Last week, we went to Housing Works Used Bookstore & Café to watch the New York City launch of Love Is a Four-Letter Word, an anthology edited for Plume by Algonquin Books publicity director Michael Taeckens. Wendy McClure, Maud Newton, and Amanda Stern each read excerpts from their essays about doomed relationships from their past—how they didn’t see the warning signs and, then, how they did—land were joined by Said Sayrafiezadeh and master of ceremonies Dan Kennedy.
Several other contributors to the anthology came out to cheer their colleagues on, including Jami Attenberg and D. E. Rasso, who will be reading from their essays tonight at The Half King alongside Emily Flake and Michelle Green. (Later in the week, Attenberg and Green will meet up with Sayrafiezadeh at WORD, an independent bookstore in Greenpoint.) We also spotted Jennifer Finney Boylan, who read at another Love event the following night with Josh Kilmer-Purcell, and told us all about the young adult series she’ll be launching next summer about a young boy who is really a monster (though of what nature we are unsure) and is being sent to an academy where he will learn to pass for human. Now, we’re already on record as huge Boylan fans, but this sounds really intriguing, so we’re looking forward to this!