In-Person: THE BODY FARM by Abby Geni

We are excited to welcome back Abby Geni to the store to celebrate the release of THE BODY FARM! For this event, Abby will be joined in conversation by Frances de Pontes Peebles.

Please note: This event is free to attend, but registration is required! By registering, you agree to wear a mask throughout the duration of the event, per W&CF's Covid-19 policy.

The long-awaited new book from the critically acclaimed author of The Lightkeepers and The Wildlands: an intense and insightful collection that celebrates the horrors and joys of inhabiting our bodies
The body cannot tell any lies. From birth to death, and through all the transitions in between, the body stores our knowledge and history, our feelings and experiences. Our betrayals. These insightful and empathetic stories, from the critically acclaimed author of The Last Animal, shine new light on our physical vessels set against our physical world, two landscapes irretrievably connected and altered over time.
An entomologist solves cold cases and upholds a sense of justice by studying the decay of corpses in a field and the insect life they develop. A caregiver obsesses over a stained-glass lampshade to deal with the elegiac losses of Alzheimer’s. A sister with webbed fingers highlights the often-universal belief that our siblings just might be creatures brought forth from the deep. The memory of a scent evokes the haunting legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic.
These eleven stories display Abby Geni’s great capacity to take us into the lives and experiences of others to scrutinize the physical self: birth, childhood, transition, mental health, trauma, aging, illness, love, sex, and death.
BUY THE BOOK!

Abby Geni is the author of The Lightkeepers, winner of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award for Fiction and the inaugural Chicago Review of Books Award for Best Fiction; The Wildlands, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and The Last Animal, an Indies Introduce Debut Authors selection and a finalist for the Orion Book Award. Geni is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a recipient of the Iowa Fellowship.

Frances de Pontes Peebles is the author of the novels The Seamstress and The Air You Breathe. Her books have been translated into ten languages. A native of Pernambuco, Brazil, she is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is a Creative Writing Fellow in Literature from The National Endowment for the Arts, and has received a Fulbright grant and Brazil’s Sacatar Fellowship. In 2019, she served as Visiting Associate Professor of Fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her short fiction has appeared in O. Henry Prize Stories, Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, Electric Literature, and Guernica. Her novel, The Seamstress, was adapted for film and mini-series on Brazil’s Globo Network. She is proud to serve as Chair of the Board of the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.

Accessibility: This event is hosted at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are required. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email [email protected] by no later than 14 days before the event. For other questions or access needs, please email [email protected].

Event Venue

Women & Children First, 5233 North Clark Street, Chicago, United States