Greenlight welcomed lawyer and critic Hawa Allan to discuss her prescient and timely debut book of nonfiction, Insurrection, a deeply researched and felt history and critique of the paradoxical state of black citizenship in the United States. Tracing the origins of the Insurrection Act of 1807 to our current moment, Allan reveals how the Act empowered the Federal Government to either defend or violate Black enfranchisement at various times throughout history. Throughout, she draws from her own experiences as one of the only Black girls in her leafy Long Island suburb, as a Black lawyer at a predominantly white firm during a visit from presidential candidate Barack Obama, and as a thinker about the use and misuse of appeals to law and order. Author Anjuli Raza Kolb joined Allan for a penetrating conversation on law, the control of history and cultural narratives, and the concept of citizenship as entitlement. (Recorded February 24, 2022) 

Acclaimed and prolific local poet Valerie Hsiung, whose work pushes past the limits of genre and grammar, joined us virtually to present her fourth full-length collection, winner of the Colorado State University Poetry Center’s 2019 Open Book Prize. An assemblage of verse, prose poems, scenes, and performance scores, outside voices, please lives in the hidden enmeshments between and underneath the individual stories, events, and facts of gendered and racialized violence, intergenerational trauma, diaspora, and the labor and exploitation involved in making art. Hsiung was joined by poet Ginger Ko for a moving conversation about solitude, belonging, and relating to language and art as “children of the diaspora.” (Recorded February 22, 2022) 

Paul Tran joined us virtually from lush, violet-lit quarters in Oakland for the virtual launch of their scintillating debut collection of poems, All the Flowers Kneeling. In a conversation with award-winning poet and critic Yanyi that both dug deeply into craft and cast its sights on the farthest horizons of becoming, they delved into the work of transforming trauma into monuments that honor one’s past selves and forebears and how “the actualized poem requires the actualization of the poet.” (Recorded February 17, 2022) 

Sarah Manguso--award-winning author and one of the most acclaimed and genre-defying prose stylists working today—joined us virtually for the launch of her debut novel. At once an ungilded portrait of girlhood at the crossroads of history and social class as well as a vital confrontation with an all-American whiteness where the ice of emotional restraint meets the embers of smoldering rage, Very Cold People is a haunted jewel of a novel. Manguso and author Elizabeth McCracken discussed the crafting (and misnaming) of fragments, turning to fiction from poetry, and the particular frigid weirdness of New England in the late 20th century. (Recorded February 16, 2022) 

For our one-hundredth(!) podcast episode, we’re releasing a very special conversation recorded at our first offsite book launch of 2022 celebrating the second volume of Moon Witch, Spider King, award-winning author Marlon James’s Dark Star trilogy, his “African Game of Thrones”. In the NYT-bestselling first volume, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Sogolon the Moon Witch proved a worthy adversary to Tracker as they clashed across a mythical African landscape in search of a mysterious boy who disappeared. Now, in Moon Witch, Spider King, James takes us deep into Sogolon’s world as she fights to tell her own story, the chronicle of an indomitable woman who bows to no man. In a brilliant, hilarious, and expansive conversation with beloved Brooklyn author and commentator Isaac Fitzgerald at St. Joseph’s College, James took us on an ecstatic odyssey through questions of power, personality, and whether truth is possible when the power of storytelling is available only to a select few. (Recorded February 15, 2022)   

For our first foray into livestreamed events and our first event held in-store since March 2020, Greenlight welcomed our Brooklyn neighbor Andrew Lipstein for the launch of his much-anticipated debut novel, Last Resort—which features a scene set in our own Fort Greene store! In a thrilling, metafictional story of fame, fortune, and impossible choices, Lipstein blurs the lines of fact and fiction and raises “thorny dilemmas about art, ethics, and what being a writer really means.” (Kirkus Reviews) Cara Blue Adams (You Never Get it Back) joined for a warm conversation and exploration of the writing process, the problem of authorial ego, and the art of grafting reality into fiction. (Recorded February 10, 2022)

Greenlight welcomed author, scholar, and activist Grace Lavery to our (virtual) stage for the launch of Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis—a “memoir” like nothing you’ve ever read before. Part literary theory, part musical theater parody, part feminist sci-fi reboot, Please Miss was hailed by author Torrey Peters (Detransition, Baby) as a “can’t-look-away performance of wit, language, irreverence, and delight”, and by Carmen Maria Machado (In the Dream House) as “the queer memoir you’ve been waiting for; a dizzying mix of theory and pastiche, metafiction and memory… hilarious and sexy and terrifying in its brilliance.” In a scintillating conversation with Elif Batuman (The Idiot) that covered everything from finding one’s voice through the process of transitioning to gendered roots of the word memoir, Lavery graced us with her singular brilliance. (Recorded February 9, 2022)

When Rachel Krantz met and fell for Adam, he told her that he was looking for a committed partnership—just one that did not include exclusivity. In her nonfiction debut, Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy, Krantz explores these questions with an unflinching eye and page-turning storytelling, tracing her search to understand what non-monogamy would do to her heart, her mind, and her life through interviews with scientists, psychologists, and people living and loving outside the mainstream. For the book’s virtual launch, Krantz joined us along with Jen Winston, author of Greedy, for a frank and heartfelt conversation on non-monogamy, bisexuality, “stigmatization, feeling too much yet not enough of an identity, and struggling through the accidental poetry of everyday life” (--K., Greenlight event host)--and a resounding reminder to write the book you need to write. (Recorded January 25, 2022)

Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other) graced our virtual stage from London for the U.S. launch of her new memoir Manifesto: On Never Giving Up. Manifesto offers readers an intimate and inspirational account of Evaristo’s life and career as she rebelled against the mainstream and fought bring her creative work into the world over 40+ years of centering the stories and histories of Black Britons. In conversation with bestselling author Rumaan Alam (Leave the World Behind), Evaristo discussed her theory of unstoppability, which helped her chart a path as a young actor and playwright in London, through her political awakenings and activism, and ultimately led to her fierce determination to tell stories that were absent in the literary world around her. (Recorded January 18, 2021)

Acclaimed authors, Greenlight neighbors, and longtime friends Colette Brooks and Jennifer Egan (Manhattan Beach) joined us for a virtual conversation and launch for Colette’s newest book of nonfiction, Trapped in the Present Tense. In a lyrical and inventive blend of history, memoir, and visual essays, Brooks explores the mechanics and malleability of the collective American memory. Revisiting some of the more forgotten aspects of recent events in the American story to explain our challenging and often puzzling present—including televised assassinations, the Doomsday Clock, and obsessive diarists—Brooks refreshes the American narrative and “ruminates upon the past while reframing…our present perceptions of what matters most” (Booklist). Brooks and Egan held court and eschewed reminiscence for a clear-eyed talk on craft and “irresponsible research” that kept a steady gaze on “American darkness writ large” (Recorded January 17, 2021)