Meet Best Selling Authors Lauren Groff & R.O Kwon

Thu Mar 05 2026 at 07:00 pm to 08:30 pm UTC-08:00

United Irish Cultural Center | San Francisco

BookShop West Portal
Publisher/HostBookShop West Portal
Meet Best Selling  Authors Lauren Groff & R.O Kwon
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New York Times Best Selling Authors Lauren Groff and R.O. Kwon discuss Groff's new thrillingly complex story collection, Brawler
About this Event

Save the Date!

Join us for a very special evening...

San Francisco's United Irish Cultural Center and Bookshop West Portal are delighted to jointly welcome author Lauren Groff live and in person. Lauren Groff is the author of The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Fates and Furies, Matrix, and The Vaster Wilds.

Bookshop West Portal has long been a fan of Lauren Groff, since Monsters of Templeton, through her following bestsellers, Matrix, Fates and Furies, The Vast Wilds, and beyond. We are delighted to welcome the New York Times Best Selling author back to San Francisco for a riveting evening of conversation with R.O. Kwan. Please get your ticket to join us at the United Irish Cultural Center to celebrate Lauren Groff’s latest stunning collection of short stories, Brawler.

This event will take place at the United Irish Cultural Center at 2700 45th Ave.

SCHEDULE

  • 6:15pm: Bar and Doors open

There is no assigned seating, so arrive promptly to purchase any books, grab a drink, and get your seats.

  • 7:00pm: Programming Begins
  • 8:00pm: Signing Line - author will personalize your books


ABOUT THE BOOK

Lauren Groff delivers a gorgeous collection about families transformed by desperate circumstances. In the spectacular opener, "The Wind," a mother and her three children flee from her abusive husband after her 12-year-old daughter takes a blow meant for her. On the road, with the husband in pursuit, the daughter takes drastic action to save the family. "To Sunland" follows Joanie, a young woman who moves her intellectually disabled older brother into a group home following the death of their mother. In the title entry, teen Sara excels on her school's diving team but has little control over her mother's increasingly dangerous disordered eating. In "What's the Time, Mr. Wolf?" a young man whose family has nurtured his sense of entitlement, whether by giving him a car despite falling short of his expected SAT score or buying his way into a top college, faces the limits of nepotism when his uncle and grandfather fire him from the family banking business because of his heavy drinking and poor performance. Throughout, Groff sketches her characters with scalpel-like precision (Sara's malnourished mother is "a skin bag with chalk in it, far too light to be human"). Each of these heartbreaking tales will linger in the reader's mind.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and The New York Times–bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Fates and Furies, Matrix, and The Vaster Wilds, and the celebrated short story collections Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won The Story Prize, the ABA Indies’ Choice Award, France’s Grand Prix de l’Héroïne, and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. Her work has been translated into thirty-six languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, where she and her husband own the independent bookstore The Lynx.


ABOUT R.O. KWON

R. O. Kwon is the author of the nationally bestselling novel The Incendiaries, which was named a best book of the year by more than forty publications and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award. With Garth Greenwell, Kwon coedited the bestselling Kink, a New York Times Notable Book. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, and MacDowell. Born in Seoul, Kwon has lived most of her life in the United States.


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Event Venue & Nearby Stays

United Irish Cultural Center, 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco, United States

Tickets

USD 42.99 to USD 48.24

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