About this Event
About the Books:
Book of Potions:
Winner of the 2023 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, selected by Ilya Kaminsky.
Written with tremendous urgency and ferocious candor, the prose poems of Book of Potions captures a woman caught in the middle of life: no longer young, not yet old, trapped between generations, locked in stereotyped roles and stultifying social norms, confined by other people's expectations and their projections of what a woman should be.
By turns enraged, funny, frustrated, astute and joyful, these short hybrid pieces (potion = poem + fiction) combine the lyric compression of poetry with the narrative expansiveness of prose. Readers will meander, spellbound, through a wildly imaginative dream world of fairy-tale landscapes, allegorical insights, social satire, thought experiments and vivid surreal imagery, scenes of otherworldly strangeness and haunting beauty. These potions are elixirs in language, some healing, some poisonous, all magical.
Ricky:
From Whitney Collins, the award-winning author of Big Bad, come twenty-three new dark and derelict (and hilarious) tales about--you guessed it--love. With Ricky, Collins applies her sharp eye, black humor, and generous heart to love stories (and the stories we tell ourselves about love). Among the wacky, tacky, lovesick, and lovelorn characters are: Ilona, the misanthropic mother and unhappy fianc who is increasingly transfixed by a rash of local shark attacks; Imogen, the sperm bank client who cultivates the love she madly desires inside herself; and Aurora Flood, the coma survivor on a mission to plant a sacred seed from the Olive Garden. Blending elements of southern gothic, speculative fiction, and horror, Ricky & Other Love Stories is political and personal, bitter and sweet: ultimately, a lot like love.
About the Authors:
Lauren K. Watel’s debut book, a collection of prose poetry entitled Book of Potions (potion = poem + fiction), was awarded the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, selected by Ilya Kaminsky, and will be published in February 2025 by Sarabande Books. Her poetry, fiction, essays and translations have appeared widely. A native of Dallas, TX, she lives in Decatur, GA. https://www.laurenkwatel.com
Whitney Collins is the author of Ricky & Other Love Stories and Big Bad, which won the 2019 Mary McCarthy Prize, a 2021 Bronze INDIES, and a 2022 Gold IPPY. She received a Best American Short Stories 2022 Distinguished Story, a 2020 Pushcart Prize, a 2020 Pushcart Prize Special Mention and won the 2020 American Short(er) Fiction Prize and the 2021 ProForma Contest. Her stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, AGNI, The Idaho Review, Gulf Coast, Book of the Month Club’s Volume 0, and The Best Small Fictions 2022, among others.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
2720 Frankfort Ave, 2720 Frankfort Avenue, Louisville, United States
USD 0.00 to USD 22.14
