Friday
October 9
5:30 PM
Grab a drink and enjoy readings from four Mason poetry alumni. In her collection, Chamorrita Song, Danielle P. Williams pays homage to queer, Black, and Indigenous cultures by mixing Chamorro oral storytelling and spoken word poetry. Author Craig Santos Perez says, “This collection is a profound and melodic song that explores the complexities of being a queer, diasporic Black Pacific Islander woman.” Danika Myers is the author of Her Names, Her Wits, inspired by her young daughter’s obsession with death and cemeteries. Michael Joseph Walsh’s collection, A Season, meditates on the limbos left by a spiritual crisis. Poet Joyelle McSweeney says, “A Season elaborates a microclimate of self-alienation which inverts to its most surprising hypocrite double: sympathy.” Millie Tullis’s collection, These Saints are Stone, explores the forgotten histories of women in her family among the desert landscapes of Utah. Poet Jennifer Atkinson says, “From heart-breaking family stories and her inspired readings of recovered letters and documents, Tullis composed lean, spare poems of nervy, tensile strength, poems that live up to the women and Utah landscapes they describe.”
Location: Mackenzie’s Tunes & Tonics, 3950 University Drive, Ste 210, Fairfax
7:30 PM
Enjoy an evening with world-renowned author Celeste Ng as she discusses the suspense, drama, and beautifully complex interpersonal relationships that appear in her writing. Ng is the author of Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere, which was adapted into a Hulu limited series starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. In her latest New York Times bestseller, Our Missing Hearts, Ng tells the story of twelve-year-old Bird living in a near-future version of America on a quest to find his political dissident mother. In a starred review, Booklist describes the novel, “As lyrical as it is chilling, as astonishing as it is empathic, Our Missing Hearts arguably achieves literary perfection.” Be sure to reserve your free ticket on Eventbrite. Tickets are required for this event. Sponsored by Friends of the Reston Regional Library and Friends of City of Fairfax Regional Library.
Free tickets are required for this event. They will become available at 7:30 p.m. on September 10. Max two per person.
Location: Stacy C. Sherwood Community Center, 3740 Blenheim Blvd, Fairfax