Created and hosted by writers Patrick Sauer and David J. Roth, Squawkin’ Sports is an ongoing series featuring book chats with grown-up authors writing about grown-ups playing kiddie games. For this installment, Sauer and Roth chat with staff writer and editor at The Washington Post, Timothy Bella, about his new book Barkley: A Biography. Informed …

When she left a chaotic home at eighteen, author Sarah Fawn Montgomery chased restlessness, claiming places on the West Coast, Midwest, and East Coast, while determined never to settle. Now her family is ravaged by addiction, illness, and poverty; the country is increasingly divided; and the natural worlds in which she seeks solace are under siege …

How can we live with integrity and pleasure in this world of police brutality and racism? In author, activist, and our own Brooklyn neighbor Ryan Lee Wong's extraordinary debut novel, an Asian American activist is challenged by his mother to face this question amidst generational change, a mother’s secret, and an activist’s coming-of-age. As humoro…

Greenlight was thrilled to welcome award-winning author and long-time friend of the store Saeed Jones back to our store to celebrate the release of his new poetry collection, Alive at the End of the World. In haunted poems glinting with laughter, pierced by grief and charged with history, Jones explores the public and private betrayals of life as w…

In her utterly profound and thought-provoking debut memoir and companion to her viral 2018 Salon article “What a Dominatrix Knows about #MeToo,” writer, professor, and former sex worker Belcher retraces her journey from broke gender studies PhD student in Los Angeles who remakes herself as L.A.’s Renowned Lesbian Dominatrix, specializing in male cl…

Hannah used to be all about focus, back before she shattered her ankle and her Olympic dreams in one bad soccer play. These days, she’s all about distraction. Enter Bonanza, the local entertainment multiplex and site of Hanna’s summer employment. Under the neon lights of Bonanza--with flirty co-workers, ex-best friends, and her brother's hot best f…

Like a song that feels written just for you, Pham's debut work of nonfiction captures the imagination and refuses to let go. Pop Song is a book about love and about falling in love—with a place, or a painting, or a person—and the joy and terror inherent in the experience of that love. Named a Best Book of the Year by Time, Electric Literature, and …

Greenlight welcomed Zakiya Dalila Harris in-person to our Fort Greene events stage to celebrate the paperback release of her New York Times-bestselling novel The Other Black Girl, a "dazzling, darkly humorous story" that explores the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publis…

Jessi Jezewska Stevens graced our events stage to launch her brilliant new novel out from And Other Stories, one of the most forward-thinking independent publishers based in the UK. The Visitors is a mordantly funny tour through a world where not only civic infrastructure but our darkest desires (not to mention our novels) are vulnerable to malware…

Created and hosted by poet and former Greenlight bookseller Angel Nafis, Greenlight’s Poetry Salon welcomes locally and nationally celebrated poets for a powerful and moving evening of poetry and performance. For our triumphant return to in-person Salons, we welcomed Renia White and her collection Casual Conversation, alongside esteemed poet Aracel…

When artists and athletes age, what happens to their work? Does it ripen or rot? Achieve a new serenity or succumb to an escalating torment? Acclaimed author of Out of Sheer Rage and “one of our greatest living critics” (New York) Geoff Dyer considers these questions in his newest book, The Last Days of Roger Federer, an extended meditation on late…

Greenlight welcomed celebrated Korean author and Man Asian Literary Prize winner Kyung-sook Shin (Please Look After Mom) and acclaimed translator Anton Hur, who called in live from Seoul, Korea to grace our virtual stage. Celebrating their joint achievement, Violets—written by Shin, translated by Hur, and published by Feminist Press—Hur both interv…

When the unnamed narrator of Alyssa Songsiridej’s debut novel Little Rabbit first meets a choreographer at an artists' residency in Maine, it's not a match. But when they run into each other a few months later, their encounter sets off a summer of expanding her own body's boundaries—her body learns to obediently follow his, and his desires quickly …

Greenlight welcomed author Alejandro Varela to celebrate his debut novel, The Town of Babylon--named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Buzzfeed, Lambda Literary, and more. Varela probes the intertwining of community and self and renders an intimate portrait of queer, racial, and class identity in this moving, pol…

As we continue to grapple with uncertainty in our world, how can writers and creators build community and make an imprint? Whose voices get heard and how can we use craft to shape a new blueprint for the future? MacArthur Fellow and author of The City We Became N. K. Jemisin joined us virtually for a night of discussion and community in support of …

Acclaimed, Whiting Award-winning poet Roger Reeves probes the apocalypses and raptures of humanity—climate change, anti-Black racism, familial and erotic love, ecstasy and loss—in his second collection of poems, Best Barbarian. Roaming across the literary and social landscape, visiting with Beowulf’s Grendel and the jazz musician Alice Coltrane, re…

The Greenlight Bookstore Podcast kicks off its third season—though we remain far from the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re out of quarantine! One of our first successes in this new age of author events was the standing-room-only launch for Elaine Hsieh Chou’s acclaimed debut, Disorientation—an uproarious and bighearted story of a Taiwanese Ameri…

We bid farewell to our “Quarantine Season” of podcasts as we navigate our way back to in-person author events at Greenlight Bookstore! For our virtual season’s swan song, we reprise award-winning poet Yanyi’s virtual launch event for DREAM OF THE DIVIDED FIELD, a collection on heartbreak and transitions, written with a piercing lyric ferocity. How …

In a virtual event co-presented with our friends at Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA, award-winning author NoViolet Bulawayo joined us to launch GLORY, her “manifoldly clever, brilliant... satire with sharper teeth” (The NYT Book Review). Inspired by the unexpected fall by coup in November 2017 of Robert G. Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president of nearl…

Celebrated New Yorker staff writer and author Rebecca Mead joined us virtually from across the pond to discuss her topical new memoir, Home/Land--a moving reflection on the complicated nature of home and homeland, and the heartache and adventure of leaving an adopted country in order to return to your native land. In conversation with fellow New Yo…

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 empowe…

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…

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 t…

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 rest…

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 …

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 choic…

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, B…

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 under…

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…

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…

Leanne Brown’s wildly popular and NYT bestselling cookbook Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day showed us that kitchen skill and resourcefulness—not budget—are the keys to great food. Brown returned (virtually) to Greenlight for the launch of her new cookbook, Good Enough: A Cookbook: Embracing the Joys of Imperfection and Practicing Self-Care in the…

For Greenlight’s first poetry event of 2022, we welcomed Indonesian American poet Cynthia Dewi Oka and acclaimed poet and fiction writer Jenny Zhang (Sour Heart) to share, discuss, and celebrate Oka’s third collection, Fire Is Not a Country. Oka’s poems track how the energies of migration, exploitation, patriarchal violation, and political repressi…

Acclaimed YA author Leah Konen’s second novel for adults, The Perfect Escape, is a pacey, suspenseful, unforgettable thriller about a girls’ weekend in the Catskills turned deadly. For Greenlight’s first virtual author event of 2022, Konen joined us for a scintillating book launch and conversation with bestselling author and NYT journalist Andrea B…

In Greenlight’s longstanding tradition of celebrating the debuts of new literary voices, Cara Blue Adams graces our (virtual) stage to present her first story collection, You Never Get It Back—winner of the 2021 John Simmons Short Fiction Award. In these poised and perceptive linked stories set in rural New England and across the country—including …

Whiting Award-winning author Amy Leach graces Greenlight’s virtual stage to present The Everybody Ensemble, her newest collection of short, gloriously inventive essays that invite us to see and celebrate anew the “clattering, sometimes discordant but always welcoming chorus of glorious pandemonium” that is our world. In a discussion covering dragon…

In The Case for Rage, philosopher Myisha Cherry turns popular prejudices about anger on their head and argues for anger’s utility—and importance—in the fight against injustice. Anger has a bad reputation; s a “negative emotion”, it’s seen by many as counterproductive, distracting, and destructive. But Cherry argues that in fact the transformative a…

Nostalgia is the defining emotion of our age. Political leaders promise a return to yesteryear. Old movies are remade and cancelled series are rebooted. Veterans reenact past wars, while the displaced across the world long for home. But who is behind this collective ache for a home in the past? Grafton Tanner joins us (virtually) alongside Roisin K…

In the lengthening shadow of an exceptional year, Greenlight welcomed to its virtu Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, an Oakland-based national research and policy center that studies public goods and services, to discuss his new book co-authored with Allen Mikaelian, The Privatization of Everything. Hailed by N…

For phenomenal local writer, theatermaker, and educator Diane Exavier’s début collection, The Math of Saint Felix, Greenlight’s own Poetry Salon host Angel Nafis held court with Exavier and fellow poets Carlos Sirah and Shayla Lawz for a powerful, multivocal evening of reading, reverie, and irreverence. Exavier's book-length lyric is an attempt to …

To commemorate the 2021 edition of the Best American Poetry anthology, Greenlight invited editor and former poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, series editor David Lehman, and contributing poets Chen Chen, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Nancy Miller Gomez, and Dora Malech for a reverent evening. Selected by Smith, this year’s exceptional collection explores and…

Celebrated local writer and performer Nelson Simon graced Greenlight's (virtual) stage to share his new book, Soul of the Hurricane, the unlikely and harrowing true account of his experience sailing into Hurricane Grace, the southern end of the “Perfect Storm.” It was October 1991, and Simon didn’t exactly want to sign up as a last-minute crew memb…

For the better part of a decade, Uli Beutter Cohen rode the subway through New York City’s underground to observe society through the lens of our most creative thinkers: readers of books. Greenlight welcomed the acclaimed creator of Subway Book Review to our (virtual) stage to launch her new book Between the Lines, a timely collection of beloved an…

New Yorker staff writer and acclaimed music journalist Kelefa Sanneh joined Greenlight virtually to launch Major Labels, his debut book of nonfiction and a deeply researched, expansive study of popular music over the past fifty years, refracted through the big genres that have defined and dominated it: rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, dance music…

In his memoir Never Silent, Peter Staley shares the untold story of his journey from closeted Wall Street bond trader to one of the leading AIDS and LGBTQ rights activists of his generation. Infusing personal chronicle with what Tony Kushner (Angels in America) praises as an “incisive, precise, and revelatory insider’s history of ACT UP” and “an el…

PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of literati darlings Call Me Zebra and Fra Keeler took to Greenlight’s virtual stage to launch her third novel, Savage Tongues—a personal and political exploration of desire, power, domination, and human connection that’s equal parts Marguerite Duras and Shirley Jackson, Rachel Cusk and Clarice Lispector, tracing a…

Episode QS79: Caoilinn Hughes + Diane Cook (December 23, 2021) (Recorded September 30, 2021) Award-winning authors Caoilinn Hughes and Diane Cook took to the Greenlight virtual stage to discuss their recent novels, The Wild Laughter (winner of the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award 2021) and The New Wilderness (shortlisted for the 2020 Man …

Mina Stone, author of the cult-favorite Cooking for Artists, joined Greenlight (virtually!) to launch her stunning new cookbook, Lemon, Love & Olive Oil—featuring 80 Mediterranean-style recipes rooted in the traditions passed to her by preceding generations. Stone learned to cook from her Yiayia, who taught her that food doesn’t have to be complica…

In a heartrending and deeply moving evening, two Asian-American literary luminaries, Qian Julie Wang and Charles Yu (Interior Chinatown) welcomed Wang’s incandescent debut, Beautiful Country--an essential American story about a family fracturing under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the shadows, who never stops seeking the l…

Jai Chakrabarti graced our virtual stage to launch his debut novel, A Play for the End of the World--an unforgettable love story set in early 1970's New York and rural India, a provocative exploration of the role of art in times of political upheaval, and a deeply moving reminder of the power of the past to shape the present. Chakrabarti, joined in…

When acclaimed author Yiyun Li and A Public Space magaine invited people to read War and Peace together at the start of the pandemic, thousands around the globe joined for an 85-day journey through Tolstoy’s epic novel. Tolstoy Together, based on this experiment, is a book about the art of reading and an invitation to the collective act of book dis…