About this Event
Event guidelines:
- 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.
- Home address is collected for contact tracing purposes; it will not be used otherwise.
- The event will also be livestreamed for free here: https://youtube.com/live/U787_Bh8eNs
- As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event, even if you have a ticket; email us and we'll work it out.
If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact [email protected].
In these eleven stories, a Mennonite minister’s daughter moves from a youthful, exuberant understanding of her family’s faith toward religious doubt.
Stumbling comically at times, Ruthie navigates life with and without the rules in which she’s been raised. Always physical, often sexual, Ruthie’s search for personal truth leads her from missionary outposts in Paraguay and Brazil to Mennonite towns in northern Indiana and central Kansas.
Ultimately, these stories consider how faith and identity intertwine, the cost of abandoning one’s cultural heritage, and the complicated longing for return.
Jennifer Sears is associate professor of English at New York City College of Technology/City University of New York. Her writing appears in The Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Witness, Guernica, Ninth Letter, Fence, North American Review, and elsewhere.
Mary Gaitskill was born in Lexington KY and grew up in the Detroit area of Michigan. She left home at the age of 16 eventually traveling to Canada where she lived illegally with a fake ID. At 19 she realized that if she wanted to become a writer she needed more education and so returned to America to attend community college. From there she went to the University of Michigan where she took a B.A. and then moved to New York City in 1981. She published her first book, a story collection titled Bad Behavior in 1988; she has since published two more collections of stories (Because They Wanted To and Don't Cry) and three novels (Two Girls, Fat and Thin, Veronica and The Mare) as well as a collection of essays titled Somebody With A Little Hammer. Her most recent book is a compilation of previous work with visual art titled The Devil’s Treasure: A Book of Stories and Dreams. She taught writing at the university level between the years 1993 and 2022.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Books Are Magic Montague, 122 Montague Street, Brooklyn, United States
USD 10.89 to USD 20.69
