Naomi Washer with Cori Winrock — 'Marginalia'

Third Place Books welcomes writer, psychoanalyst, and podcaster Naomi Washer to our Ravenna location for a conversation about her new book, Marginalia — an essay shaped from her own notes in the margins. She will be joined by Cori Winrock, author of . This event is free and open to the public.

For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended 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!

(Please note: Marginalia is available in-store only and is not available online at thirdplacebooks.com.)

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

Please note: While RSVP helps us anticipate attendance, your RSVP may not guarantee a seat. Seating is first-come, first-served, and all events at our Ravenna neighborhood store are free and open to the public. Only standing room may be available for events with high interest.

We are happy to accommodate any accessibility concerns. Please contact us at [email protected] or call our Ravenna store at (206) 525-2347.

“What does it mean to dissolve into one’s text?” Naomi Washer asks in Marginalia: An Autobiography. Comprised of a decade’s worth of notes made in the margins of other writers’ books, collected and arranged into an original work, Marginalia accumulates into an essay that interrogates both its own form and its author’s sense of self. From her own readings of writers like Kate Zambreno, Roland Barthes, Maggie Nelson, and Robert Walser, among countless others, Washer arrives at an uncanny rediscovering of a self both her and not, visible and hidden. And in the act of re-reading, she distills the experience of one’s ongoing transformation in writing and everyday life.

“Together, these collected fragments reveal how the act of reading shapes writing, or more generally, creativity, but also how it shapes a self, rendering the world legible. How reading works its magic in ways both formative and generative—you just might find yourself writing your own notes around the edges of this searching, beautiful book.”
—Deborah Shapiro, author of Consolation

Naomi Washer is a writer and psychoanalyst in formation in New York City. Her newest book is Marginalia: an autobiography (Autofocus Books, 2025) and her novel, Subjects We Left Out, was published by Veliz Books in 2021. She has published several chapbooks across genre, and other work has appeared in Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Essay Daily, Seneca Review, and Asymptote, among other journals and anthologies. She is the Editor of "Extra-Analytic: Creative Readings," a column on the psychoanalytic process of reading for Psychoanalytic Perspectives. She writes Process Notes on revisiting the books that shape us and hosts the podcast Reading Around the Margins.

Cori Winrock is a poet and multimedia essayist. Her book-length essay, Alterations, is part of the Undelivered Lecture series from Transit Books. Her previous book, Little Envelope of Earth Conditions, was chosen as Editor’s Choice for the Alice James Book Award. She is the winner of the Boston Review Poetry Prize and her essay on twins was selected as a notable essay in Best American Essays. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, POETRY, the Best New Poets anthology, Bennington Review, Fairy Tale Review, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor of Interactive Poetics at Western Washington University. (Photo credit: Emily Capisciolto)

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 Ravenna, 6504 20th Avenue Northeast, Seattle, United States