In-Store: Rosemary Donahue & Nichole Perkins: Sex and the Single Woman

Event guidelines:

• All guests must be vaccinated to attend, and must provide proof of vaccination in order to enter event.
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• Tickets are limited to restrict capacity at our store, and each ticket will include either a copy of the featured book or a $10 Books Are Magic gift card.
• Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
• A signing will follow the talk.
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This fresh, voice-driven feminist anthology reimagines Helen Gurley Brown’s seminal work Sex and the Single Girl in time for its 60th anniversary, featuring twenty-four essays from acclaimed and bestselling authors, including Kristen Arnett, Morgan Parker, Evette Dionne, and Melissa Febos.

In May 1962, Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl sent shockwaves through the United States, selling more than two million copies in three weeks. The future Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief’s book promoted the message that a woman’s needs, ambition, and success during her single years could actually take precedence over the search for a husband.

While much of Brown’s advice is outdated and even offensive by today’s standards, her central message remains relevant. In this exceptional anthology, Eliza Smith and Haley Swanson bring together insights from many of today’s leading feminist thinkers and writers to pay homage to Brown’s original work and reinterpret it for a new generation. These contributors provide a much-needed reckoning while addressing today’s central issues, from contraception and abortion (topics the publisher banned from the original) to queer and trans womanhood, racial double standards, dating with disabilities, sexual consent, singlehood by choice, single parenting, and more.

Written for today’s women, this revisionist anthology honors Brown’s irreverent spirit just as it celebrates and validates women’s sexual lives and individual eras of singlehood, encouraging us all to reclaim joy where it’s so often been denied.

Rosemary Donahue is a freelance writer and editor living in Brooklyn, New York. They previously worked as wellness editor at Allure and have written for such publications as Vogue, Autostraddle, them, Nylon, and Marie Claire. You can read more about them at their website and follow them on Twitter: @rosadona.

Nichole Perkins is a writer and podcast host from Nashville, Tennessee. She hosts This Is Good for You, a podcast about finding pleasure in life, and previously was a cohost of Thirst Aid Kit, a podcast about pop culture and desire. Nichole is the author of Lilith, But Dark, a poetry collection, and Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be, a memoir.

Denne Michele Norris is a Black Trans writer living in NYC. She is the editor-in-chief of Electric Literature, and her writing has been supported by MacDowell, Tin House, VCCA, the Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction, and appears in McSweeney's, American Short Fiction, and ZORA. She co-hosts the critically acclaimed podcast Food 4 Thot, and is hard at work on her debut novel. Follow her on Twitter and IG @thedennemichele.

Event Venue

Books Are Magic, 225 Smith Street, Brooklyn, United States