About this Event
Please join us in ABC Amsterdam for an afternoon with Matthew Curlewis, author of It Makes No Sense Not To Sit Next To Someone Warm Tonight. Matthew will talk about his book, have a Q&A, and sign copies of his book afterwards.
About the book:
Mapping the contours of grief and the delights of living, It Makes No Sense Not To Sit Next To Someone Warm Tonight gathers together Matthew Curlewis’s many years of writing. Criss-crossing cultures and decades – from Sydney to Tokyo and New York to Amsterdam – Curlewis creates a collage as varied and vivid as the times he documents. Whether performing as ‘Earl Grey’ in a dodgy Roppongi comedy club, hitchhiking across the Tibetan Himalayas, or sharing frozen margaritas on the shady back deck of the ‘Ludlow Lounge’ – his ramshackle Lower East Side party palace – he relishes remembering, finds joy in small moments, and tells those gone too soon, ‘I think of you still’.
This book is made up of 60 ‘stories’ – meaning a combination of fiction and nonfiction essays, fiction, poetry, comedy bits, monologues, diary entries, song lyrics and more. 11 of the stories were previously published in newspapers, magazines or literary journals, and they are arranged in loosely chronological fashion (from older to recent) over forty years of writing, fitting to the themes of love, loss and laughter. Each ‘story’ is preceded by a short, memoir-voice introduction explaining where, when and perhaps why the piece was written.
About the author:
Australian by birth, Matthew Curlewis has designed, performed or written across four continents. At his organisation Amsterdam Writers he runs the AWA (Amherst Writers & Artists) methodology workshops: Writers’ Stretch & Tone, and Rainbow Writing – for Queer Colours of Every Shade. Matthew is also on AWA’s Board of Directors. His words have appeared in publications including The Guardian, Bright Flash Literary Review, t’ART Press, Beyond Queer Words and The Manifest Station. His Dutch, Polish, British co-production short film Brilliance can be seen on the world’s largest streaming platform of lesbian content: Lesflicks. He also sends out Bright Side Writings on Substack – optimism-led stories to brighten these dark times of chaos and collapse, and is the author of the 2026 memoir-in-essays: It Makes No Sense Not To Sit Next To Someone Warm Tonight.
About the moderator:
Zanni Louse Arnot is a bestselling and highly acclaimed Australian picture book and fiction author of over forty internationally published books. Her latest, A Guide To Falling Off The Map, is a young adult romance about best friends who fall in love just as things are falling apart. Zanni is now living and writing full-time in Utrecht, The Netherlands. She loves visiting schools, running retreats for grown-ups, and running in forests.
Event venue & nearby stays
The American Book Center, 12 Spui, Amsterdam, Netherlands
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