Sharply funny and surprisingly tender, Pope’s debut asks the question: What if we’re not broken in all the ways "self-help" say we are?About this Event
Seattle born writer and musician Daniel Pope visits the store for a discussion of his debut novel, Go Help Yourself, alongside Seattle writer Daniel Tam-Claiborne and Crab Creek Review editor in chief Julia Hands.
Meet Corbin Moore, a twenty-something lapsed writer whose job at a struggling, off-brand spiritualist bookshop in Seattle meshes well with his regimen of smoking cannabis, binge eating, and doom-watching the news. That rut is interrupted by the return of his overbearing mother, Geraldine, a famous self-help guru who’s looking for a guinea pig. Add in the daily deluge of Corbin’s deep-seated insecurities and body dysmorphia, the prospect of reunion with still beloved ex-girlfriend Beth, and nonstop harassment by a M**der of near-murderous crows, and you get a person most in need of help—but from whom, and how?
Sharply funny and surprisingly tender, Daniel Pope’s debut asks the question: What if we’re not broken in all the ways the prophets of American self-help say we are? This book is for all the people self-improvement leaves behind.
Daniel Pope is a writer and musician from Seattle. He is the author of Go Help Yourself, the winner of the University of New Orleans Press Publishing Lab Prize. His work has appeared in Narrative Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, Gulf Coast Journal, and elsewhere. He currently lives in the UK, where he is a doctoral candidate at the University of Manchester's Centre for New Writing.
Daniel Tam-Claiborne is a multiracial writer, multimedia producer, and nonprofit director. His debut novel, Transplants (Simon & Schuster, 2025), was longlisted for the 2026 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. A 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, he has also received fellowships and residencies from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Poets & Writers, Bread Loaf, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Swatch Art Peace Hotel, and others. Daniel holds degrees from Oberlin College, Yale University, and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
Julia Hands is a poet, editor, and literary organizer based in Seattle. A graduate of Western Washington University's MFA program, Julia has since worked with Lit Crawl: Seattle, Write Our Democracy, and now serves as Editor-in-Chief at Crab Creek Review. She has work published or forthcoming in Cream City Review, The Shore, Greensboro Review, and elsewhere.
Event Venue
The Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, United States
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