[VIRTUAL] PEN Out Loud: R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell with Melissa Febos and Brandon Taylor

Bestselling authors R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell join PEN Out Loud to launch their dynamic anthology of short fiction, Kink: Stories. A singular collection that illustrates “love, desire, BDSM, and sexual kinks in all their glory with a bold new vision,” Kink features some of contemporary fiction’s finest writers. The two editors of the anthology will be joined in conversation with contributors Melissa Febos and Brandon Taylor to discuss the book’s “moving dispatches from across the sexual spectrum of interest and desires.”

This digital event will start at 8pm ET / 5pm PT.

UPDATE: The platform for this event has changed to Zoom. Please check your email for the new event link. Thank you for understanding.

Presented in collaboration with Strand Book Store and Scripps Presents.

ASL interpretive services are provided by ProBono ASL.

R.O. Kwon’s nationally bestselling first novel, The Incendiaries, was published by Riverhead Books and is being translated into seven languages. Named a best book of the year by over 40 publications, The Incendiaries was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for Best First Book and the Los Angeles Times’s Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Kwon’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Paris Review, NPR, and elsewhere. She is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow.

Garth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You, which won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year; was longlisted for the National Book Award; and was a finalist for six other awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, it was named a Best Book of 2016 by over 50 publications in nine countries, and is being translated into more than a dozen languages. His second book of fiction, Cleanness, was published in 2020. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, A Public Space, and VICE, and he has written criticism for The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, and The New York Times Book Review, among others. A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, he lives in Iowa City.

Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir Whip Smart and two essay collections: Abandon Me and the forthcoming Girlhood. The inaugural winner of the Jeanne Córdova Nonfiction Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction from Lambda Literary and the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the BAU Institute, Vermont Studio Center, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and others. Her essays have recently appeared in The Paris Review, The Believer, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Tin House, The Sun, and The New York Times. She is an associate professor at the University of Iowa.

Brandon Taylor is the author of the acclaimed novel Real Life, which has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and been named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. The senior editor of Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading and a staff writer at Literary Hub, he holds graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in fiction.

About Strand Book Store

Located on 12th and Broadway in New York City, the Strand Book Store is a family-owned, iconic literary destination with more than 90 years of history and 18 miles of books to prove it. Its events feature some of today’s most interesting and provocative authors. Its unparalleled inventory of 2.5 million new, used, and rare books and locally designed totes, gifts, and apparel makes it easy and exciting to get lost in the stacks.

About Scripps Presents

Scripps Presents is an electrifying mix of storytellers and artists, policymakers and musicians—and everything in between. Based at Scripps College, Scripps Presents provides a forum the Claremont Colleges and audiences across Southern California to engage with eye-opening, mind-bending, genre-defying tête-à-têtes with the thinkers and doers, writers and performers, whose passions and perspectives are changing the way we see the world.

This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Austin Public Library Foundation, Magic City Poetry Festival, Miami Book Fair, and Magic City Books are regional partners of PEN Out Loud’s Winter 2021 season.