withdrawn paintings concept is the emotional arc of the book, a combination of wishing one could paint the pieces he/she/they envision and the feeling of something torn out of a person due to a traumatic upbringing. A sort of erasure ekphrasis, to foresee artwork that was never painted.The first of Black Lawrence Press's Immigrant Writing Series, The Book of Redacted Paintings is "Formally various, narratively propulsive, and relentlessly earnest in its psychospiritual excavation" (Kaveh Akbar) and "...one of the best examples I’ve Read More ...

Celebrating Sun & Moon Press authorsBeyond Baroque presents an evening of fiction and poetry readings with former Sun & Moon Press-published authors. Rebecca Goodman, Wendy Walker, Stacey Levine, and Martin Nakell will be reading new and selected works. Enjoy a reception with light refreshments before and after the readings. Doors open: 7:30 pm. Readings: 8:00 pm. About the authorsReviewing Rebecca Goodman’s Forgotten Night (Spuyten Duyvil 2023) in Dactyl, the novelist and critic, Eugene Garber, writes: “The recovery of self, call it soul if you prefer…is… quest at its deepest level. Many, I believe, would say that it is the agenda of our postmodern world.” Previous fictions include The Surface of Motion (Green Integer 2008) and Aftersight (Spuyten Duyvil 2015). She teaches Creative Writing at Chapman University.Wendy Walker is a writer and visual artist with a strong interest in expanding the boundaries of literary form. Her books include The Sea-Rabbit, or, The Artist of Life; The Secret Service; Stories Out of Omarie; The Camperdown Elm, and, most recently, Sexual Stealing. Her work has appeared in Conjunctions, 3:AM, Parnassus: Poetry in Review, The Denver Quarterly, Open City, and elsewhere. With her late husband and literary partner Tom La Farge, she founded Proteotypes Read More ...