Festival Day

Some friendships feel like they’ll last forever—until they reach a breaking point. In Stephanie Wambugu’s Lonely Crowds, two girls initially bonded together by rough upbringings have their friendship tested decades later as they enter the competitive art world of New York City in the 90s. In Emily Nemens’ Clutch, five best friends of two decades have survived through COVID, childbirth, and midcareer challenges, but when a reunion trip to Palm Springs finally makes it out of the group chat, they realize just how much their lives have changed since their college days. In Naima Coster’s Take What You Can, two best friends move near one another when they’re both pregnant so that they can raise their children together, but the harsh realities of class difference, the demands of marriage and motherhood, and an old, unspoken rift threaten to destroy their bond. Moderated by Kyle Dillon Hertz (The Lookback Window).

Some histories don’t fall behind, they cling. In Amitav Ghosh’s Ghost-Eye, a young girl’s memories of another life draw a psychologist, her family, and a new generation into a mystery connecting past and present. In Melissa Faliveno’s Hemlock, a woman returns to the Wisconsin woods where her mother vanished and finds herself confronting an inheritance that may be psychological, supernatural, or something more difficult to name. In Robyn Gigl’s All We Hide, a trans detective begins digging into the murder of a local trans woman and high school classmate, a case seemingly connected to the disappearance of her mother. Across very different forms of storytelling, these writers ask what happens when the past refuses to remain past, Moderated by book critic Hamilton Cain (This Boy’s Faith: Notes from a Southern Baptist Upbringing).

Mothers and their proxies tend to take on the bulk of directing a child’s life, which can lead to fraught relationships, atypical life lessons, and disappointment in the unexpected direction their child pursues. In Jordy Rosenberg’s Night Night Fawn, Barbara Rosenberg reflects on her life and failed guidance of her gender-nonconforming child, who is taking care of her in an opioid-filled high on her deathbed. In Sarah Blakley-Cartwright’s Heavy Cream, Gerry’s upbringing is filled with lessons not found in textbooks and dictated by the whims of a mentally unwell mother who suddenly abandons her in the care of three women navigating life in a very different way. In Avigayl Sharp’s Offseason, the unnamed narrator finds herself back at her parents’ house during a school break, reflecting on her unstable relationship with her mother and whether her memory of her is reliable. Moderated by Fanta Diallo, Senior Publicist at W.W. Norton and Company.

Authoritarianism thrives on fear, silence, and conformity. Breaking that gridlock requires both individual courage and collective strategy. Join Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-Meyer (On Courage: How To Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear), Jelani Cobb (Three of More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here), and Anand Gopal (Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution) for this essential panel on modern resistance, nationally and internationally. From committed whistleblowers standing up to corporate and state power, to civil rights organizers on the front lines, to the brave Syrian citizens fighting to overthrow a dictatorship, this reportage and conversation goes behind the scenes of history and tracks resistance today to show how people can organize to confront modern tyranny—and make a difference. Moderated by Carlos Menchaca, Collaborative Governance Academy.

Some feelings resist containment. Left unbridled, they can drive a person to decisions that feel inevitable in the moment and unrecognizable in hindsight. In Quiara Alegría Hudes’ The White Hot, a single mother’s all-consuming rage starts to appear in her young daughter and triggers only one response: to leave her child. In Morgan Thomas’ Mad Eden, a Southern trans healthcare worker recalls a summer of utmost joy that is followed by an unexpected unraveling of everything they’ve carefully built. In Nathaniel Rich’s Cloudthief, a climate journalist’s sense of malaise leads him to be drawn into a plot to rob a data center. Moderated by Olivia Rutigliano.

Young people today know that climate change is altering the world before their eyes. What will the future world look like—and will we survive? In her YA science-fiction graphic novel Salvage, Renée Nault depicts a class-stratified future megacity traversed by carefree technocratic children even as the outskirts of the city scrape by on salvaging and reselling the products of prior industry from buried city layers beneath the water. In How To Survive The End Of The World, Katy Doughty charts the different crises that might come to a head within our lifetime, and what has tipped the scales during previous climatic and other disasters for the human race. But all hope is not lost: Danica Novgorodoff discusses her and journalist Meera Subramanian’s exploration of youth climate activism and its impacts in their nonfiction comic A Better World Is Possible: Youth Confront the Climate Crisis. Moderated by Kait Walser of the NYC Climate Writers Collective & the Climate Imaginarium. 

The 1980s is a decade infamous for its chaos, ugliness, and cruelty, but also adored for the art produced by a restless culture. These authors masterfully explore a time where beauty and violence existed simultaneously, and often because of each other. In Colson Whitehead’s Cool Machine, a New York City in transition glimmers with promise, even as a successful Black storeowner must dip into the underground world of heists after his family is denied a loan. In Marlon James’s The Disappearers, a group of queer men in ‘80s Kingston face the aftermath of a deadly mob attack, struggling to find their place in a subculture as vibrant and sexy as it is in crisis. Whitehead and James build thrilling stories that are at heart love letters to two complicated cities and a gutting reminder of a not-so-distant past that the marginalized must continue to heal from. Moderated by Johnny Temple, Brooklyn Literary Council Co-Chair and Publisher, Akashic Books.

At a time when trans lives are increasingly at risk, Bloodletter Magazine leverages the power of poetry to alchemize horror into liberation. Showcasing work from Bloodletter’s first print anthology, Trans Voices in Horror, this reading and moderated panel will discuss the ways in which the trans experience informs the horror genre—as well as the other way around. Moderated by poet, scholar, and Bloodletter editorial staff member t.n.s. with contributors Ripley Mandanis, Claire Orrange, and Veronica Rowan.