The Asian American Writers’ Workshop is holding a flash sale for tickets to their Page Turner Publishing Conference. Today only, admission is half-price. The conference will be held this Saturday, opening with a keynote address by Matthew Salesses, and will feature panels with Hua Hsu, Jennifer L. Wilson, E. Tammy Kim, Anuk Arudpragasam, Jay Caspian Kang, and others on cultural criticism, the “new editorial vanguard,” the worlds of academic and trade publishing, and more.
Parul Sehgal considers several recent books that call to expand and complicate notions of consent, including, among others, Katherine Angel’s Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again, Amia Srinivasan’s The Right to Sex, Milena Popova’s Dubcon, and memoirs by Annie Ernaux and Vanessa Springora. “It’s not just that these works explore consent’s ‘gray areas.,’” writes Sehgal. “What they examine is how consent can act like a fig leaf, as Popova calls it, masking other power differentials in the relationship—because someone has already ‘said yes’—or offering cover for other violations.”
Michelle Hart has compiled a list for Oprah Daily of fifty-three LGBTQ-owned bookstores in twenty-four states and Washington, DC. Several shops have opened in the past two years, and two will open physical locations later this fall with the support of crowdfunding campaigns.
The Center for the Art of Translation shares staff picks for summer reading, including a biography of Fernando Pessoa, Ge Fei’s historical trilogy, Mary Jo Bang’s translation of Dante’s Inferno, and more.
At The Baffler, Rafia Zakaria reflects on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s recent essay, “It Is Obscene,” in which Adichie details the deterioration of her relationships with two younger writers, in part due to her comments on trans women. Many feminists including Zakaria have found Adichie’s public stance, which “deliberately distinguish[es] trans women from women . . . both unnecessary and cruel.” In light of the fact that transphobia online demonstrably translates to transphobic violence, Zakaria writes that Adichie’s decision “to focus on her own injured feelings—to sound the alarm that criticism of her expressed views represents a societal danger—is somewhat puzzling.”
Brandon Taylor, whose first story collection Filthy Animals was published yesterday, talks with Juliana Ukiomogbe for Interview magazine: “Mavis Gallant is the writer I want most to have dinner with. And the critic Northrop Frye. That would be a fun, very Canadian dinner.” Tonight, Taylor will discuss his story collection with Omari Weekes, in a virtual event hosted by New York City’s Strand bookstore.