BookSwell

Gayle Brandeis presents Many Restless Concerns Katharine Coldiron presents Ceremonials Jennifer Calkins presents Fugitive Assemblage

In the stunning first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child.

At the age of 37 Seth Greenland finds himself in everyone's nightmare - a diagnosis of an aggressive form of lymphatic cancer.

We're so excited to host a reading and chat with Marie Tozier, author of OPEN THE DARK, Erin Coughlin Hollowell, author of EVERY ATOM, Mia Heavener, author of UNDER NUSHAGAK BLUFF, and moderated by Peggy Shumaker! Viewable on Facebook.com/redhenpress, redhen.org, redhenpress.org, youtube.com/redhenpressbeats, or linkedin.com/company/red-hen-pressDon't forget to pick up copies of these books and all books in our Fall season for 30% off using the code "HenHouseAtHome" here: https://shop.aer.io/red.../cl/HHHome_Fall_Book_Tour/217865

After uprooting her life in the States, Irene Steele has just settled in at the villa on St. John where her husband Russ had been living a double life. But a visit from the FBI shakes her foundations, and Irene once again learns just how little she knew about the man she loved. With help from their friends, Irene and her sons set up their lives while evidence mounts that the helicopter crash that killed Russ may not have been an accident. Meanwhile, the island watches this drama unfold -- including the driver of a Jeep with tinted windows who seems to be shadowing the Steele family.

Ryan Holiday with Rich Roll discussing his book, "Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius" Join us for a virtual Live Talks Los Angeles event:Tuesday, October 27, 2020, 6:00pm PST/ 9pm EST Ryan Holiday in conversation with Rich Roll discussing his book,  "Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius"This event premieres on October 27 at 6pm PST/9pm EST on the Live Talks Los Angeles YouTube channel and also on our Facebook page The event is free to register to watch, and you can purchase a signed book when you RSVP.$35 includes a book with signed book plate (shipping included and books ship week of October 19.)An inspiring guide to the lives of the Stoics, and what the ancients can teach us about happiness, success, resilience and virtue.RYAN HOLIDAY is one of the world’s foremost thinkers and writers on ancient philosophy and its place in everyday life. He is a sought-after speaker, strategist, and the author of many bestselling books including The Obstacle Is the Way; Ego Is the Enemy; The Daily Stoic; and the #1 New York Times bestseller Stillness Is the Key. His latest, Lives of the Stoics, co-authored with Stephen Hanselman, will be published September 29, 2020. Read More ...

Gretchen Sorin discusses her book, Driving While Black, African American Travel & the Road to Civil Rights & answer questions. KPFA Radio 94.1 FM & Marcus Books present: GRETCHEN SORIN – a webinar Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights With Sabrina Jacobs Tuesday, October 27, 2020, 7 pm ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Driving While Black explains clearly how the automobile fundamentally changed African American Life. “Gretchen Sorin has spent decades exploring this deeply researched, acutely felt, penetrating study of race, space, and mobility in America—and a lifetime thinking about the issues and experiences that underlie it. “No one who reads Driving While Black can fail to be moved and wonderstruck by how far American society has come in the last century and a half in forwarding the dream of equal mobility for all, and by how far we still have to go.”—Ric Burns, documentary filmmaker and writer The ultimate symbol of independence and possibility, the automobile has always held distinct importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the many dangers presented by our racist society, and to enjoy – in some measure – the freedom of the open road. Gretchen Sorin recovers the forgotten history Read More ...

Dreams of a faceless boy haunt Sam when she returns to the family manor, at the edge of a swamp, in Jo Kaplan’s It Will Just Be Us.

Red Hen Press, the Institute for Latino Studies and the Creative Writing Program at the University of Notre Dame present a Notre Dame book launch. Special guests include: Misael Osorio-Conde, Brenda Cárdenas, Urayoán Noel, Maria Melendez Kelson,and Michael Nava.After Rubén unfolds as a decades-long journey in poems and prose, braiding the personal, the political & the historical, interspersing along the way English-language versions & riffs of a Spanish-language master: Rubén Darío. Whether it’s biting portraits of public figures, or nuanced sketches of his father, Francisco Aragón has assembled his most expansive collection to date, evoking his native San Francisco, but also imagining ancestral spaces in Nicaragua. Readers will encounter pieces that splice lines from literary forebearers, a moving elegy to a sibling, a surprising epistle from the grave. In short: a book that is both trajectory & mosaic, complicating the conversation surrounding poetry in the Americas—above all as it relates to Latinx and queer poetics.

Join Rachel and Agnes as they read from their recent works, Stages (Thick Press, 2020) + "The Seeing Place" (2020), and facilitate several short writing and dialogue-based exercises—designed to clarify the present and usher in subtle change. Can we notice new worlds into the here and now? Can we speak a care-centric world into being, by shifting the gaze, by shifting language?

Somewhere between the Hollywood sign and the Pacific Ocean, underneath the palm trees and above the crowded highways, there they are. You may have seen one in your favorite movie, or walked by one a thousand times. They're the landmarks, buildings, storefronts, and vintage signs that are part of what make LA and its surroundings so iconic. Not only can you see the history of Los Angeles, you can see history. Every historic location, abandoned storefront, and vintage sign is a lesson in LA's past.

A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler offers a blueprint for a creative life from the perspective of award-winning science-fiction writer and "MacArthur Genius" Octavia E. Butler. It is a collection of ideas about how to look, listen, breathe--how to be in the world. This book is about the creative process, but not on the page; its canvas is much larger. Author Lynell George not only engages the world that shaped Octavia E. Butler, she also explores the very specific processes through which Butler shaped herself--her unique process of self-making. It's about creating a life with what little you have--hand-me-down books, repurposed diaries, journals, stealing time to write in the middle of the night, making a small check stretch--bit by bit by bit. Highly visual and packed with photographs of Butler's ephemera, A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky draws the reader into Butler's world, creating a sense of unmatched intimacy with the deeply private writer.

In this collection of personal essays and poetry, acclaimed poet and performer Pamela Sneed details her coming of age in New York City during the late 1980s. Funeral Diva captures the impact of AIDS on Black Queer life, and highlights the enduring bonds between the living, the dying, and the dead. Sneed's poems not only converse with lovers past and present, but also with her literary forebears--like James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde--whose aesthetic and thematic investments she renews for a contemporary American landscape.

Brennan Spiegel has spent years studying the medical power of the mind, and in VRx he reveals a revolutionary new kind of care: virtual medicine. It offers the possibility of treating illnesses without solely relying on intrusive surgeries or addictive opioids.

On bookshelves around the world, surrounded by ordinary books bound in paper and leather, rest other volumes of a distinctly strange and grisly sort: those bound in human skin. Would you know one if you held it in your hand? In Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom seeks out the historic and scientific truths behind anthropodermic bibliopegy—the practice of binding books in this most intimate covering.

Blue Light of the Screen is about what it means to be afraid — about immersion, superstition, delusion, and the things that keep us up at night. A creative-critical memoir of the author’s obsession with the horror genre, Blue Light of the Screen embeds its criticism of horror within a larger personal story of growing up in a devoutly Catholic family, overcoming suicidal depression, uncovering intergenerational trauma, and encountering real and imagined ghosts.

Opening at the end of 1969--a politically charged year at the beginning of Nixon's presidency and at the height of the anti-war movement--the Trial of the Chicago Seven (which started out as the Chicago Eight) brought together Yippies, antiwar activists, and Black Panthers to face conspiracy charges following massive protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, protests which continue to have remarkable contemporary resonance.

A book launch party for Made in L.A. Art of Transformation, stories about a city that invites, or forces, its inhabitants to change. The stories and dreams we share with each other are ever-evolving. The ground shifts beneath our feet. We return to familiar corners and find ourselves out of place and time. Art of Transformation explores interior states of emotional drift and the evolving place we call home.Celebrate the launch of this new volume of short stories with our contributing authors and editors. We'll talk about how we turn the stories of our lives into the stories we share with readers and what it takes to transform reality into art.Made in L.A. Writers came into being because local readers expressed their desire, en masse, for stories about Los Angeles. As a collaborative of Los Angeles-based writers who are dedicated to nurturing and promoting indie fiction, our work is both influenced and illuminated by our hometown and underpinned by the extraordinary, multifaceted, and often surreal culture and life in L.A.Pay-what-you-will donation tickets will go toward recouping the costs of publication and promotion for the Made in L.A. Fiction Anthology Series.

Celebrate the art of transformation known as Halloween with contributing writers to Made in L.A. third volume of fiction about Los Angeles. Made in L.A. Vol. 3: Art of Transformation is a love letter to one of the greatest cities in the world, one that invites, or forces, its inhabitants to transform with it. However, there's a dark side to our city. A creeping suspicion that not all is right and forces beyond our control will upend our lives. Death itself is a type of transformation and many of the stories in this third volume of fiction from Made in L.A. explore unexpected tragedies and desperate situations. All is not glittering in the Hollywood shadows and on the streets of downtown nor in the suburban backyards where nature creeps slowly then in sudden conflagrations. Join us for a creepy celebration of transformation. We'll be holding a costume ball with prizes for our "Most Transformed" panelist and guest. We'll also be "madlibbing" our stories, stipping out details and filling in words and phrases from other contributors' stories. Does it sound like chaos? Good, we love it. Wild times are here and we're coasting on the wave, hoping not to get sucked Read More ...

Throw together fast, flavorful meals in no time with just a handful of ingredients with 200 highly cookable, delicious, and incredibly simple recipes from the James Beard Award-winning team at Milk Street.