Join us on Friday, July 19th at 7PM to welcome authors John Domini of The Color Inside a Melon and Christopher X. Shade of The Good Mother of Marseille for a reading and discussion of their new novels.

In John Domini’s fourth novel, The Color Inside a Melon, a disastrous earthquake has Naples reeling. While the government scrambles to maintain appearances, poverty and anarchy rack the people on Italy’s margins—the illegal immigrants out of Africa, known as the clandestini. One of whom has just been horrifically murdered.
Enter Risto, a rare success story. A refugee from Mogadishu, orphaned in his teens, he’s now married the Neapolitan Paola and is the proprietor of a celebrated art gallery. The murder recalls the deaths of his loved ones years ago in Mogadishu, a trauma Risto can’t outrun…

In Christopher X. Shade’s debut novel, it’s the summer of 2013 in Marseille, in the year of its designation as the European Capital of Culture. Readers get a taste of this dangerous, impoverished yet seductive port city of France as they follow the interwoven stories of Americans who have come to wander and sightsee. Noémie, an anthropology student, wants to make the gritty graffiti-covered neighborhood of Cours Julien her home, but she’s running out of time, money, and her university sponsor’s patience. Take a walk with Noémie and her hot dog, Chinelo, through the turbulent streets of Marseille…

With The Color Inside a Melon, John Domini has four novels in print and three story collections. Other books include selections of criticism and poetry. Domini has published fiction in Paris Review and Ploughshares, non-fiction in GQ and The New York Times, and won a poetry prize from Meridian. Grants include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has taught at Harvard, Northwestern and elsewhere, and makes his home in Des Moines.

Christopher X. Shade is co-founder and co-editor of Cagibi, at cagibilit.com, a journal of poetry and prose. His stories and book reviews have appeared widely, and he has won story awards including the 2016 Writers at Work fellowship competition. He teaches fiction and poetry writing at The Writers Studio. Raised in the South, he now lives with his wife in New York City.

Clara Elser is a tutor with Chess at Three, the only program in NYC that can teach children as young as 3 how to play and fall in love with chess. The story-based curriculum will introduce children to a unique cast of characters (all pieces on the chess board) who star in fun and interactive stories. Stories focus on why chess pieces move in their own unique ways and are supported by activities that cement chess knowledge in your child’s mind. (Recommended for children 3-7 years old).

Clara Elser is a New York based theatre and teaching artist. She received an M.F.A in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College, focusing primarily on new and devised work. She has performed her writing at theaters and festivals across the country and in Canada. Her most recent show, The Love Song of Tonya Harding, received the Participants’ Choice Award at the 2017 FRIGID Festival in New York City. She holds a B.A. in Drama from Kenyon College. 

Welcome to the Astoria Bookshop YA Book Club! We'll be reading books published for readers ages 12 and up. The book club is open to everyone.
 
The next meeting is on Saturday, July 20th at 3 pm, when we'll be discussing Aurora Rising by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman.

Grab Aurora Rising for 10% off in store all month!

For more information about the YA Book Club, email christian@astoriabookshop.com

Contrasting Characters: One approach to rounding out a character is by examining the company they keep. In this workshop, we will close-read Natalia Ginzburg's essay "He and I" for how she captures the “seesaw of human companionship” to connect with readers. Participants will also explore this piece as a character-development tool by creating their own version of Ginzburg's “He and I” based on a significant person (she, they, he) of their choosing. 

$10 suggested contribution. BYO pen & paper.

Instructor Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons is an award-winning essayist, playwright, and teaches creative writing at York College and Fairleigh Dickinson University. She also produces No, YOU Tell It! (www.noyoutellit.com) - a reading series that "switches-up" the storytelling. Each NYTI storyteller writes a true-life tale and then flips scripts with a partner to present each other's story. Contact her at noyoutellit@gmail.com. 

Calling all Queens writers! Join us for an evening celebrating emerging authors in Astoria and beyond. If you're a writer with a work-in-progress or an independently published work, we invite you to participate! Please prepare a five-minute passage to share with the audience, and email events@astoriabookshop.com with your name & a description of what you'd like to read to sign up. Space is limited so please wait for us to confirm your spot via email.

Our focus is on an intersectional exploration of women's rights and status worldwide.

The next selection is A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum, which we will discuss on Saturday, July 27th at 1 p.m. The book is available for purchase at the Bookshop at 10% off all month long.

Questions about this group? Email Jen at AstoriaFeministBookGroup@gmail.com.

***This event will take place at the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, 29-19 24th Ave***
Come meet Mets first baseman, '86 World Series player, & 5-time All Star Keith Hernandez! He will be signing copies of his memoir, I'm Keith Hernandez, from 6:00pm-8:00pm at the Beer Garden.

The next General Interest Book Club Meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 30th at 7 pm.

We'll be discussing How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan, available in store 10% off up until the date of the discussion.

Questions about this group? Email us at info@astoriabookshop.com.

Join children's book author Kyle Lukoff for a special storytime on Thursday, August 1st at 11 a.m. for a reading of his books A Storytelling of Ravens and When Aidan Became a Brother.

A Storytelling of Ravens: A sloth of bears, a smack of jellyfish, a nuisance of cats -- these are some of the surprising and idiosyncratic names we have for groups of animals. Inspired by the evocative possibilities of collective nouns, also called "terms of venery," author Kyle Lukoff and illustrator Natalie Nelson have created a picture book full of clever wordplay and delightful illustrations.

When Aidan Became a Brother: When Aidan was born, everyone thought he was a girl. His parents gave him a pretty name, his room looked like a girl's room, and he wore clothes that other girls liked wearing. After he realized he was a trans boy, Aidan and his parents fixed the parts of life that didn't fit anymore, and he settled happily into his new life. Then Mom and Dad announce that they're going to have another baby, and Aidan wants to do everything he can to make things right for his new sibling from the beginning--from choosing the perfect name to creating a beautiful room to picking out the cutest onesie. But what does "making things right" actually mean?

Kyle Lukoff is the author of A Storytelling of Ravens, which Kirkus Reviews called "not to be missed" in a starred review. After a decade as a bookseller, he now works as a school librarian and writer in New York City. Kyle first came out as trans in 2004, and has over 15 years experience discussing trans identities and issues with adults and children from many different communities.

Come to the Bookshop ready to tell a five-minute true story about something that happened to you. Don't worry about sticking to a theme...you don't have to. Participants' names will be pulled from a basket, open-mic style. And of course, non-storytellers welcome to join the audience! For 5 years we've had performances from authors with big book deals, standup comics with national TV credits, The Moth GrandSLAM performers and complete and total strangers who had a story to tell. FREE show. Hosted by David Lawson.

Join award-winning fantasy author C. S. E. Cooney on Tuesday, August 6th at 7 p.m. for the NYC launch of her latest book, Desdemona and The Deep.

In Desdemona and the Deep, the spoiled daughter of a rich mining family must retrieve the tithe of men her father promised to the world below. On the surface, her world is rife with industrial pollution that ruins the health of poor factory workers while the idle rich indulge themselves in unheard-of luxury. Below are goblins, mysterious kingdoms, and an entirely different hierarchy.

C. S. E. Cooney (csecooney.com/@csecooney) is an audiobook narrator, the singer/songwriter Brimstone Rhine, and author of World Fantasy Award Winner Bone Swans: Stories (Mythic Delirium 2015). Her work includes the Dark Breakers series, Jack o’ the Hills, The Witch in the Almond Tree, and poetry collection How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes, which features Rhysling Award-winning “The Sea King’s Second Bride.”  Her short fiction and poetry can be found at Lightspeed, Fireside, Strange Horizons, Apex, Uncanny, Lakeside Circus, Black Gate, Papaveria Press, GigaNotoSaurus, Goblin Fruit, Clockwork Phoenix 3 & 5, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, Rich Horton’s and Paula Guran’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy anthologies, and elsewhere.

Join us on Thursday, August 8th at 11 a.m. for a special storytime with children's book author Galia Bernstein, who will be reading her latest book, Leyla.

Leyla is sick of her big, loud, overbearing family. They are always chatting, snuggling, and grooming each other (ew!), and—for Leyla—there’s no escape from their attention. So, she decides to run away until she can’t hear (or smell) her baboon troop anymore. In the middle of her desert habitat, she finds a lizard sunning himself. Unlike her family, the lizard loves to sit alone, be quiet, and do absolutely nothing at all. Leyla joins the lizard, and after soaking up some quiet time, she feels recharged and ready to return home to her large, ever-doting family. Now that she knows where she can always find a little peace, Leyla can embrace the chaos and the kisses with open arms. From the celebrated author-illustrator of I Am a Cat, Leyla shows kids how to appreciate both the wild and the mild. 

Galia Bernstein was born and raised in Israel. She started her career as a designer and cartoonist in the Israeli Army’s magazine, and was the art director of two children’s magazines and a writer of a monthly column in a computer magazine, before moving to New York to study illustration in Parsons the New School for design. Today, she is a full time illustrator and author who also works in textile design and ceramics.

Her debut author/illustrated picture book, I Am A Cat, was published by Abrams Books in 2018 and has co-editioned into over 12 languages and countries, across Europe and around the world. Her second picture book, Leyla published May 2019 with a starred review from PW. Galia lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Parenting for Social Justice meets every other month after reading a predetermined book that focuses on topics such as race, gender, social class, and similar subjects.
 
All are welcome to attend, however, meetings will aim to encourage dialogue between parents. Discussions will include issues such as implicit racial bias, cultural appropriation, and white privilege in order to raise self-awareness on these topics and also consider how personal insights can be translated into parenting techniques as well as interactions with other families and people in our community.

The next selection is The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells, which we will discuss on Saturday, August 10th at 4:30pm.

On Wednesday, August 14th at 7 p.m., join writer and author of The League of Extraordinarily Funny Women: 50 Trailblazers of Comedy Sheila Moeschen for a book talk, Laugh's Best: What Famously Funny Women Taught Me About the Power of Humor. 

From well-known comedy icons such as Phyllis Diller, Mae West, and Moms Mabley to contemporary legends in the making such as Kate McKinnon, Tina Fey, and Maria Bamford, the women of The League demonstrate that funny is more than a job or an art form, it is a superpower we all share and when it falls in the hands of women--watch. out.

Sheila's talk brings the stories of these women to life to highlight how they used their unique style of humor in positive and empowering ways to deal with issues such as mental illness, self-confidence, and resilience. Wit wins every time, laughter is pure connection and uplift. These women show us the way.

Sheila Moeschen, PhD is a Boston-based writer and author of The League of Extraordinarily Funny Women: 50 Trailblazers of Comedy. After graduating with a Doctorate in Gender and Theatre Studies from Northwestern University and doing a stint in academia teaching about the history of American humor, gender and comedy, she took her passion for and interest in comedy to the stage where she learned and performed improv and sketch in the Boston comedy scene. She has also brought her comedy skills beyond the theater, running wellness and creativity workshops that incorporate the tools and benefits of improv and humor. Sheila's additional publishing credits include The Huffington Post, Red Line Roots, Feminine Collective, and RYOT. She has also contributed on-air to the nationally syndicated podcasts Backstory with the History Guys and Trailblazers with Walter Isaacson and been featured on radio as a guest of Chicago's WGN Bill Leff & Wendy Snyder Show.

In support of the the first annual Bookstore Romance Day, come by the bookshop on Thursday, August 17th for a day-long celebration of all things romance! We'll have complimentary rosé, heart-shaped cookies, literary MASH, and 10% off select staff romance novel picks.

On Wednesday, August 21st, stop by the Astoria Bookshop to help us celebrate our 6th birthday! We'll have wine, snacks, and fun activities all day!

Join author Carrie Goldberg on Thursday, August 22nd at 7 p.m. for a reading and discussion of her book, Nobody's Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs, and Trolls.

Nobody's Victim is an unflinching look at a hidden world most people don’t know exists—one of stalking, blackmail, and sexual violence, online and off—and the incredible story of how one lawyer, determined to fight back, turned her own hell into a revolution.   

Riveting and an essential timely conversation-starter, Nobody's Victim invites readers to join Carrie on the front lines of the war against sexual violence and privacy violations as she fights for revenge porn and sextortion laws, uncovers major Title IX violations, and sues the hell out of tech companies, schools, and powerful sexual predators. Her battleground is the courtroom; her crusade is to transform clients from victims into warriors.

Carrie Goldberg is a victim's rights lawyer in Brooklyn, litigating for victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and blackmail, and is most known for her work involving revenge porn. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Carrie spent five years working for Nazi victims, and before starting her firm in 2014, she worked at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City. She has been profiled in The New Yorker, Vice, Teen Vogue, Jezebel, the NY Post, , and on NPR, and has written op-eds for the Washington Post and Huffington Post. Here she discusses her work on the BBC. She was featured in the documentary Netizens, and her life and work is the basis for an upcoming fictional legal procedural television show being developed by Paramount Television.

Join author Lisa Lutz on Tuesday, August 27th at 7 p.m. for a reading and discussion of her new novel, The Swallows.

A new teacher at a New England prep school ignites a gender war—with deadly consequences—in a provocative novel from the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Spellman Files series.

What do you love? What do you hate? What do you want? It starts with this simple writing prompt from Alex Witt, Stonebridge Academy’s new creative writing teacher. When the students’ answers raise disturbing questions of their own, Ms. Witt knows there’s more going on the school than the faculty wants to see. She soon learns about The Ten—the students at the top of the school’s social hierarchy—as well as their connection to something called The Darkroom.

Ms. Witt can’t remain a passive observer. She finds the few girls who’ve started to question the school’s “boys will be boys” attitude and incites a resistance that quickly becomes a movement. But just as it gains momentum, she also attracts the attention of an unknown enemy who knows a little too much about her—including what brought her to Stonebridge in the first place.

Lisa Lutz is the New York Times bestselling, Alex Award-winning author of the Spellman Files series, as well as the novels Heads You Lose (with David Hayward), How to Start a Fire, and The Passenger. She has also written for film and TV, including HBO's The Deuce. She lives part-time in New York’s Hudson Valley.