In his new nonfiction collection, poet, artist, critic, novelist, and performer Wayne Koestenbaum enacts twenty-six ecstatic collisions between his mind and the world. A subway passenger’s leather bracelet prompts musings on the German word for “stranger”; Montaigne leads to the memory of a fourth-grade friend’s stinky feet. Wayne dreams about a handjob from John Ashbery, swims next to Nicole Kidman, reclaims Robert Rauschenberg’s squeegee, and apotheosizes Marguerite Duras as a destroyer of sentences. He directly proposes assignments to readers: “Buy a one-dollar cactus, and start anthropomorphizing it. Call it Sabrina.” “Describe an ungenerous or unkind act you have committed.” “Find in every orgasm an encyclopedic richness . . . Reimagine doing the laundry as having an orgasm, and reinterpret orgasm as not a tiny experience, temporally limited, occurring in a single human body, but as an experience that somehow touches on all of human history.” Figure It Out is both a guidebook for, and the embodiment of, the practices of pleasure, attentiveness, art, and play.

Koestenbaum is in conversation with Maggie Nelson, author of nine books of poetry and prose, including the National Book Critics Circle Award winner The Argonauts, The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, Bluets, The Red Parts, and Jane: A Murder.

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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski

Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.

Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.

Tom Rastrelli is a survivor of clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse who then became a priest in the early days of the Catholic Church’s ongoing scandals. Confessions of a Gay Priest divulges the clandes­tine inner workings of the seminary, providing an intimate and unapologetic look into the psychosexual and spiritual dynamics of celibacy and lays bare the “formation” system that perpetuates the cycle of abuse and cover-up that continues today. 

Under the guidance of a charismatic college campus minister, Rastrelli sought to reconcile his homosexuality and childhood sexual abuse. When he felt called to the priesthood, Rastrelli be­gan the process of “priestly discernment.” Priests welcomed him into a confusing clerical culture where public displays of piety, celibacy, and homophobia masked a closeted underworld in which elder priests preyed upon young recruits. 

Rastrelli is in conversation with Janet Finch, author of White Oleander and teacher of fiction writing.

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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski

Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.

Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.

Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a “sun child” from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Coping with the strain of parental neglect and the elusive promise of U.S. citizenship, Meredith Talusan found childhood comfort from her devoted grandmother, a grounding force as she was treated by others with special preference or public curiosity. As an immigrant to the United States, Talusan came to be perceived as white. An academic scholarship to Harvard provided access to elite circles of privilege but required Talusan to navigate through the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and her place within the gay community.

She emerged as an artist and an activist questioning the boundaries of gender. Talusan realized she did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man, and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved. Throughout her journey, Talusan shares poignant and powerful episodes of desirability and love that will remind readers of works such as Call Me By Your Name and Giovanni’s Room. Her evocative reflections will shift our own perceptions of love, identity, gender, and the fairness of life.

Talusan is joined in conversation by Amber Tamblyn, an Emmy and Golden globe nominated actress, writer, director, and the author of six books.

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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski

Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.

No matter how unlikely it is that an effective gay movement could have been born from an upper middle-class, law-abiding, conservative populace, there are those who refuse to identify gay history with a liberal ideology. Obtuse efforts are underway to deny the “hippie” element that makes up a large part of the DNA of gay rights. Activist Morris Kight, a unique force of nature and the grand panjandrum of post-Stonewall gay liberation, represents a large part of that hippie DNA. He was a complicated character with an instinct for social services and a tendency towards self aggrandizement. His ego stood out in a room full of egos. In a time before “gay pride,” Kight quite deliberately and openly shunned the shame that was expected of homosexuals. He created organizations, sat on boards, worked with committees, and lead seminal protests that created a new quality of life for homosexuals and, eventually, the first generation of never-closeted Gays. This book does not provide all the answers on the history of gay liberation; however, it may pose a few new questions.

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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski

Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.

In this special early edition of the Handsell podcast, Yves talks to Mandy Harris Wiliams (@idealblackfemale), the Programming Director at the Women's Center for Creative Work. Williams is launching the Algorithms of Oppression Book Club, co-hosted by WCCW and FeministAI, in alliance with The Free Black Women's Library LA. 

The first meeting of the book club is tonight (5/19), and will occur monthly! Please use the following link to find out more:

https://womenscenterforcreativework.com/events/algorithms-of-oppression/

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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski

Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.

In the premiere episode of the Skylight Books Booksellers Series, Lane and Sydney handsell us their staff picks. Plus, Mary gives us an update on how Skylight is faring during the coronavirus crisis, and Maddie details how the events staff is switching course when you...can't have any events.

Staff Picks:

Lane - Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis

Sydney - The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Silmani.

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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski

Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.

In the final volume of the Life on Earth trilogy, celebrated cartoonist MariNaomi concludes her tale of growing up, falling in and out of love, and possible alien interventions. Shy, self-deprecating Paula Navarro is coming into her own—and it's making her new girlfriend, Johanna, a little nervous. Paula's former friend Emily Baker is learning to look inward. Brett Hathaway, Emily and Paula's mutual ex-hook-up, is torn about reconnecting with his estranged dad. And Nigel Jones is smitten with his tutor, Claudia—whose disappearance and reappearance remains a mystery to everyone around her. As Claudia and her guardians put the final plan in motion, they'll reveal the truth that links everyone's fate.

MariNaomi is in conversation with Myriam Gurba, a writer, a spoken-word artist, and a visual artist.

Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle—but nonetheless world-changing—invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible.

Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence—until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life. Using Seeptech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated.

Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina follows a lost boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest. In her attempt to save him from The Seep, she will confront not only one of its most avid devotees, but the terrifying void that Deeba has left behind. A strange new elegy of love and loss, The Seep explores grief, alienation, and the ache of moving on.

Author Chana Porter is in conversation with Agnes Borinsky, a playwright and performer based in Los Angeles.

Poppy wants to go to college like everyone else, but her father has other ideas. Ever since her mirror twin sister, Lola, mysteriously vanished, Poppy’s father has been depressed and forces her to stick around. She hopes she can convince Lola to come home, and perhaps also procure her freedom, by sending her twin a series of eighteen letters, one for each year of their lives.
 
When not excavating childhood memories, Poppy is sneaking away with her girlfriend Juniper, the only person who understands her. But negotiating the complexities of queer love and childhood trauma are anything but simple. And as a twin? That’s a whole different story.

Dear Twin author Addie Tsai is in conversation with C.B. Lee, a Lambda Literary Award nominated writer of young adult science fiction and fantasy.

For as long as they can remember, Cyrus Grace Dunham felt like a visitor in their own body. Their life was a series of imitations--lovable little girl, daughter, sister, young gay woman--until their profound sense of alienation became intolerable. Beginning as Grace and ending as Cyrus, Dunham brings us inside the chrysalis of gender transition, asking us to bear witness to an uncertain and exhilarating process that troubles our most basic assumptions about who we are and how we are constituted. Written with disarming emotional intensity in a voice uniquely theirs, A Year Without a Name is a potent, thrillingly unresolved meditation on queerness, family, and desire.

the blind pig is an afro surrealist excavation of a gender queer blk millennial’s formal introduction to their ancestral point of Mecca and No Return; the American South. In essayistic prose, this book weaves and unbraids the synapses of a blk American falling in and out of time.

Author Aziza Barnes is in conversation with Yesika Salgado, a Los Angeles based Salvadoran poet who writes about her family, her culture, her city, and her brown body.

In 1977 Uruguay, a military government has crushed political dissent with ruthless force. In an environment where citizens are kidnapped, raped, and tortured, homosexuality is a dangerous transgression. And yet Romina, Flaca, Anita "La Venus," Paz, and Malena--five cantoras, women who "sing"--somehow, miraculously, find one another and then, together, discover an isolated, nearly uninhabited cape, Cabo Polonio, which they claim as their secret sanctuary. Over the next thirty-five years, their lives move back and forth between Cabo Polonio and Montevideo, the city they call home, as they return, sometimes together, sometimes in pairs, with lovers in tow, or alone. And throughout, again and again, the women will be tested--by their families, lovers, society, and one another--as they fight to live authentic lives. 

A genre-defining novel and Carolina De Robertis's masterpiece, Cantoras is a breathtaking portrait of queer love, community, forgotten history, and the strength of the human spirit

We hosted the oh-so-fabulous Sadie Pines, the woMAN behind writer/comedian H. Alan Scott. Sadie is the first and only drag queen fully inspired by The Golden Girls (it’s true, don’t bother Googling it). Sadie was born out of H. Alan’s years of interacting with Golden Girls fans through the podcast Out on the Lanai. Now she’s out living her golden life, and guess what?  She’s here to make yours a little brighter too. For more, follow her at @SadiePines.

Sadie will read Mary Wears What She Wants, by Keith Negley, and lead the kiddos in some fun activities. The event is free and open to the public. Any donations will go towards the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital. 

In poetic stanzas, IntersectionAllies introduces the stories of nine kids from diverse backgrounds. Authors Carolyn Choi, LaToya Council, and Chelsea Johnson use each character’s story to explain how children’s safety concerns are shaped by their intersecting identities, such as class, sexuality, dis/ability, race, religion, and citizenship—what is known in academic and activist circles as “intersectionality."

IntersectionAllies features introductions by law professor Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term intersectionality, and Dr. Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, author of Intersectionality: An Intellectual History, and artwork by illustrator Ashley Seil Smith. The stories in IntersectionAllies also suggest ways in which friends can support one another, or be an “ally,” despite different positions in life. The authors believe that forward-looking feminism must start with children, and IntersectionAllies shows that children’s literaturecan be the gateway to educating entire households.

Combining historical research and oral history with his own personal experience, Alex Espinoza examines the political and cultural forces behind this radical pastime. From Greek antiquity to the notorious Molly houses of 18th century England, the raucous 1970s to the algorithms of Grindr, Oscar Wilde to George Michael, Cruising remains at once a reclamation of public space and the creation of its own unique locale—one in which men of all races and classes interact, even in the shadow of repressive governments. In Uganda and Russia, we meet activists for whom cruising can be a matter of life and death; while in the West he shows how cruising circumvents the inequalities and abuses of power that plague heterosexual encounters. Ultimately, Espinoza illustrates how cruising functions as a powerful rebuke to patriarchy and capitalism—unless you are cruising the department store restroom, of course.

Espinoza is in conversation with David Francis, author of The Great Inland Sea.