Enjoy recent author events, interviews, and bookseller series. Visit our website to learn more: www.skylightbooks.com
Episodes
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
THOM ANDERSEN DISCUSSES HIS BOOK OF ESSAYS SLOW WRITING WITH TOSH BERMAN
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Slow Writing: Thom Andersen on Cinema (Visible Press)
Slow Writing is a collection of articles by Thom Andersen that reflect on the avant-garde, Hollywood feature films, and contemporary cinema. His critiques of artists and filmmakers as diverse as Yasujirō Ozu, Nicholas Ray, Andy Warhol, and Christian Marclay locate their work within the broader spheres of popular culture, politics, history, architecture, and the urban landscape. The city of Los Angeles and its relationship to film is a recurrent theme. These writings, which span a period of five decades, demonstrate Andersen’s social consciousness, humour and his genuine appreciation of cinema in its many forms. Thom Andersen’s films include the celebrated documentary essays Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (1975), Red Hollywood (1996), Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), and The Thoughts That Once We Had (2015). Of the thirty-four texts included in the book, six are hitherto unpublished; others have been revised or appear in different versions to those previously available.
Praise for Slow Writing
“There are few writers and few filmmakers who make me rethink what cinema is more than Thom Andersen. Sometimes this is a matter of introducing fresh perspectives, such as making cinema and architecture more mutually interactive. It’s always a political matter of figuring out just who and where we are, and why.”----- Jonathan Rosenbaum
“In his disarmingly plainspoken introduction, Thom Andersen more or less apologizes for not becoming a film critic, and for not delivering a manifesto. Slow Writing shows us just how terrific a critic he hasn’t (mostly) bothered to be. This book belongs on a very small and special shelf of the most incisive and ungrandiose books by artists.”----- Jonathan Lethem
Thom Andersen has lived in Los Angeles for most of his life. His knowledge of and enthusiasm for the city has deeply informed his work, not least his widely praised study of its representation in movies, Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), which was voted one of the 50 Best Documentaries of All Time in a Sight & Sound critics’ poll. Andersen made his first short films and entered into the city’s film scene as a student of USC and UCLA in the 1960s. His hour-long documentary Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (1974) was realised under an AFI scholarship and has lately been restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. His research into the victims of the Hollywood Blacklist, done in collaboration with film theorist Noël Burch, produced the video essay Red Hollywood (1996) and book Les Communistes de Hollywood: Autre chose que des martyrs (1994). Andersen’s recent films include Reconversão (2012) on the work of Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, and The Thoughts That Once We Had (2015), a personal history of cinema loosely inspired by Gilles Deleuze. A published writer since 1966, Andersen has contributed to journals such as Film Comment, Artforum, Sight and Sound and Cinema Scope. He has taught at the California Institute of the Arts since 1987, and was previously on faculty at SUNY Buffalo and Ohio State University. Also a respected film curator, he has acted as programmer for Los Angeles Filmforum and curated thematic retrospectives for the Viennale. Slow Writing: Thom Andersen on Cinema is the first collection of his essays.
Tosh Berman is a writer and poet. His two books are Sparks-Tastic (Rare Bird) and a book of poems, The Plum in Mr. Blum's Pudding (Penny-Ante Editions). He is also the publisher and editor of his press, TamTam Books, which published the works of Boris Vian, Serge Gainsbourg, Guy Debord, Jacques Mesrine, Ron Mael & Russell Mael (Sparks) Gilles Verlant, and Lun*na Menoh.
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
JJ STRONG READS FROM HIS DEBUT US KIDS KNOW WITH LINDSEY LEE JOHNSON
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Us Kids Know (Razorbill)
We all knew about Cullen Hickson.
Siblings Bri and Ray O'Dell are lost. Anxious. Restless. Ray—bullied at his Catholic school for being small and timid—wants to be someone people respect or, even better, someone people fear. Meanwhile, Bri knows that something is off about her friendship with the shiny, happy, sophisticated blond girls on her field hockey team. They don't really understand Bri, and if Bri is being totally honest, she doesn't really understand them either.
When storied delinquent Cullen Hickson enters the orbit of the O'Dell siblings, though, everything changes. Bri and Ray find an alluring, addictive outlet in Cullen, who opens their eyes to a world they didn't know existed. For Ray, that means experiencing the singular thrill of crime—from breaking and entering to grand theft auto—while Bri quickly dives into an all-consuming romance with the enigmatic upperclassman.
As Bri and Ray become more and more entwined with Cullen's antics, and their once-thrilling experiences grow increasingly dangerous, a series of life-changing events
threatens to lead the teens down a dark path—one that could forever alter the course of their lives.
Praise for Us Kids Know
"A gripping, tragic debut novel that will fascinate and trouble sophisticated teen readers."—Kirkus Reviews
"Strong's debut novel is one that will resonate with those searching for meaning or a higher power in life....the alternating narratives of these three [characters] will give
readers much to ponder about romance, friendship, life and death, and all the ineffable spaces in between." —Booklist
“The twists and turns in this novel left me sweating with suspense. The story of a brother and sister and the older boy who comes into their lives very astutely shows how its teen characters catalyze each other’s lives, creating unpredictable chemical reactions in which each propels the others into a dangerous direction not one of them could have imagined. Unsentimental and gripping, this is a memorable debut.” —Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint it Black
“An unflinching exploration of teenagers hurtling toward a point of no return. A compelling, impressive debut that doesn’t shy away from the allure of danger.” —Latifah
Salom, author of The Cake House
"Us Kids Know is at once a page-turning adventure and a poignant exploration of the human heart. Strong renders these complex teenagers with deep empathy and insight as they quest for truth and meaning in an uncertain world. I fell in love with this funny, heartbreaking, and ultimately life-affirming book.” —Lindsey Lee Johnson, author of The Most Dangerous Place on Earth
JJ Strong received a creative writing degree from the University of Southern California, and a B.A. in English from Georgetown University. His writing has appeared in Fifth Wednesday, the Santa Monica Review, and LA Weekly. He taught for many years in the undergraduate writing program at USC, before relocating to the Washington, D.C. area with his wife and son.
Lindsey Lee Johnson holds a master of professional writing degree from the University of Southern California and a BA in English from the University of California at Davis. She's taught writing at USC, Clark College, and Portland State University. She is a native of Marin County, California, where she has served as a tutor and mentor at a private learning center, focusing on teaching writing to teenagers. She now lives with her husband in Los Angeles. The Most Dangerous Place on Earth (Random House 2017) is Lindsey's debut novel. The book was named a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, an American Booksellers Association Indie Next Pick, a LibraryReads Pick, a Book of the Month Club Pick, and People Magazine's Book of the Week. Translations have been published or are forthcoming in Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Israel, Turkey, and The Netherlands.
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
The Deaths of Henry King (Uncivilized Books)
In The Deaths of Henry King, the hapless Henry King, as advertised, dies. Not just once or even twice, but seven dozen times, each death making way for a new demise, moving from the comic to the grim to the absurd to the transcendent and back again. With text by Jesse Ball and Brian Evenson complimented by Lilli Carre's macabre, gravestone-rubbing-style art, Henry King's ends are brought to a vividly absurd life.
Praise for The Deaths of Henry King
“This unique experience of the macabre blends in plenty of humor; indeed, readers will laugh at Henry as he watches himself get beaten to death, perish trying to scream in space, be eaten by a bear, or focus so hard on avoiding an open manhole that he gets hit by a car.”—Publishers Weekly
Praise for Brian Evenson:
“Brian Evenson is one of the treasures of American story writing, a true successor both to the generation of Coover, Barthelme, Hawkes and Co., but also to Edgar Allan Poe.”—Jonathan Lethem
Praise for Jesse Ball’s A Cure for Suicide:
“Spellbinding . . . [Has] the simplicity of a fable and the drama of a psychological thriller.”—The New York Times Book Review
Praise for Lilli Carré:
“Lilli Carré’s work most piquantly recalls the great avant-garde narrative films, from Menilmontant (1926) to The Saddest Music in the World (2003). Her Wanda Gág–meets–Gene Deitch drawing style and new-weirdness literary bent make her work acutely interesting to both read and scrutinize.”—Ray Olson, Booklist
Brian Evenson is the author of a dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection A Collapse of Horses and the novella The Warren. His novel Last Days won the ALA’s RUSA award for Best Horror Novel of 2009. His novel The Open Curtain was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an International Horror Guild Award. He lives in Los Angeles, and teaches at CalArts.
Jesse Ball (1978-). Born in New York. His prizewinning works of absurdity are beloved in a dozen languages.
Lilli Carré is an artist living in Los Angeles. She has created several books of comics, including Heads or Tails (Fantagraphics) and the children’s book Tippy and the Night Parade (Toon Books). Her comics and illustration work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and Best American Comics.
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
JENNIFER WEISS-WOLF DISCUSSES HER BOOK PERIODS GONE PUBLIC
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Periods Gone Public (Arcade Publishing)
The first book to explore menstruation in the current cultural and political landscape and to investigate the new wave of period activism taking the world by storm. After millennia of being shrouded in taboo and stigma, periods have gone mainstream. A new, high-profile movement has emerged—one dedicated to bold activism, creative product innovation, and smart policy advocacy—to address the centrality of menstruation in relation to core issues of gender equality and equity.
In Periods Gone Public, Jennifer Weiss-Wolf—the woman Bustle dubbed one of the nation’s “badass menstrual activists”—explores why periods have become a prominent political cause. From eliminating the “tampon tax,” to enacting new laws that ensure access to affordable, safe products, menstruation is no longer something to whisper about. Weiss-Wolf shares her firsthand account in the fight for “menstrual equity,” introducing the leaders, pioneers, and everyday people who are making change happen. And she challenges readers to face stigma head-on and elevate an agenda that recognizes both the power—and the absolute normalcy—of menstruation.
Praise for Periodss Gone Public
“This book may be the beginning of liberation for us all.”—Gloria Steinem
“Periods Gone Public gives powerful voice to one of the most ignored human rights issues around the globe. It’s required reading for every one of us.” —Abigail Jones, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author
“Jennifer Weiss-Wolf’s passion and vision for menstrual equity continues in Periods Gone Public. While both inspiring and educating, she continues to keep menstruation on front pages and at the forefront of conversations across the globe.” —Elissa Stein, author of Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation
“Periods Gone Public shows why menstrual stigma is not only a social justice issue but an economic and political one. The policy landscape is carefully outlined and bolstered by Jennifer Weiss-Wolf’s deep knowledge of the subject, making it even clearer why this issue has become a focal point of the modern fourth-wave feminist agenda today.” —Madame Gandhi, musician and activist
“One of the most important pieces of literature on women’s rights and health policy in decades. A game-changing blueprint for action.”—NYC Council Member Julissa Ferreras-Copeland
Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is a leading voice and advocate for equitable menstrual policy in America. Newsweek deemed her the “architect of the U.S. policy campaign to squash the tampon tax.” Weiss-Wolf’s writing and work have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, the Nation, Bloomberg, and Ms. Magazine, among others. She is a lawyer and vice president for the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. She lives in Maplewood, New Jersey.
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Miraculum Monstrum (Red Hen Press)
Miraculum Monstrum is a hybrid narrative about fictitious female artist Tristia Vogel, who experiences a radical physical transformation, beginning with the excrescence of apparent wings. Though her affliction is possibly an anomalous mutation resulting from worldwide ecological upheaval, the bird/woman is co-opted by a religious cult and written as the central figure of their scriptural text. Miraculum Monstrum contains fragmentary verse, scraps of lore, cult propaganda, curatorial commentary and images in a catalog for an exhibit of Vogel's visual artifacts and writings that chronicle this speculative history.
Praise for Miraculum Monstrum
"Enter in: here is that familiar moment when someone on the sidewalk, someone we maybe call schizophrenic, or deranged, yells out to her (our?) demons, or to eternity, to just leave her the fuck alone, and for once you hear it, and for once you agree, and wonder what would happen if everyone yelled out what they really felt, and why don't they, and what's lost in the silence. Enter: here is sadness and resistance and wings--a life (re)created, pieced together from the fragments we all become."--Nick Flynn, author of The Reenactments
"Miraculum Monstrum by Kathline Carr is a remarkably inventive, audacious debut collection that unfolds as poems, stories, fragments, drawings, paintings, mixed media pieces, and quotes to document and illustrate the life of Tristia Vogel, a visual artist who transforms dramatically and traumatically into a bird, and becomes an unintentional prophet. . . . This book is a unique and brilliant contribution to contemporary dystopic literature."--Jan Conn, author of Tomorrow's Bright White Light
"Kathline Carr's Miraculum Monstrum joins ranks with Gabriel García Márquez's story 'A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings' and Remedios Varo's painting Creation of the Birds, among other significant works, in an artistic (oracular) tradition that invokes the artist-figure as bird, art-making as flight. The poetic voice and sheer inventiveness of this book as a response to our current environmental crisis is breathtaking. Its deft word-play tangles like filigree amid the heaviness of sickness. Miraculum Monstrum's architecture, in its interplay of word and image, post-apocalyptic Ovidian myth, documentary fiction, feminist magical realism, taxonomy, and sensuousness, is a tour de force of hybrid poetics."--Shira Dentz, author of door of thin skins
"A visionary's warning, a topographical map of the mind, a manual of survival in the face of apocalyptic odds. Kathline Carr's imagined curatorial chronicle of Tristia Vogel?s metamorphosis is devastating--and transcendent."--Jane Denitz Smith, playwright
"In Miraculum Monstrum, Kathline Carr chronicles the story of Tristia Vogel, an early twenty-first century painter who suffers a mutation that begins with a bony, feather-like protrusion from her scapula. Her condition defies diagnosis, and eventually brings her to full bird-body transformation, persecution and adoration, disaster and the joy of flight. Carr reaches far down and back into our deepest shared stories, of messianic hopes, apocalyptic-climactic disaster, and body-wracking metamorphosis, to move human imagination itself forward toward its own evolution and possible survival. Readers, like the pilgrims who flock to Tristia, will be leveled by a strange kindred impossible beauty in these pages which piece the story together with poems, pieces of Tristia's art, and all manner of records and responses to the story of her life. Miraculum Monstrum is truly visionary, an act of the imagination of mythic scope."--Diane Gilliam, author of Dreadful Wind & Rain
As Burning Leaves (Red Hen Press)
Gabriel will be reading from As Burning Leaves and from an in-progress hybrid work Entry for Exits, a book of interlocking prose poems with a floating essay. This new manuscript looks at trauma, trans* embodiment(s) and strategies for resilience and healing.
As Burning Leaves offers spaciousness and breath. Both homesick and sick of home, it chronicles a landscape of longing scored with traces of film, contemporary art, and song. Vivid and vital, Jesiolowski's queer insight lends a critical voice to the fleeting: 'wind moves the leaves across the water / they do not gather / do not cling.' A brave and elegant debut.
Praise for As Burning Leaves
[W]hat if there is no ghost realm? asks Gabriel Jesiolowski in the quietly arresting, steadily confident As Burning Leaves. But what if a ghost realm does in fact exist, and we are the ghosts both haunting and haunted who wander those causeways between/fucking & nothingness that lie in the wake of betrayal, violation, abandonment? These poems speak from and into that very realm, sifting memory's restless evidence in a quest for answers to what leads / / devotion / astray. Add to this a harder quest, for belief itself, the belief that somehow, the body ceases grieving. These poems are at once the enactment and the proof of belief's healing power. They stir; they shine. Carl Phillips, author of The Rest of Love, finalist for the National Book Award
The geography of the body changes; its landmarks temporary; its border shifting, in Gabriel Jesiolowski's As Burning Leaves, a cartography of new forms, new ways of being. These poems constitute a healing atlas, a journey of utmost compassion, marked by both formal elegance and artful eloquence. What a remarkable book; it will astonish and enchant you. D. A. Powell, author of Lunch and A Guide for Boys
What Gabriel Jesiolowski is up to in their life their installation art and their photography and their writing too is built from a push and pull between a politics of accumulation that is full of abandoning and giving away. It makes sense then to think of As Burning Leaves as a sort of writing that takes a life and ties many parts of it together with a thin string to make a beautiful package. This is in many ways a book of love poems. But what it loves is all sorts of things, everything from bark to humans to folk songs to steam and smoke. It is a work that is quiet and a work that is attentive and one that is resonant with care and grace. Juliana Spahr, author of This Connection of Everyone With Lungs
From wordless, our bodies. From nameless, our memories. An image, a yearning every landscape, and certain people. The gesture, the wingspan, in quiet, and all across the page. Each scratch and smudge accrues the diary of As Burning Leaves, Gabriel Jesiolowski s wonderful, haunting, elementally human presence! Ralph Angel, author of Neither World, winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets
Kathline Carr is a visual artist and writer living in North Adams, Massachusetts. She has exhibited her work in New York City, New England, and Canada, and her writing and art appear in various publications and online at www.kathlinecarr.com.
Gabriel Jesiolowski works in a research-based practice that uses text, land, the body, installation, print, and film. They were a 2016 MacDowell writing fellow and have shown their work at The Alice Gallery, Flux Factory and Dumbo Arts Center. Their debut collection of poetry, As Burning Leaves, won the Benjamin Saltman Award. Their current work deals with accumulation and distribution, trauma/healing, and civic projects that tangle justice with beauty. New writing is out from Volt, Territory & Milkweed Zine. They live and work in Los Angeles.
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
JULIE LYTHCOTT-HAIMS DISCUSSES HER MEMOIR REAL AMERICAN
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Real American: A Memoir (Henry Holt & Company)
Julie Lythcott-Haims, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Raise an Adult, has written a different kind of book this time out – a deeply personal, biting and affecting account of her life growing up as a biracial black woman in America in Real American: A Memoir
Bringing a brisk, poetic sensibility to her prose, Lythcott-Haims stirringly evokes her personal battle with the low self-esteem that American racism routinely inflicts on people of color. The only child of an African-American father and a white British mother, she shows indelibly how so-called "micro" aggressions in addition to blunt force insults can puncture a person's inner life with a thousand sharp cuts. Real American expresses also, through Lythcott-Haims’s path to self-acceptance, the healing power of community in overcoming the hurtful isolation of being incessantly considered "the other" Real American is a fearless and powerful memoir. Lythcott-Haims’s eloquent words deserve to be studied, memorized, and repeated. Here is a book that should be read again and again, and then once more after that.
Praise for Real Americans
“A compelling, incisive and thoughtful examination of race, origin and what it means to be called an American. Engaging, heartfelt and beautifully written, Lythcott-Haims explores the American spectrum of identity with refreshing courage and compassion.” —Bryan Stevenson, New York Times bestselling author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
“Real American is a courageous, achingly honest meditation on what it means to come to consciousness as a mixed race child and adult in a nation where Black lives weren't meant to matter.” —Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness
“Breaks the silence on what it means to grow up mixed-race in America. Her spare but powerful prose has an emotional rawness that will profoundly resonate with all readers and help many feel a little less alone.” ―Heidi W. Durrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
“A cathartic and bold truth-telling.” ―Danzy Senna, bestselling author of Caucasia and New People
“A powerful, honest book that should be required reading for everyone.” —Anita Amirrezvani, author of The Blood of Flowers and Equal of the Sun
“To write with such an open heart about race and Blackness takes great courage. To do so in prose that is at once elegant and raw takes great talent.” —Ayelet Waldman, bestselling author of Bad Mother and of A Really Good Day
“A true achievement . . . so much more than a personal memoir . . . [Lythcott-Haims] channels the shrewdness of Eula Biss and the compassion of Ta-Nehisi Coates.” ―Lee Daniel Kravetz, international bestselling author of Strange Contagion and Supersurvivors
“Powerful . . . a memoir that [illuminates] the psychic cost of racism to those who are cast as ‘other.’ The journey of self-healing and the empowerment . . . is a story of triumph from which all of us can learn.” —Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Can We Talk About Race?
“Stands for, and stands up for, Americans who are questioned, confronted, disregarded and unnerved by our citizen country . . . Real American will be one of those books that is passed from hand to hand, with passages marked where readers find strong words that speak truth.” ―A.J. Verdelle, author of The Good Negress
“. . . shows once again, plainly and unforgettably, that if you are Black in America, it does not matter who you are, racism will come knocking. Lythcott-Haims . . . . Real American is the story of that insidious harm and of a woman who became alert to the American racism within herself and fought back. . . . not only an excellent, satisfying read but a book that can help us “stay woke”—as we must—to the sometimes stealthy and always life-threatening danger of racism, so that we all can fight back.” —U.S.
Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA)
Julie Lythcott-Haims served as dean of freshmen and undergraduate advising at Stanford University, where she received the Dinkelspiel Award for her contributions to the undergraduate experience. She holds a BA from Stanford, a JD from Harvard Law School, and an MFA in writing from California College of the Arts. She is a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, and resides in the Bay Area with her husband, their two teenagers, and her mother.
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Saturday Nov 04, 2017
Freeman's: The Future of New Writing (Grove Press)
Please join us for an evening with John Freeman and Hector Tobar and two contributors to the new issue of Freeman’s, drawing on recommendations from book editors, critics, translators, and authors from across the globe, Freeman’s: The Future of New Writing includes pieces from a select list of poets, fiction writers, and essayists whose work boldly breaks new ground against a climate of nationalism and siloed thinking, influenced by work from outside their region and genre. Aged twenty-five to seventy, the writers in the issue hail from almost twenty countries and writing in almost as many languages. They are shaping the literary conversation right now and will continue to have an impact for years to come.
Freeman will be joined by Hector Tobar, Garnette Cadogan, Diego Enrique Osorno, two contributors from the issue.
In three issues, the literary anthology from leading editor John Freeman has gained an international following and wide acclaim: "fresh, provocative, engrossing" (BBC.com), "impressively diverse" (O Magazine), "bold, searching" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). Freeman's: The Future of New Writing departs from the series' progression of themes. This special fourth installment instead introduces a list--to be announced just before publication--of more than twenty-five poets, essayists, novelists, and short story writers from around the world who are shaping the literary conversation right now and will continue to impact it in years to come.
Drawing on recommendations from book editors, critics, translators, and authors from across the globe, Freeman's: The Future of New Writing includes pieces from a select list of writers aged 25 to 70, from nearly twenty countries, and writing in almost as many languages. This will be a new kind of list, and an aesthetic manifesto for our times. Against a climate of nationalism and silo'd thinking, writers remain influenced by work from outside their region, genre, and especially age group. Serious readers, this special issue celebrates, have always read this way too--and Freeman's: The Future of New Writing brings them an exciting view of where writing is going next.
John Freeman was the editor of Granta until 2013. His books include How to Read a Novelist, Tales of Two Cities, and the forthcoming Tales of Two Americas. Maps, his debut collection of poems, is out from Copper Canyon in fall of 2017. He is the executive editor at Literary Huband teaches at the New School and New York University. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Paris Review.
Tuesday Oct 24, 2017
JESSICA BRUDER DISCUSSES HER BOOK NOMADLAND
Tuesday Oct 24, 2017
Tuesday Oct 24, 2017
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century (W.W. Norton & Company)
In recent years, many Americans have had to face tough new realities in the midst of massive changes in the economy and a widening wealth gap. One particularly hard-hit demographic is senior citizens, a proportion of whom saw their stable middle-class lives disappear in the wake of the Great Recession and suddenly, in their retirement years, found themselves in need of a job in a new economy low on steady manufacturing and retail jobs and high on short-term seasonal labor. As a result, to survive they join an expanding group of modern nomads: men and women who have given up the stability—and costs—of a home life and have hit the road in RVs, campervans, and trailers.
In Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, award-winning journalist Jessica Bruder delivers a comprehensive and compelling portrait of this set of fighters, idealists, and adventurers trying to carve out a peripatetic existence.
“Millions of Americans are wrestling with the impossibility of a traditional middle-class existence,” writes Bruder. “In the widening gap between credits and debits hangs a question: What parts of this life are you willing to give up, so you can keep on living?” The answer, Bruder finds, can vary tremendously, but for those who abdicate the
comforts of home for life on the road, there is both risk and reward in the undertaking, as well as an affirming side effect: an eclectic community that comes together both online and in person to commiserate over the struggles of living on the road, to tell jokes and share puns (their vans get names like “Vansion,” “Van Go,” “DonoVan,” and “Vantucket”), and to support one another in their alternative lifestyles.
They work for employers seeking them out for low-wage seasonal gigs, from picking fruit to staffing roadside stalls that sell Halloween pumpkins, Christmas trees, or Fourth of July fireworks; scrubbing toilets in National Forest campgrounds; guarding the gates of Texas oil fields and running the rides at theme parks. (Adventureland in Altoona, Iowa, made headlines last year after one workamper, a former pastor in his sixties, was killed in an on-the- job accident.) And some serve the community, by blogging or by arranging places to gather, organizing teach-ins and potluck meals.
To write this affecting book, Bruder immersed herself in this diverse community, buying a van she dubbed “Halen” and driving more than 15,000 miles over the course of two years, meeting modern nomads. She worked alongside them in Amazon’s CamperForce team of low-wage, seasonal workers at the company’s fulfillment centers and at the grueling annual sugar beet harvest in North Dakota. And she followed them through stints of precarious employment in national parks, where they served as campground custodians in exchange for a place to park their houses-on- wheels and a near-minimum wage.
As Bruder discovers, much of the population of Nomadland is made up of resourceful Americans with a strong spirit of independence, and many of them are single women, as well as senior citizens, reflecting some of the hardest-hit members of the middle class. They gather in places like Quartzsite, Arizona, where the land is vast and available, and the local authorities are generally tolerant of long-term campers and their vehicles. But these modern nomads can also be found living in Walmart parking lots, and even on city streets, hoping that no police officer will come knocking.
On her travels Bruder meets a fascinating collective of colorful itinerants, people like Linda, a 65-year- old grandmother who lives in a trailer called “the Squeeze Inn,” and LaVonne, a 67-year- old former journalist who “found her people” among the nomads, “a ragtag bunch of misfits who surrounded me with love and acceptance.”
They all have a story, a clear reason for their transition from middle-class lives to the open road, for living out of a traveling box, for driving and working and persevering in a permanent state of flux in a world where homelessness is frowned upon, if not actually considered criminal behavior.
Elegantly crafted and compassionate in its approach, Nomadland is a singular work of in-depth narrative journalism, a view from the inside of the new American heartland—a land without a physical center, scattered across the country, in nearly constant motion.
Praise for Nomadland
“What photographer Jacob Riis did for the tenement poor in How the Other Half Lives (1890) and what novelist Upton Sinclair did for stockyard workers in The Jungle (1906), journalist Bruder now does for a segment of today’s older Americans forced to eke out a living as migrant workers. . . . [A] powerhouse of a book. . . . Visceral and haunting reporting.”—Booklist, STARRED review
“Excellent. . . . Engaging, highly relevant immersion journalism.”—Kirkus Reviews, STARRED review
“A must-read that is simultaneously hopeless and uplifting and certainly unforgettable.”—Library Journal, STARRED review
“Tracing individuals throughout their journeys from coast to coast, Bruder conveys the phenomenon’s human element, making this sociological study intimate, personal, and entertaining, even as the author critiques the economic factors behind the trend.”—Publishers Weekly
“People who thought the 2008 financial collapse was over a long time ago need to meet the people Jessica Bruder got to know in this scorching, beautifully written, vivid, disturbing (and occasionally wryly funny) book. Nomadland is a testament both to the generosity and creativity of the victims of our modern-medieval economy, hidden in plain sight, and to the blunt-end brutality that put them there. Is this the best the wealthiest nation on earth can do for those who’ve already done so much?”—Rebecca Solnit, author of The Mother of All Questions
“In the early twentieth century, men used to ride the rails in search of work, sharing camps at night. Today, as Bruder brilliantly reports, we have a new class of nomadic workers who travel in their RVs from one short-term job to another. There’s a lot to cringe at here—from low pay and physically exhausting work to constant insecurity. But surprisingly, Nomadland also offers its residents much-needed camaraderie and adventure, which makes this book a joy to read.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed
“The campsite as the home of last resort, the RV used not for vacation but for survival: these are the makings of a new dystopia. Nomadland is a smart road book for the new economy, full of conviviality and dark portent.”—Ted Conover, author of Rolling Nowhere and Immersion
Jessica Bruder is an award-winning journalist whose work focuses on subcultures and the dark corners of the economy. She teaches at the Columbia School of Journalism and is the author of Burning Book.
Tuesday Oct 24, 2017
Tuesday Oct 24, 2017
Dead Girls and Other Stories (Dzanc Books)
With lyric artistry and emotional force, Emily Geminder’s debut collection charts a vivid constellation of characters fleeing their own stories. A teenage runaway and her mute brother seek salvation in houses, buses, the backseats of cars. Preteen girls dial up the ghosts of fat girls. A crew of bomber pilots addresses the ash of villagers below. And from India to New York to Phnom Penh, dead girls both real and fantastic appear again and again: as obsession, as threat, as national myth and collective nightmare.
Praise for Dead Girls
“An eerie convergence of female identities and experiences across time and space. [...] Startling, far-reaching tales of women who haunt and are haunted.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Geminder’s stories are refreshing, surprising, and evocative.”—Publisher's Weekly
“Geminder showcases an acute sensitivity to worlds both inside and out. There’s real delicacy to the craft but underneath all the skill is a shaking sense of purpose, and a great love of the brokenness and beauty of humanity. This is a substantive, memorable debut.”—Aimee Bender, author of The Color Master and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
“An electrifying read. Written in dreamy prose, these stories take the world we know and turn it inside out, making us question everything we think we know about our places in it. But don’t let the dream-like quality fool you: These stories have teeth. Seductive but fierce, full of keen insights and tenacious questions, Geminder’s fearless and utterly original debut collection will haunt and nourish you.”—Dana Johnson, author of In the Not Quite Dark and Elsewhere, California
“The stories in Geminder’s mesmerizing Dead Girls seamlessly weave gender and geopolitics and the dreamlike worlds of characters struggling to find hope and reason within their near apocalypses. The thread of unease that runs through the collection is insightful, rebellious, and righteous.”—Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and Disappearance at Devil’s Rock
“Emily Geminder’s stirring collection explores death-haunted scenarios from unexpected angles. Whether the characters are caught in the currents of Cambodian history or the private mythologies of an American summer, they’re often plunged into moments that dissolve all certainties about identity, consciousness, and the body. Etched with a matter-of-fact lyricism, Dead Girls will haunt you, sure, but that’s barely half the story.”—Jeff Jackson, author of Mira Corpora
Emily Geminder’s short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in AGNI, American Short Fiction, Mississippi Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Tin House Open Bar, Witness, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Award and a Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, and her work was noted in Best American Essays 2016. She has worked as a journalist in New York and Cambodia, and is a Provost’s Fellow in creative writing and literature at the University of Southern California.
Brandi Wells is the author of This Boring Apocalypse (Civil Coping Mechanisms), Please Don’t Be Upset (Tiny Hardcore Press), and Poisonhorse (Dzanc Books). Her writing appears in Denver Quarterly, Sycamore Review, Paper Darts, Folio, Chicago Review and other journals. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Alabama, where she served as editor of the Black Warrior Review.
Tuesday Oct 24, 2017
NINA WEIJERS READS FROM HER DEBUT THE CONSEQUENCES WITH MEREDITH ALLING
Tuesday Oct 24, 2017
Tuesday Oct 24, 2017
The Consequences (DoppelHouse Press)
Dutch author Niña Weijers took the world of European literature by storm in 2014 with her debut novel The Consequences, which has sold over 30,000 copies in Holland and garnered critical praise for its maturity and ambition.
Using deft and captivating prose, Weijers tells the story of Minnie Panis, a young and talented conceptual artist, as she navigates love affairs, her unexpected success in the art world, and her relationship with an emotionally distant mother. Beginning with Minnie’s near-death experience falling through the ice during her ultimate artwork, Weijers takes readers on a rollercoaster ride as Minnie uncovers the truth behind her premature birth. The doctor who saves her life, twice, enters Minnie into his clinic, whose motto All the fish needs is to get lost in the water helps her arrive at the border of life’s ebb, where meaningful art and revelations occur. An intimate, often humorous exploration of the intertwining cycles of death, rebirth and coincidence, The Consequences is a Bildungsroman that echoes far beyond the last page.
Praise for The Consequences
“The Consequences attempts something that's not easy, and succeeds. A person thinks about herself exhaustively, yet doesn’t become a bore. She writes about what she’s doing and you want to know all about it because it’s so vividly told. The temptation not to exist, to disappear from the world you're walking around in, the art you come upon and live with—when you write it down it sounds like heavy going; When you read it it’s light. So read it.” —Cees Nooteboom, Award-winning author of The Following Story and Rituals
“In this novel, tingling with ambition and fascinating ideas, the life and art of the main character revolve around loss, existence and disappearance. A determined tone characterizes this crazy book.” —NRC Handelsblad, 5 stars (Netherlands)
“The novel grates and creaks, and is loaded with questions, leaps and side paths, but that is one of its charms. Up to the last disturbing sentence the writer holds the reader in her manipulative grip.” —De Groene Amsterdammer (Netherlands)
“Niña Weijers’ remarkable, inventive novel depicts a contemporary conceptual artist at the height of her fame whose blasé art project has unintended consequences. Weijers invokes Kurt Vonnegut in the course of the narrative, and this novel shares Vonnegut’s sense of how things can be simultaneously real and absurd. Movies and books notoriously fail to capture the social and spiritual atmosphere of the contemporary art world, but Weijers nails it. Her book is beautifully written, surprising and often profound.”
—Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick, and Aliens and Anorexia
Niña Weijers studied literary theory in Amsterdam and Dublin. She has published short stories, essays and articles in various Dutch literary magazines. She is a regular contributor to the weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer, and an editor of De Gids.
Her debut novel The Consequences (De consequenties) was first published in Dutch in May 2014. It won the 2014 Anton Wachter Prize for best first novel, the Opzij Feminist Literature Prize, the Lucy B. & C.W. van der Hoogt Prize, and was shortlisted for the Libris Prize and the Golden Boekenuil, the two most important Dutch and Flemish literary awards. So far, it has sold over 30,000 copies, and has been published in five languages.
Meredith Alling is a writer based in Los Angeles. Her debut collection of short stories, Sing the Song, is available from Future Tense Books (futuretensebooks.com).
Tuesday Oct 24, 2017
EILEEN MYLES DISCUSSES THEIR MEMOIR AFTERGLOW
Tuesday Oct 24, 2017
Tuesday Oct 24, 2017
Afterglow (a dog memoir) (Grove Press)
Prolific and widely renowned poet, novelist, and essayist Eileen Myles is a trailblazer whose decades of literary and artistic work “set a bar for openness, frankness, and variability few lives could ever match” (New York Review of Books). Afterglow (a dog memoir), Myles’ first foray into memoir, paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of a beloved confidant: the pit bull called Rosie.
In 1990, Myles chose Rosie from a litter on the street, and their connection instantly became central to the writer's life and work. During the course of their sixteen years together, Myles was madly devoted to the dog’s wellbeing, especially in her final days. Starting from the emptiness following Rosie’s death, Afterglow launches a heartfelt and fabulist investigation into the true nature of the bond between pet and pet-owner. Through this lens, we witness Myles’s experiences with intimacy and spirituality, celebrity and politics, alcoholism and recovery, fathers and family history, gender, romance, memory, as well as the fantastical myths we invent to get to the heart of grief.
Afterglow joins a grand literary tradition of writers paying homage to a beloved dog—J. R. Ackerley’s My Dog Tulip, Virginia Woolf’s Flush, Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs, Amy Hempel’s stories, as well as Mark Doty’s Dog Years, and even Abigail Thomas’s A Three Dog Life—but as one might suspect, Myles’ entry in the canon subverts both genre and tradition and stands apart as resolutely its own thing. Combining screenplay, monologue, science fiction, and lucid memory, the text is animated with photos, diagrams, drawings, and poems to craft a mosaic of their life together.
Moving from an imaginary talk show where Rosie is interviewed by Myles’s childhood puppet, to a critical reenactment of the night Rosie mated with another pit bull; from lyrical transcriptions of their walks, to Rosie’s enlightened narration from the afterlife, Afterglow illuminates the surreal and familiar aspects of what it means to dedicate your existence to a dog.
Praise for Afterglow
“A rare new breed of dog memoir; think Patti’s Smith’s Just Kids, not John Grogan’s Marley and Me, absinthe not saccharine” –Library Journal (starred review)
“Myles’ work is a perfect example of what happens when you mix raw language with emotion, pets with loss, and sexuality with socioculturalism. . . A captivating look at a poet’s repeated attempt ‘to dig a hole in eternity’ through language.” –Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“For more than 16 years, Myles was companioned by a pit bull named Rosie until Rosie did what dogs do and left the author to navigate a post-Rosie world, solo. In the after of Rosie, poet Myles . . . . writesthis unconventional, uncontainable, phantasmagoric memoir of dog and owner. . . . Poetic, heartrending, soothing, and funny, this is a mind-expanding contemplation of creation, the act and the noun, and the creatures whose deaths we presume will precede ours but whose lives make our own better beyond reason. To this, readers should bring tissues, pencil and paper, even their dogs.”–Annie Bostrom, Booklist (starred review)
“Myles uses a pastiche approach to explore the bodily, cerebral, and esoteric/religious aspects of the grieving process, all of which is portrayed with meditative poignancy . . . Myles depicts the raw pathos of loss with keen insight.” –Publishers Weekly
“A ravishingly strange and gorgeous book about a dog that’s really about life and everything there is, Eileen Myles’s Afterglow is a truly astonishing creation.”–Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk
Eileen Myles—who prefers to use a gender-neutral pronoun—is the author of more than twenty books, including Chelsea Girls, Cool For You, and most recently, I Must Be Living Twice: New & Selected Poems 1975-2014. Their many honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction, four Lambda Literary Awards, the Clark Prize for Excellence in Art Writing, the Shelley Memorial Award from The Poetry Society of America, Creative Capital’s Literature Award as well as an Andy Warhol Foundation Art Writers’ Grant, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant. They live in Marfa, TX and New York City. Their poems were featured in seasons 2 and 3 of the Emmy-winning show Transparent.
Monday Sep 25, 2017
Monday Sep 25, 2017
Becoming Ms. Burton (New Press)
Becoming Ms. Burton is one woman's remarkable odyssey from tragedy to prison to recovery--and recognition as a leading figure in the national justice reform movement
Susan Burton's world changed in an instant when her five-year-old son was killed by a van driving down their street. Consumed by grief and without access to professional help, Susan self-medicated, becoming addicted first to cocaine, then crack. As a resident of South Los Angeles, a black community under siege in the War on Drugs, it was but a matter of time before Susan was arrested. She cycled in and out of prison for over fifteen years; never was she offered therapy or treatment for addiction. On her own, she eventually found a private drug rehabilitation facility. Once clean, Susan dedicated her life to supporting women facing similar struggles. Her organization, A New Way of Life, operates five safe homes in Los Angeles that supply a lifeline to hundreds of formerly incarcerated women and their children--setting them on the track to education and employment rather than returns to prison. Becoming Ms. Burton not only humanizes the deleterious impact of mass incarceration, it also points the way to the kind of structural and policy changes that will offer formerly incarcerated people the possibility of a life of meaning and dignity.
Praise for Becoming Ms. Burton
"Susan Burton is an angel among us. Her journey is a story of courage, compassion, and conviction. At turns harrowing and inspiring, Becoming Ms. Burton provides a valuable new perspective on the consequences of mass incarceration." -- Howard Schultz, executive chairman, Starbucks Coffee Company
"Susan Burton's life and work are a testament to the power of second chances and the impact one person can have on the lives of others. Her book is a stirring and moving tour-de-force--a beautiful inspiration for all of us to continue to fight for justice." -- John Legend, actor, singer, and songwriter
"More than just a memoir, this account provides an intimate glimpse into the problems that plague the U.S. prison system." -- Library Journal
"Burton has helped thousands of formerly incarcerated and homeless individuals, and now, by telling her story, she continues to advocate for a more humane justice system guided by compassion and dignity." -- Booklist (starred)
"The book documents Burton's tireless efforts to effect change---first helping individual women, released from prison with few resources, to make a new start, and then snowballing advocacy efforts at the state and national level to reshape how the United States treats those with criminal records." --Publishers Weekly
"A dramatic, honest, moving narrative of how hard life can get and how one can still overcome seemingly insurmountable adversity to do good in the world." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Susan Burton is someone who inspires while she educates. Her powerful and compelling memoir is an unforgettable journey and also an extraordinary light for all who are looking for answers on how we must recover, restore, and redeem those who have been incarcerated. This is a must-read." -- Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy
" Becoming Ms. Burton eloquently shows why the voices of formerly incarcerated women must be at the center of efforts to reconstruct the criminal legal system. Too often this nation criminalizes the trauma of black women; Susan Burton exposes this terrible truth by sharing her astounding story of redemption. This is critical reading for champions of justice everywhere."-- Monique W. Morris, author of Pushout
"For almost two decades Susan Burton has been a trailblazing advocate for ending mass incarceration, especially as it relates to poor women of color. Becoming Ms. Burton details her remarkable personal transformation as well as the larger structural changes this country must make in order to achieve racial and economic justice. It is essential reading for anyone who cares about these issues."-- Daryl V. Atkinson, civil and human rights advocate, lawyer, and member of the Leadership Council of the Formerly Incarcerated Convicted People and Families Movement
"Susan's life story is one our nation desperately needs to hear and understand. This is a story about personal transformation and collective power. It is about one woman's journey to freedom, and in the process helping to free us all."-- Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
Co-author of Becoming Ms. Burton, Cari Lynn is a journalist who’s written several books of nonfiction, including The Whistleblower, Leg the Spread, and the historic novel Madam. Cari has written for numerous publications, including O, the Oprah Magazine, Health, the Chicago Tribune, Deadline Hollywood and the Hollywood Reporter. She has taught and guest lectured around the country. She received an M.A. in Writing from the Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland. A longtime Chicagoan, she currently lives in Los Angeles.
For over 20 years, Saúl Sarabia has participated in social movements to transform society and has worked to end structural racism and discrimination by developing leaders, changing laws, and teaching. As the director of UCLA School of Law’s Critical Race Studies Program, Saul trained students to fight injustice by partnering with organizations working for social change. Along with challenging racism in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, and helping undocumented college students build a voice an a social movement, Saúl and his students worked with Susan Burton to create the UCLA Law-A New Way of Life Legal Re-enty Clinic to assist formerly incarcerated people fighting employment discrimination. Saúl holds both a B.A. and J.D. from UCLA.
The daughter of criminal-justice activist Susan Burton, Antoinette Carter’s life story features heavily in Becoming Ms. Burton. A South Los Angeles native, Antoinette is a human resources executive at a Fortune 500 company.
Tiffany Johnson first heard about A New Way of Life Re-Entry Project (ANWOL) on the grounds of Central California Women’s Facility while serving a 15-to-life sentence. On April 28, 2010, she walked through the doors of ANWOL to start her new life. Through ANWOL’s guidance and connections, she went on to claim a career and live on her own. In December of 2013, she joined ANWOL’s staff as a full-time community organizer for All of Us or None-Southern California. As of January 2015, Tiffany is now ANWOL’s Associate Director. As a subject matter expert, Tiffany has completed numerous presentations throughout the country and offers a unique perspective on the intricacies of overcoming re-entry barriers after years of incarceration.
Monday Sep 25, 2017
MICHELLE TEA DISCUSSES HER BOOK MODERN TAROT
Monday Sep 25, 2017
Monday Sep 25, 2017
Modern Tarot (HarperElixir)
Literary icon Michelle Tea offers fresh new take on tarot that encourages self-love, personal growth and self-discovery.
With her trademark wisdom and sharp sense of humor, author Michelle Tea shows how tarot offers moments of deep connection during a time when connection is ubiquitous but rarely delves beneath the surface. Based on over 25 years of experience and a deep and abiding love of the cards, Tea’s new book, Modern Tarot brings her charm, authenticity, and knowledge to the tradition of the tarot. Tea brings a fresh approach to the tarot guide infused with her unique insight, dark humor, and pop sensibility. Modern Tarot is a fascinating journey through the cards that teaches how to use this tradition to connect with our higher selves.
Whether you’re a full believer of the cards or a digital-age skeptic-- or a little of both-- the power of tarot is open to everyone. This guide doesn’t ask you to believe in magic or insist upon using tarot as a divination tool. Instead, fiercely insightful descriptions of each of the 78 cards in the tarot system (each illustrated in the charmingly offbeat style of cartoonist Amanda Verwey) and specially designed card-based rituals that can be used with any deck help take readers on a path toward radical growth and self-improvement.
Author, activist, and queer/feminist icon Michelle Tea is the author of five memoirs, including the award-winning Valencia (now a film). Her novels include Mermaid in Chelsea Creek, the first in a Young Adult fantasy trilogy published by McSweeneys. Tea is the Founding Artistic Director of RADAR Productions, a queer-feminist literary non-profit in San Francisco and is the editor of Sister Spit Books, an imprint of City Lights. Her writing has appeared in The Believer, n+1, Buzzfeed, The Bold Italic, Marie Claire, xoJane.com and many other print and web publications.
Monday Sep 25, 2017
PEN CENTER USA PRESENTS THE 2018 EMERGING VOICES MEET AND GREET
Monday Sep 25, 2017
Monday Sep 25, 2017
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship Meet and Greet Los Angeles
Join Emerging Voices Fellows, Alumni, and Mentors in Conversation for the 2018 Application Cycle at Skylight Books. PEN Center USA presents summer cocktails, short readings, a fellowship overview and audience Q&A.
Featuring: Patrick O’Neil, Jian Huang, Mike Padilla, Peter H.Z. Hsu, Kirin Khan and Soleil David
Sunday Sep 24, 2017
JENNIFER ROMOLINI DISCUSSES HER BOOK WEIRD IN A WORLD THAT'S NOT
Sunday Sep 24, 2017
Sunday Sep 24, 2017
Weird in a World That's Not: A Career Guide for Misfits, F*ckups, and Failures (HarperBusiness)
Are you “awkward?” Do you often feel like a spiky misfit at work? Does overthinking, anxiety and crippling self-doubt stand between you and the path to success? Have you taken so many wrong turns that it feels like you’ll never find the way forward, towards a truly rewarding career?
Weird in a World That's Not: A Career Guide for Misfits, F*ckups, and Failures, Jennifer Romolini’s wise, witty, and straight-talking how-to, asserts that being outside-the- norm and achieving real, high-level success are not mutually exclusive, even if the perception of the business world often seems otherwise, even if it seems like only office-politicking extroverts are set up for reward.
In this indispensable guide designed for oddballs, the popular speaker, former editor-in- chief of HelloGiggles, and self-professed weirdo shares essential information about navigating the workforce when you’re unconventional — and retaining your authenticity in the process. Romolini is an outsider who’s been there and done it; she started her career late, climbed the New York media ladder and, in just a few years, went from being a broke, divorced, college dropout to running some of the biggest websites in the world. As her inspiring story demonstrates, outliers are more than capable of excelling in the conventional business world, where weirdness can actually serve as an asset rather than a handicap.
Part memoir, part real-world guide, Weird in a World That's Not provides relatable, practical advice for readers at any stage in their careers. With real-life anecdotes and challenges interwoven throughout, this invaluable manual addresses a range of situations, including:
- Discovering the career that’s right for you
- Acing an initial interview and how to rebound if you don’t get the job;
- Surviving intense office politics;
- Knowing how and when to leave a sh*tty job;
- Becoming a great leader when managing people is often the worst;
- Staying true to who you are while accomplishing all of the above.
Jennifer Romolini is the former editor-in- chief and Vice President of Content at HelloGiggles, a site for millennial women founded by actress Zooey Deschanel. She was previously the editor-in- chief of Yahoo Shine, the deputy editor of Lucky Magazine, and held editorial positions at Time Out New York and Talk Magazine. She lives in Los Angeles, California.