Jenn Shapland with Kim Fu — 'Thin Skin: Essays'

Third Place Books is thrilled to welcome Jenn Shapland for a discussion of her new essay collection, Thin Skin, called "a wrenching, loving and trenchant examination of feminism, nuclear weapons production, healthcare, queerness and American life" by Alexander Chee. Shapland will be joined in conversation by author Kim Fu, the local author of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century. This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required in advance.

This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!

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This event is free to attend. Registration is required in advance.

For Jenn Shapland, the barrier between herself and the world is porous; she was even diagnosed with extreme dermatologic sensitivity—thin skin.

Recognizing how deeply vulnerable we all are to our surroundings, she becomes aware of the impacts our tiniest choices have on people, places, and species far away. She can't stop seeing the ways we are enmeshed and entangled with everyone else on the planet. Despite our attempts to cordon ourselves off from risk, our boundaries are permeable.

Weaving together historical research, interviews, and her everyday life in New Mexico, Shapland probes the lines between self and work, human and animal, need and desire. She traces the legacies of nuclear weapons development on Native land, unable to let go of her search for contamination until it bleeds out into her own family’s medical history. She questions the toxic myth of white womanhood and the fear of traveling alone that she’s been made to feel since girlhood. And she explores her desire to build a creative life as a queer woman, asking whether such a thing as a meaningful life is possible under capitalism.

Ceaselessly curious, uncompromisingly intelligent, and urgently seeking, with Thin Skin Shapland builds thrillingly on her genre-defying debut My Autobiography of Carson McCullers (“Gorgeous, symphonic, tender, and brilliant” —Carmen Machado), firmly establishing herself as one of the sharpest essayists of her generation.

Jenn Shapland’s first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Lambda Literary Award and the Publishing Triangle Award, among other honors, and has been translated into Spanish, French, and Polish. Shapland has a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin and she works as an archivist for a visual artist.

Kim Fu is the author of four books, most recently the story collection Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, which won the Pacific Northwest Book Award and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, as well as a TIME 100 and NPR Books We Love best book of 2022. Stories in this collection were featured on Levar Burton Reads and Selected Shorts, chosen for Best of the Net and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, and optioned for TV and film. Fu lives in Seattle.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Third Place Books, 5041 Wilson Ave. S, Seattle, United States