I’m in conversation with my beloved grad school friend Professor Francisco Robles who is hosting me at Notre Dame along with my beloved poet friend Brandon Menke!

I’m thrilled to be reading from my book and discussing personal essays at the New York Institute of Technology! I’m also thrilled that there will be pizza!

I’m very excited to talk about secrets at Books Are Magic as part of Michele Filgate’s legendary Red Ink Series, with Kristen Arnett, Angie Cruz, Sion Dayson, and Elisabet Velasquez!

I’m reading and chatting with Beth Boyle Machlan and Keri Walsh as part of a symposium Keri organized entitled “‘The Most Powerful Thing I Can Think of to Do’: Contemporary Women’s Life Writing.”

I’ll be on a panel with Krystal Sital, Gina Apostol, Alex Tilney, and De’Shawn Winslow, talking about “How to Be Productive When It’s Impossible to Be Productive: Authors on How to Cut Through Life’s Chaos and Get to Work.” This is a topic I think about, oh, every single day! I’m excited to discuss it with these wonderful authors and the folks at SLICE.

My pie a la mode author photo was taken at Just Barb’s, just down the road from Left Bank Books, so it makes sense for me to return to Maine for a reading! And more pie, obviously.

I'm beyond thrilled to get to talk about friendship and Hard to Love with Sarah Gollust, one of of the heroines of Hard to Love, and Sugi Ganeshananthan, her long-time friend and colleague. If you're in Minnesota, come join us! If you have friends there, tell them to come!

V.V. Ganeshananthan is the author of the novel Love Marriage, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize and named one of Washington Post Book World's Best of 2008. She is at work on a second novel, excerpts of which have appeared in Granta, Ploughshares, and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Her reviews, essays, journalism, and short fiction have appeared in The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review, and The Washington Post, among others. She has been visiting faculty at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the University of Michigan, and presently teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota.

Sarah Gollust is an Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Her research examines media influence on health policy and public opinion about public health issues. She teaches public health ethics and health policy analysis to graduate students. Her academic work has been published in a range of peer-reviewed public health and health policy journals, and her commentaries have appeared in the Star Tribune, the Washington Post, the Health Affairs blog and the New York Times.

I’m delighted to be in conversation with DC-area writer Rachel Vorona Cote, author of the forthcoming and much-anticipated book Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Bind Women Today! Rachel wrote a beautiful essay about Hard to Love for The New Republic. I’ll read from my Women’s March essay and we’ll talk about protest and friendship and other things too.

For my first ever Manhattan book event, I’m delighted to team up with my beloved grad school and writing group comrade Keri Walsh, author of Mickey Rourke and editor of The Letters of Sylvia Beach, for a conversation about love, friendship, and writing! We’ll be meeting in the South Lounge. Free and open to the public!

(I’m honored to be a warm-up act of sorts for Fred Moten, who will be speaking at the law school at 3.)

Have an idea for a book? A manuscript you're trying to publish? Sign up to give a one-minute elevator pitch to a panel of experienced editors and agents for real-time Shark Tank-style feedback. Winners will receive a free month at the Paragraph co-working space for writers. This month, join agents Kevin O'Connor (Charlotte Sheedy Literary), Steven Salpeter (Literary Agent at Curtis Brown, Ltd), and Amy Tannenbaum (Jane Rotrosen Agency), and also ME! I’ll be reading a bit from my book and signing copies. …

So thrilled to take Hard to Love to Chicago, the home of Gwendolyn Brooks, leaner and philosopher of leaning extraordinaire. #LeanOn

I’ll be chatting with two amazing Chicago-based writers:

- my brilliant friend Adrienne Brown, author of The Black Skyscraper and editor of Race and Real Estate, who first told me to read Maud Martha, Housekeeping, and Angelica Jade Bastién’s amazing essay on Now Voyager (I write about all of them in Hard to Love), and

- Angelica Jade Bastién herself! Angelica is a cultural critic and staff writer at Vulture. Her writing has appeared in (among other places) the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Criterion Collection, and Elle.

So excited to be part of Blue Stoop’s spectacular spring line-up! I’ll be in convo with Philly writer Gina Tomaine.

Home state love! I’m returning to Western Washington with Hard to Love in tow. Will definitely be reading from my tsunami/earthquake/Mt. Rainier volcanic explosion chapter!

I’m delighted to get to read from Hard to Love at my local, woman-owned, pet-friendly bookstore! I was introduced to Astoria Bookshop by my wonderful former student Amy DePoy who gave me a gift card as a housewarming present to welcome me to Queens. My sister and I cashed it in on the wonderful choose-your-own-adventure romance novel My Lady’s Choosing, which provided hours of merriment.

I’ll be in conversation with Queens writer Joanna Scutts, author of the fabulous biography The Extra Woman: How Marjorie Hillis Led a Generation of Women to Live Alone and Like It.

Anyway! Come! I’ll bring cake from Cannelle for the total blissful Queens experience!

I’ll be reading at Brazos, the favorite hometown bookstore of my dear friend Lisa Levy, one of the heroines of Hard to Love, who will be joining me in conversation!

More about Lisa:

Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Lisa Levy works as an interfaith chaplain, providing emotional and spiritual support for people with a lived experience of homelessness. She has an MFA from the Syracuse University Creative Writing Program and a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School. Lisa’s work has appeared in The Potomac Review, Killing the Buddha, Opium Magazine, The Newtowner, and The Perch, and she was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Lisa currently resides in Houston with her pack of rescue animals.

I’ll be reading with Eva Hagberg Fisher (author of How to Be Loved) and Sarah McColl (author of Joy Enough) as part of the LIC Reading Series, with books provided by my local bookstore, Astoria Bookshop.

Considering that Hard to Love features extensive discussions of both Cheers and The Bostonians, I clearly had to take it to Boston!

I’ll be in conversation with the wonderful Boston-based writer Katherine Stewart. Katherine is the author of the forthcoming The Power Worshippers (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020). She writes about religion, politics, policy and education for The New York Times and other publications. 

My new academic home is hosting my first ever reading in my new home borough! We’ll be in the Godwin-Ternbach Museum in Klapper, hosted by the Queens College MFA Program, with books provided by Kew and Willow. I’m told there will be brie. Come through!

I’ll be reading from and chatting about Hard to Love in the city where it was written! Come celebrate love, friendship, and New Haven writing, and meet some of the book’s cast of characters … Former students and their friends are invited to eat donuts with me afterwards!

I’ll be talking about Hard to Love with my beloved friend Rebecca Rainof and my beloved grad school advisor Bill Gleason in the Community Room of the Princeton Public Library!

Come listen to me, Steffi Drews, Leslie Jamison, and Daniel Poppick read as part of the Ditmas Lit reading series!

Part of the Memoir Mondays series co-curated by Narratively, Catapult, the Rumpus, Tin House, Guernica, Granta, and Longreads! I’ll be reading with Krystal Sital, Jeanna Kadlec, and Danny Rafinejad.

Come celebrate Galentine’s Day in style at the book launch of Hard to Love! I’ll be chatting with Leslie Jamison about love, friendship, leaning, and longing. There will be wine, seltzer, and cake.

I’ll be leading a writing workshop at the Center for the Study of Religion at 5 Ivy Lane. RSVP to Jenny Wiley Legath (jlegath at princeton dot edu) by November 29.

Readings by Amanda Golden, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Deirdre Coyle, and me, in celebration of the release of Amanda’s book This Business of Words: Reassessing Anne Sexton.