Skylight Books Podcast Series

"CULPRITS" Anthology Reading

A hard-bitten crew of professional thieves pull off the score of their lives, coming away with seven million in cash. Like any heist there are some unforeseen complications; a hitch or two and a couple of bodies drop. But despite this, they get away with the swag. Enough to change their lives, make new identities, start fresh. But that’s when the real trouble begins...In this unique, riveting, linked anthology, we follow each culprit as they go their separate ways after the heist, and watch as this perfect score ends up a perfect nightmare. Featuring stories penned by acclaimed writers Brett Battles, Gar Anthony Haywood, Zoë Sharp, Manuel Ramos, Jessica Kaye, Joe Clifford and David Corbett, Culprits shows that sometimes the end means things are just getting started...

Christopher Zeischegg, "BODY TO JOB"

Former porn star Christopher Zeischegg (aka Danny Wylde), gathers six years of writing into one definitive collection. A memoir of an adult film career from beginning to end and a life lived after, marked by post-porn dysphoria. Interspersed with select fiction, Zeischegg writes about youthful naivete, sex worker love, pro-porn activism, disenchantment, and violence. Body to Job is the ex-porn star's third book, and his most comprehensive to date—an explicit work of vulnerability, longing, terror, and life.  

Morgan Jerkins, "THIS WILL BE MY UNDOING"

As one of the fiercest and most powerful critics writing today, Morgan Jerkins is a rising star in the literary world. Praised by such icons as Roxane Gay and Alexander Chee, Jerkins establishes herself in This Will Be My Undoing as an insightful and brutally honest writer who isn’t afraid of tackling tough and controversial subjects. Not just a personal essay collection, Jerkins mines her own experience growing up black and female for moments that lead into bigger, more universal discussions about urgent issues facing black women today, such as the paradox of black female sexuality, dating men who say they “don’t see color”, and being objectified, silenced, and marginalized in ways that are rarely acknowledged in our country’s larger discussion about inequality.

Set against the backdrop of a divided nation under the Trump administration when racism and misogyny are on full public display, Jerkins masterfully tackles real issues about intersectionality, diversity, and privilege. Whether Jerkins is writing about the highly problematic Rachel Dolezal, “good hair,” being a black visitor in Russia, or her complex relationship with her own physical body, the portrait that emerges in This Will Be My Undoing is deeply intimate yet entirely universal.

Tavi Gevinson, "ROOKIE ON LOVE"

Tavi Gevinson returns to start the New Year off right with Rookie on Love, an anthology about the heart's most powerful emotion. Featuring exclusive, never-before-seen essays, poems, comics, and interviews from contributors like Jenny Zhang, Emma Straub, Hilton Als, Janet Mock, John Green, Rainbow Rowell, Gabourey Sidibe, and many more, this collection is the perfect reflection on love in its many forms.

Tee Franklin, "BINGO LOVE"

When Hazel Johnson and Mari McCray met at church bingo in 1963, it was love at first sight. Forced apart by their families and society, Hazel and Mari both married young men and had families. Decades later, now in their mid-’60s, Hazel and Mari reunite again at a church bingo hall. Realizing their love for each other is still alive, what these grandmothers do next takes absolute strength and courage. From Tee Franklin (Nailbiter’s The Outfit, Love is Love) and Jenn St-Onge (Jem & The Misfits), Bingo Love is a touching story of love, family, and resiliency that spans over 60 years.

Franklin is in conversation with award-winning television and comic book writer Amanda Deibert.

Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, "CALL ME ZEBRA"

National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi has been hailed as an author “on the verge of developing a whole new literature movement” (Bustle) and, now, her new novel, Call Me Zebra, affirms her “brilliant, demented” (Kirkus) genius as she explores the ways in which we cope with grief, our unresolved histories, and the tangled depths of love.

More than a decade after fleeing Iran during the height of the Iraq War, Zebra, now an orphan, must face life in exile alone, with literature as her only armor. To reconcile her past and uncertain future, Zebra embarks on a literary pilgrimage, leaving America to retrace her family’s dislocation. As she traverses the vast expanse of the Western Mediterranean, she’s guided by the sage words of Cervantes,Borges, Stendhal, and Dali. But her journey back to Iran quickly derails in Barcelona when Ludo, a stalwart realist mystified by her intensity, enters the picture and the two begin a sexy, if fraught, affair.

Joanna Angel, "NIGHT SHIFT"

From the sinfully delicious mind of Joanna Angel, founder of adult company BurningAngel and award-winning adult actress and director, comes Night Shift: A Choose-Your-Own Erotic Fantasy!

Your mission: In a sketchy and sexy world filled with tissues, gallons of lube, sex toys, tiger print, and swinger parties, help Taryn choose her way as she learns what happens in this small, unexpectedly kinky town. From butt plugs to cross-dressing truckers to being held-up at gunpoint over dildos, experience this fun and sexy journey along with Taryn, as she goes from shy and sweet to skilled and empowered—but how she gets there is up to you!

Dahlia Schweitzer, "GOING VIRAL"

In Going Viral, Dahlia Schweitzer probes outbreak narratives in film, television, and a variety of other media, putting them in conversation with rhetoric from government authorities and news organizations that have capitalized on public fears about our changing world. She identifies three distinct types of outbreak narrative, each corresponding to a specific contemporary anxiety: globalization, terrorism, and the end of civilization. Schweitzer considers how these fears, stoked by both fictional outbreak narratives and official sources, have influenced the ways Americans relate to their neighbors, perceive foreigners, and regard social institutions.

Deborah Reed, "THE DAYS WHEN BIRDS COME BACK"

n her latest novel, The Days When Birds Come Back, Deborah Reed weaves an unforgettable tale of redemption and perseverance that questions what it means to love in times of grief and sorrow. Still raw from her divorce and the recent loss of her beloved grandparents, June returns to the Oregon coast and the house that holds her dark memories. With plans to sell her grandparents’ historic bungalow, she hires Jameson, a stranger from out of town, to restore it over the summer. But upon meeting, June and Jameson realize they have much more to contend with than an old house.

Propelled by Reed’s “gorgeous and wise prose” (Cheryl Strayed), The Days When Birds Come Back follows June and Jameson as they confront their harrowing, intertwined pasts. As the walls of June’s  childhood home come down, long-buried secrets are exhumed. Jameson’s marriage is crumbling under the weight of a traumatic loss that took place years ago in June’s town, and June is grappling with the guilt of her troubled adolescence and father’s elusive death. Alone in the sweltering heat of the summer, their chemistry is undeniable. But can they find the forgiveness they need in time to build a future together? Scintillating and brimming with hope, Reed’s gripping story will keep readers on the edge of their seats. “An emotionally satisfying novel” (Publishers Weekly) set against the backdrop of Oregon’s charming, rustic coast, The Days When Birds Come Back is the perfect book to escape with this winter.

Tom Macher, "HALFWAY"

In his late teens Tom Macher rebelled against a world that seemed stacked against him. Raised in a broken family and estranged from an absentee father suffering with AIDS, Macher turned to alcohol to escape the painful loneliness of his reality.

Macher captures the trials of sobriety—suicide, death, recovery—and the unusual beauty that forms in the bonds of those who suffer. In visceral, striking prose, he introduces the unforgettable characters he meets along the way, from a former child actor, a young teen struggling with schizophrenia, a tough-love addiction counselor, a sex-addicted social worker, to Matt O, who became Macher’s loyal friend and wingman. Raw, disarming, frenetic, and subversive, Halfway is a brutally honest portrait of the world of down-and-out recovering alcoholics, and a story of how, in their darkest hour, these men create the bonds that form a family. 

Sandra Allen, "A KIND OF MIRRACULAS PARADISE"

In A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise: A True Story About Schizophrenia, Sandra Allen tells her uncle's story faithfully to his account. Eight years in the making, but with an urgent message for our moment, this electrifying work is groundbreaking in its style and its spirit. It’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets House of Leaves, with the literary soul of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.

Allen is joined by Amanda Chicago Lewis, who writes a biweekly column for Rolling Stone.

Sara Saedi, "AMERICANIZED"

In Americanized, bright-eyed, straight-A student Sara Saedi uncovered a terrible secret at age thirteen: she was breaking the law simply by living in the United States. Only two years old when her parents fled Iran, she didn’t learn of her undocumented status until her older sister wanted to apply for an after-school job, but couldn’t because she didn’t have a Social Security number.

Fear of deportation kept Sara up at night, but it didn’t keep her from being a teenager. She desperately wanted a green card, along with clear skin, her own car, and a boyfriend. Americanized follows Sara’s progress toward getting her green card, but that’s only a portion of her experiences as an Iranian-“American” teenager. From discovering that her parents secretly divorced to facilitate her mother’s green card application to learning how to tame her unibrow, Sara pivots gracefully from the terrifying prospect that she might be kicked out of the country at any time to the almost-as- terrifying possibility that she might be the only one of her friends without a date to the prom.

Americanized combines the timely topic of immigration with a poignant and engaging voice that young readers won’t be able to put down!

Saedi is joined by Talia Gonzalez, actor and writer for television shows such as Teen Wolf and iZombie.

Scott McClanahan, "THE SARAH BOOK"

The Sarah Book is master storyteller Scott McClanahan's portrait of new love, young heartbreak, the coming together of families, and families coming undone. As much as this book takes place in Appalachia, it also takes place in the universe. Its landscapes are the highways and basements and dirty rooms where we are eternally condemned and redeemed. McClanahan has written a love letter to divorce, in a language somewhere between Romantic poetry and a distilled mountain twang. The Sarah Book is an unforgettable tale told by one of today's finest writers.

Damien Ober, "DOCTOR BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S DREAM AMERICA"

Damien Ober's Doctor Benjamin Franklin's Dream America is a blazingly original fictional history that weaves twenty-first century technology into a saddle-punk retelling of the American Revolution. It is 1777. Hours after a top-secret Congressional sub-committee uploads the Articles of Confederation, a mysterious internet plague breaks loose in the cloud, killing any user who accesses a networked device. Seven in ten Americans are dead, the internet is abandoned.

Seizing the moment, the British take control of New York and Philadelphia, scattering what little remains of the rebellion. Just when all seems lost, George Washington reappears from off-the- grid to pin the British army at Yorktown. Independence is won, but with the countryside in ruins and internet commerce impossible, the former colonies teeter on the brink of collapse. Meeting in secret, a faction of the Founding Fathers code a new error-proof operating system designed to stabilize the cloud and
ensure everlasting American prosperity. 

Not everyone is happy with the new format. Believing the draconian regulations of the new OS a betrayal of the hard-fought revolution, Thomas Jefferson organizes a feisty, small-government opposition to fight the overreach of Washington's Federalist administration. Their most valuable weapon is Doctor Benjamin Franklin's Dream America, a new open-source social networking portal which will revolutionize representative government, return power to the people, and make Congress and the Presidency irrelevant . . .

Ober is joined by author Ben Loory, author of the collection Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, and a picture book for children, The Baseball Player and the Walrus.

Paul Briggs and Benson Shum

In the latest edition of the Walt Disney Animation Studios Artist Showcase series Catch My Breath, acclaimed animation talent Paul Briggs (Big Hero 6, Frozen, Zootopia) delivers a heartwarming and clever story about a boy who’s lost his breath: Losing it, trying to find it, even trying to buy it. But how he comes to get it back is sure to bring a smile to readers of all ages faces.

A young hippo, who’s a bit of a scardy-cat when it comes to swimming, will have her nerves and skills tested—in the most humerous and heartfelt of way—in the latest addition to the Disney Animation Artist Showcase picturebook series, Holly's Day at the Pool by Benson Shum.