Skylight Books Podcast Series

Over the course of a few days in the fall of 2015, the sophisticated and awkward, wry and beautiful Mathilde upends her tidy world. She takes a short leave from her job at one of New York's leading auction houses and follows her best friend Gretchen on an impromptu trip to Paris. While there, she confronts her late mother's hidden life, attempts to rein in Gretchen's encounters with an aloof and withholding sometime-boyfriend, and faces the traumatic loss of both her parents when she was a teenager. Reeling between New York, Paris, Munich London, and Berlin, The Superrationals is an erotic and darkly comic story about female friendship, set at the intersection between counterculture and the multimillion dollar art industry. Mathilde takes short, perceptive notes on artworks as a way to organize her own chaotic thoughts and life. Featuring a bitchy gossip chorus within a larger carousel of voices, The Superrationals coolly surveys the international art and media worlds while exploring game theory, the uncanny, and psychoanalysis. Written in the “Young Girl” tradition of Michelle Bernstein's All The King's Horses, Bernadette Corporation's Reena Spaulings and Natasha Stagg's Surveys, The Superrationals confronts the complexity of building narrative in life and on the page and the instability that lies at the heart of everything. Author Stephanie LaCava is in conversation with writer/filmmaker/TV producer/editor Sasha Sagan. ________________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.

Many remember the 1980s as the era of Ronald Reagan, a conservative decade populated by preppies and yuppies dancing to a soundtrack of electronic synth pop music. In some ways, it was the "MTV generation." However, the decade also produced some of the most creative works of punk culture, from the music of bands like the Minutemen and the Dead Kennedys to avant-garde visual arts, literature, poetry, and film. In We're Not Here to Entertain, Kevin Mattson documents what Kurt Cobain once called a "punk rock world" --the all-encompassing hardcore-indie culture that incubated his own talent. Mattson shows just how widespread the movement became--ranging across the nation, from D.C. through Ohio and Minnesota to LA--and how democratic it was due to its commitment to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) tactics. Mattson is in conversation with fellow punk rock historian Mike Foley. ________________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.

Think Like a Feminist is an irreverent yet rigorous primer that unpacks over two hundred years of feminist thought. In a time when the word feminism triggers all sorts of responses, many of them conflicting and misinformed, Professor Carol Hay provides this balanced, clarifying, and inspiring examination of what it truly means to be a feminist today. She takes the reader from conceptual questions of sex, gender, intersectionality, and oppression to the practicalities of talking to children, navigating consent, and fighting for adequate space on public transit, without deviating from her clear, accessible, conversational tone. Think Like a Feminist is equally a feminist starter kit and an advanced refresher course, connecting longstanding controversies to today’s headlines. Hay is in conversation with Boston University professor Samia Hesni. ________________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.

BECAUSE HORROR is a collection of 13 essays (incl. one poem) that mixes critical writing and memoir to explore horror movies and how they haunt memory. Bringing the glee of fandom into cinema scholarship, BECAUSE HORROR promiscuously sways through titles like MESSIAH OF EVIL, PULSE, MANDY, DANTE'S COVE and SCRE4M, with prose that spreads sticky like louche gore over the history of a genre and its mutating sites of broadcast.    Written between August 1 and September 14, 2020, during the Covid-19 lockdown, the chapbook was an exercise in immediacy and a breakneck volley of ideas between Huston and Nordeen who live in San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively. Huston’s chapters span The Brain that Wouldn’t Die, Tourist Trap, Curtis Harrington’s The Killing Kind, Mandy, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Kairo (Pulse) and its TIFF premiere on September 10 of 2001, and a survey of films that lead with the directive, Don’t… Nordeen’s essays broach Deathdream, Blood Diner, Play It As It Lays vs. Messiah of Evil, horror movie posters in the video rental market of the 1990s, what Scre4m looks like on ketamine and an original poem inspired by the gay supernatural soap opera Dante’s Cove. The chapbook features original artwork by Hedi El Kholti, who also penned an afterward, concerning hotel horror. Still lives by Abdi Taslimi. For over a decade, Johnny Ray Huston was Arts and Entertainment Editor at the San Francisco Bay Guardian. As a writer, artist and curator he has read or shown work at venues including SFMOMA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF Camerawork, Artists’ Television Access and [2nd Floor Projects]. A book of stories, published by Straight to Hell, is due in 2021.   Bradford Nordeen is a writer, curator and founder of the non-profit organization, Dirty Looks Inc. He has written for Frieze, Art in America and Butt Magazine, and is a recipient of the 2018 Creative Capital / Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. His publications include FEVER PITCH, CHECK YOUR VERNACULAR and four issues of the Dirty Looks Volume series (editor).   ________________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.

Somewhere between the Hollywood sign and the Pacific Ocean, underneath the palm trees and above the crowded highways, there they are. You may have seen one in your favorite movie, or walked by one a thousand times. They're the landmarks, buildings, storefronts, and vintage signs that are part of what make LA and its surroundings so iconic. Not only can you see the history of Los Angeles, you can see history. Every historic location, abandoned storefront, and vintage sign is a lesson in LA's past. Among the flickering neon portraits are essays, anecdotes, and stories from artists, writers, actors, and musicians about their own personal LA. Take a journey to the towns, cities, and neighborhoods that define Los Angeles culture, one photo at a time. Author Jason Horton discusses his new book, Abandoned and Historic Los Angeles: Neon and Beyond with writer and comedian Rebecca Leib. ________________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.

The poems in Jennifer L. Knox's darkly imaginative collection, Crushing It, unearth epiphanies in an unbounded landscape of forms, voices and subjects--from history to true crime to epidemiology--while exploring our tenuous connections and disconnections. From Merle Haggard lifting his head from a pile of cocaine to absurdist romps through an apocalypse where mushrooms learn to sing, this versatile collection is brimming with dark humor and bright surprise. Alongside Knox's distinctive surrealism, Crushing It also reveals autobiography in poems about love, family, and adult ADHD, and Knox's empathetic depictions of the ego's need to assert its precious, singular "I" suggest that a self distinct from the hive, the herd, the flock, is an illusion. With clear-eyed spirit, Crushing It swallows all the world, and then some. Knox is in conversation with American writer and poet Sarah Manguso. ________________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.

Singer-songwriter Hayley Gene Penner's memoir takes a brutally honest yet humorous look at the dark, intimate truths we spend our lives running from. Like a map of beautiful mistakes, Hayley's stories of questionable sexual encounters, artistic aspirations, and emotional abuse trace her coming of age in the music industry. Hayley explores all her relationships -- from her childhood as the daughter of a celebrity, to the destructive and coercive relationship with her boss, to her encounter with the actor we all know but who mustn't be named -- and brings them together in a series of sharp, touching vignettes. People You Follow straddles the delicate boundary between ethical and unethical behaviour, self-protection and self-destruction, power and weakness, giddiness and despair. Penner is in conversation with writer, editor and radio producer Kathryn Borel. Stream "People You Follow," Penner's title track from her upcoming album, here. ________________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.

A lively, illustrated exploration of the 500-million-year history of bone, a touchstone for understanding vertebrate life and human culture.   Human bone is versatile and entirely unique: it repairs itself without scarring, it’s lightweight but responds to stresses, and it’s durable enough to survive for millennia. In Bones, orthopedic surgeon Roy A. Meals explores and extols this amazing material that both supports and records vertebrate life. Inside the body, bone proves itself the world’s best building material. Meals examines the biological makeup of bones; demystifies how they grow, break, and heal; and compares the particulars of human bone to variations throughout the animal kingdom. In engaging and clear prose, he debunks familiar myths—humans don’t have exactly 206 bones—and illustrates common bone diseases, like osteoporosis and arthritis, and their treatments. Along the way, he highlights the medical innovations—from the first X-rays to advanced operative techniques—that enhance our lives and introduces the giants of orthopedic surgery who developed them. After it has supported vertebrate life, bone reveals itself in surprising ways—sometimes hundreds of millions of years later. With enthusiasm and humor, Meals investigates the diverse roles bone has played in human culture throughout history. He highlights allusions to bone in religion and literature, from Adam’s rib to Hamlet’s skull, and uncovers its enduring presence as fossils, technological tools, and musical instruments ranging from the Tibetan thighbone kangling horn to everyday drumsticks. From the dawn of civilization through to the present day, humankind has repurposed bone to serve and protect, and even to teach, amuse, and inspire. Approachable and entertaining, Bones richly illuminates our bodies’ essential framework. Meals is in conversation with Dr. Vernon Tolo, MD. ________________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.

We first meet Angie Rubio at age five, being scolded by her kindergarten teacher for not knowing how to skip properly. Set in California in the 1960s and '70s, Living Color takes Angie year by year from kindergarten through high school, offering a portrait of the artist as a shy, awkward Mexican-American girl. Taking place against the backdrop of the Cold War and civil rights eras--the Cuban missile crisis, the Watts riots, Beatlemania, the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics--Living Color also surveys the milestones of American girlhood. We see Brownies, slumber parties, training bras, cheerleader tryouts, and proms through the eyes of a "brown, skinny, and bespectacled" Latina who soon learns that pageant winners as well as high school cheerleaders are always white. Donna Miscolta's new book traces Angie's formation as a writer, from the child who loves Scrabble and jots down new words she learns in a notebook to the teenager publishing controversial opinions about success and belonging, a person whose voice is now "loud-enough-to-be-heard." Miscolta is in conversation with fellow author Alex Espinoza. ________________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.

Ellie and her family love living on the space station With a mother who is an intergalactic doctor and a father who studies the stars, Ellie's life on the station is a blast. They can do anything you can do on Earth... except they can do it with alien visitors in zero gravity. Sometimes the aliens don't know how to play or talk with Ellie's little brother, Scottie, because he is a person with disabilities. But this doesn't stop Ellie from introducing them and showing them that Scottie is a great friend Come join Ellie and Scottie as they meet a young alien who has just arrived on the station... Scottie on the Space Station author Kaela Green is in conversation with Skylight events manager Maddie Gobbo. ________________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.