Wednesday, June 30, 7:00pm Virtual Event- Streamed live on Facebook and Youtube

Ottessa Moshfegh presents Death in Her Hands, in conversation with Brian Evenson

Join us for a free, live-stream author event on the Magers & Quinn Facebook Page or YouTube channel on Wednesday, 6/30, at 7:00pm Central.

Watch on YouTube
Watch on Facebook

While on her daily walk with her dog in a secluded woods, a woman comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground by stones. Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. But there is no dead body. Our narrator is deeply shaken; she has no idea what to make of this. She is new to this area, alone after the death of her husband, and she knows no one.

Becoming obsessed with solving this mystery, our narrator imagines who Magda was and how she met her fate. With very little to go on, she invents a list of murder suspects and possible motives for the crime. Oddly, her suppositions begin to find correspondences in the real world, and with mounting excitement and dread, the fog of mystery starts to fade into menacing certainty. As her investigation widens, strange dissonances accrue, perhaps associated with the darkness in her own past; we must face the prospect that there is either an innocent explanation for all this or a much more sinister one.

A triumphant blend of horror, suspense, and pitch-black comedy, Death in Her Hands asks us to consider how the stories we tell ourselves both reflect the truth and keep us blind to it. Once again, we are in the hands of a narrator whose unreliability is well earned, and the stakes have never been higher.

Buy the Book

Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Eileen, her first novel, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Death in Her Hands, her second and third novels, were New York Times bestsellers. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World and a novella, McGlue. She lives in southern California.

Brian Evenson is the author of over a dozen works of fiction. He has received three O. Henry Prizes for his fiction. His most recent book, Song for the Unraveling of the World, won a Shirley Jackson Award and was a finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction and the Balcones Fiction Prize. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches at CalArts.

Tuesday, July 13, 6:00pm Virtual Event - Free Registration Required

Parenting 4 Social Justice Virtual Event

Get inspired by the authors of the new book Parenting 4 Social Justice: Tips, Tools, and Inspiration for Conversation and Action with Kids.

In this virtual gathering of parents and change-makers who care for kids we'll hear from coauthors and illustrator, Angela Berkfield, Jaimie Lynn Kessell, Leila Raven, Chrissy Colón-Bradt, Rowan Parker, Abigail Healey, and Brittney Washington - who represent diversity across race, class, gender, ability, and nationality. Book talk participants will also be invited to share their own successes and challenges!

More on the book: Parenting 4 Social Justice includes forewords by Autumn Brown and Chris Crass, as well as firsthand experiences from parents around the US. Brittney Washington contributed beautifully illustrated conversations between caregivers and children - and the book includes an extensive resource list and kids book list. Published by Green Writers Press. Learn more at www.parenting4socialjustice.com.

This event is free but requires registration
REGISTER HERE

Author Angela Berkfield, a social justice educator and activist, is a parent of 10- and 7-year-old boys who have privilege because of race, class, gender, and ability. In her words, "I have a tall task in raising kids who have privilege to move through the world honoring principles of equity and justice. I've aimed to center social justice in my parenting from day one - and the more caregivers I can partner with on this journey, the better!" Angela has taught in a variety of settings over the past decade and is a co-founder of the Root Social Justice Center, ACT for Social Justice, and Equity Solutions. She has an MA in Social Justice from the School for International Training.

Chrissy Colón Bradt is an educator and mom to a 4 year old, biracial, white-presenting child. As an Afro-Latina in a biracial marriage, Chrissy is keenly aware of her family's intersecting identities and privilege. She strives to support her son in developing a positive racial and ethnic identity. Chrissy serves as an educator and Director of Equity and Inclusion at an independent school, and is on the board of The Courage of Care Coalition and the Root Social Justice Center. She holds a BA in Comparative Ethnic Studies from Barnard College and an M.Ed. in Special Education from Hunter College.

Rowan Parker has worked in early childhood education and early childhood development for over a decade. He is white and transgender; he has bipolar disorder and a chronic pain condition. Rowan currently works in Early Intervention as a Developmental Specialist, assessing young children for therapeutic needs, but his favorite part of the job is helping parents learn to understand and work with their children. He continues his work with children as a foster parent with his partner. Rowan has a Master's in Education from Western Governors University.

Thursday, July 15, 7:00pm Virtual Event - Registration Required

Kisten Radtke presents Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness
A Lonely Hearts Reading with Kristen Radtke, Zaina Arafat, and Rachel Yoder

From the acclaimed author of Imagine Wanting Only This--a timely and moving meditation on isolation and longing, both as individuals and as a society.

There is a silent epidemic in America: loneliness. Shameful to talk about and often misunderstood, loneliness is everywhere, from the most major of metropolises to the smallest of towns.

In Seek You, Kristen Radtke's wide-ranging exploration of our inner lives and public selves, Radtke digs into the ways in which we attempt to feel closer to one another, and the distance that remains. Through the lenses of gender and violence, technology and art, Radtke ushers us through a history of loneliness and longing, and shares what feels impossible to share.

Ranging from the invention of the laugh-track to the rise of Instagram, the bootstrap-pulling cowboy to the brutal experiments of Harry Harlow, Radtke investigates why we engage with each other, and what we risk when we turn away. With her distinctive, emotionally-charged drawings and deeply empathetic prose, Kristen Radtke masterfully shines a light on some of our most vulnerable and sublime moments, and asks how we might keep the spaces between us from splitting entirely.

Buy the book (Available July 13)

REGISTER HERE

Event access is $5, which includes access to the virtual event (access instructions provided via email 24-48 hours prior to event), as well as a $5 off code for use on magersandquinn.com.

Kristen Radtke is the author of the graphic nonfiction book Imagine Wanting Only This. The recipient of a 2019 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, Radtke is the art director and deputy publisher of The Believer. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Marie Claire, The Atlantic, The Guardian, GQ, Vogue, and Oxford American, among many other publications.

Rachel Yoder is a founding editor of draft: the journal of process. She holds M.F.A's from the University of Arizona (fiction) and the University of Iowa (nonfiction), where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Her stories and essays have been published in literary journals such as The Kenyon Review and The Missouri Review, as well as national outlets such as The New York Times, The Sun, and Lit Hub. Her novel Nightbitch is forthcoming in July 2021. She lives in Iowa City with her husband and son.

Zaina Arafat is a Palestinian-American writer and the author of You Exist Too Much, which won a Lambda Literary Award and was named Roxane Gay's favorite book of 2020. Her essays and stories have appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, VICE, BuzzFeed, Granta, Guernica, The Believer, Harper’s Bazaar and Virginia Quarterly Review. She is currently at work on an essay collection.

Tuesday, July 27, 11:00am Virtual Book Launch - Registration Required

Virtual Launch Party with Daniel Bensen, Trilby Black, and Neil Sharpson

Celebrate recent releases from three Sci-Fi authors at this virtual launch party!

Authors Daniel Bensen, Trilby Black, and Neil Sharpson will read and discuss their new novels!

Registration is $5, and attendees will receive virtual event access and a $5 off code for use at magersandquinn.com.

REGISTER HERE

Attendees also have a chance to win prizes during the event! Follow @magersandquinn or the authors on social media and share our posts about the event, and you'll be entered to win fabulous prizes!

About Interchange: A year ago, Anne Houlihan uncovered a wormhole to Junction, a patchwork planet of competing alien biomes. Now, she and Daisuke are going back to investigate "The Howling Mountain," the possible location of a wormhole into space. Her mission headed by an eccentric millionaire, Anne believes she will have a chance to learn more about the origin of Junction and its varied ecosystems. The mission has purposes beyond what she knows, however, and so does the planet. As the expedition tears its way across the alien landscape, Anne must fight to protect its lifeforms, herself, and the Earth.

Daniel M. Bensen writes science fiction, alternate history, and fantasy. He is the author of Junction, its sequel Interchange, the comic book First Knife, and the Sidewise award-winning short story “Treasure Fleet.” He resides in Sofia, Bulgaria with his daughters, wife, and in-laws in the Balkan Tower of Matriarchy.

--

About Finnegan's Awake: Since birth, Rain Wooten has been trained by her secret-agent parents to hate and destroy the enemies of America. But when a pizza delivery turns into an armed kidnapping gone wrong, she is thrust into the world of normal people, where right and wrong are no longer so clear, and reality is even harder to determine.

Trilby Black is an academic science editor who previously worked in astronautics, blue-sky research, and academia, with stints between running a wooden passenger ferry, teaching math in the local youth prison, and raising two children. She has lived in Colorado, France, Texas, and the UK. Currently, she works and lives with her family in Suffolk, England. Finnegan's Awake is her first novel.

--

About When the Sparrow Falls: Life in the Caspian Republic has taught Agent Nikolai South two rules. Trust No One. And work just hard enough not to make enemies. Here, in the last sanctuary for the dying embers of the human race in a world run by artificial intelligence, if you stray from the path - your life is forfeit. WHEN THE SPARROW FALLS illuminates authoritarianism, complicity, and identity in the digital age, in a page turning, darkly-funny, frightening and touching story that recalls Philip K. Dick, John le Carrâe and Kurt Vonnegut in equal measure.

Neil Sharpson studied in University College Dublin where he was a member of UCD Dramsoc and honed his skills as a writer, winning the Dramsoc Award for Best Original Script and the Dramsoc Award for Outstanding Contribution to Original Writing. He is a graduate of the Abbey Theatre’s New Playwright’s Programme and has been commissioned by the Abbey twice. He was also shortlisted for the Maguire International Playwrighting Award in 2009. He writes for the Irish superhero comic, League of Volunteers and is the founder of the comedy review blog, Unshaved Mouse. His first novel, When the Sparrow Falls will be published by Tor/Macmillan in June 2021, with his second novel following in Summer 2022.