Friday
October 13
4 PM
T.N. Eyer reads from her first novel, Finding Meaning in the Age of Immortality, an arresting work of speculative fiction set in a near future, where the discovery of a cure for mortality—a very expensive and difficult cure—rips apart the fabric of society and brings two very dissimilar families together in a fraught and unlikely partnership.
Updated Location: George’s, third floor, Johnson Center, George Mason University.
4:30 PM
Former White House speechwriter Sean O’Brien will discuss his new book, White House Clubhouse, and lead kids on a creative adventure to write their own time traveling story. When First Daughters, Marissa and Clara, discover a hidden tunnel in the White House that transports them to 1903, they join forces with the children of President Theodore Roosevelt on an action-packed railroad journey, aiming to help the president and make a difference. Sponsored by the Friends of Burke Centre Library.
Location: Burke Centre Library, 5935 Freds Oak Road, Burke, VA
6 PM
Doomed love stories and twisted fairy tales abound in Ruth Joffre’s short story collection, Night Beast. Joffre’s powerful and unsettling book explores both the conventional and unconventional lives of women, while revealing the monsters lurking in all of us as we seek human connection. Author Anna Noyes says “Hypnotic and elegant, Night Beast built to a resonance that resounds in me still. These stories are unforgettable, full of longing and hunger and alert tenderness. Finishing the collection was like waking from a night of disquieting and luminous dreams.” Sponsored by Mason Creative Writing.
Updated Location: George’s, third floor, Johnson Center, George Mason University.
7 PM
Four talented Mason alumni reunite in this Friday night poetry reading. Joe Hall’s Fugue & Strike braids panic-inducing contemporary catastrophes with a long view of solidarity in struggle. Ana Pugatch takes readers through her travels across Asia and back to the United States in Engrams: Seven Years in Asia. In What Pecan Light, Han VanderHart examines a family’s long entwinement with whiteness and the South, revealing the speaker’s complicity in the institutions of whiteness. Michael Joseph Walsh’s Innocence is about the unknowability of the future and the intimacy of contemplating that future within the surveillance of the digital age. Sponsored by Poetry Daily.
Location: Old Town Hall, 3999 University Drive, Fairfax.
7:30 PM
Nick Hornby’s award winning books and screenplays have thrilled readers and movie goers for over twenty-five years. From About a Boy to the cult-classic High Fidelity to Fever Pitch, his novels and memoirs have made their way to the silver screen and television. Hornby’s career has spanned genres with his trademark blend of humor and unsentimental emotion, including his Oscar-nominated screenplays for Brooklyn and An Education, and Emmy-winning work on the short form series State of the Union. His newest book, Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius, is a warm, and entertaining reflection on art, creativity, and the unlikely similarities between Victorian novelist Charles Dickens and modern American rock star Prince. Hornby, in conversation with writer Stephen Goodwin, will discuss his remarkable career and the power of art in this thoughtful and entertaining conversation. Sponsored by the Fairfax Library Foundation.
Location: 3740 Blenheim Boulevard, Fairfax, VA
Set a reminder to reserve your free Eventbrite ticket. Tickets will become available on October 6 at 7 p.m.
Virtual Events
In Desegregation in Northern Virginia Libraries, Chris Barbuschak and Suzanne S. LaPierre, librarians in the Fairfax County Public Library’s Virginia Room, highlight four Civil Rights leaders and their fight to desegregate libraries in Northern Virginia. From the father of DC basketball, to President Eisenhower’s window decorators, to the organizer of one of the first sit-ins in the nation, these pioneers worked to make libraries accessible to all.
Watch, starting October 13:
Fairfax County Poet Laureate, Danielle Badra, explores the power of poetry in this conversation with poet Jennifer Grotz, author of Still Falling, and Alexandria Poet Laureate Zeina Azzam, author of Some Things Never Leave You. Grotz explores the profound vastness of grief in her collection, ruminating on the deaths of her friends, mentors, and mother; the endings of relationships; and the confinements of life. Poet Jericho Brown says “Still Falling is an undeniably gorgeous book of love poems full of grief.” In her collection, Azzam, a Palestinian American, depicts her childhood memories and the repeated experiences of exile in order to both celebrate and mourn life’s wonders. Poet Lena Khalaf Tuffaha says “Azzam writes with heart and with an ear keenly tuned to the rhythms of displacement and loss.”
Watch, starting October 13:
Join Alix E. Harrow and Leopoldo Gout as they discuss the horrors found beneath the surface. Harrow’s Starling House is a modern Gothic novel about a young woman’s obsession with a sinister old manor in her hometown. Author Melissa Albert says the book is “Devastatingly good, a sharp, delicate nested tale of worlds within worlds, stories within stories, and the realm-cracking power of words.” Gout’s Piñata follows the Sanchez family, who are being stalked by something malevolent and unexplainable after unearthing a hidden stash of centuries-old artifacts in Mexico. Library Journal says “Gout succeeds in presenting a thought-provoking, violent, and immersive revenge-horror story and excels in restoring the rich history of an erased people.”
Watch, starting October 13: 
Bonnie Stabile, author of Women, Power, and Rape Culture: The Politics and Policy of Underrepresentation gives an overview of the key hurdles women face on campus and in politics – from sexual harassment, to labyrinthian reporting processes, to the ‘fairness’ of sexual misconduct proceedings. Stabile is co-author with Aubrey Leigh Grant. Katherine Spillar, Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine says, “We cannot achieve gender equality without first understanding the drivers of politics and policy influencing women’s representation. Stabile and Grant offer critical insights into the ways in which sexual assault and harassment are permitted to permeate political structures-and to repress women’s leadership.”
Watch, starting October 13:
