Another Story Bookshop and the Women and Gender Studies Institute, U of T, present the dual book launch for Darnell Moore’s “No Ashes in the Fire” and Alexander Chee’s “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel”. They will be in conversation with Rinaldo Walcott. The event is also co-sponsored by the Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, U of T.
Tuesday, October 2nd at the Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
1214 Queen St. West
Doors open at 6:30pm and the event begins at 7:00pm
It is free to attend and open to the public. The entrance to and the bathrooms at the venue are wheelchair accessible.
“No Ashes in the Fire” (Public Affairs):
When Darnell Moore was fourteen, three boys from his neighbourhood tried to set him on fire. They cornered him while he was walking home from school, harassed him because they thought he was gay, and poured a jug of gasoline on him. He escaped, but just barely. It wasn’t the last time he would face death.
Three decades later, Moore is an award-winning writer, a leading Black Lives Matter activist, and an advocate for justice and liberation. In No Ashes in the Fire, he shares the journey taken by that scared, bullied teenager who not only survived, but found his calling. Moore’s transcendence over the myriad forces of repression that faced him is a testament to the grace and care of the people who loved him, and to his hometown, Camden, NJ, scarred and ignored but brimming with life. Moore reminds us that liberation is possible if we commit ourselves to fighting for it, and if we dream and create futures where those who survive on society’s edges can thrive.
“How to Write an Autobiographical Novel” (Mariner Books):
As a novelist, Alexander Chee has been described as “masterful” by Roxane Gay, “incendiary” by the New York Times, and “brilliant” by theWashington Post. With “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel” ,his first collection of nonfiction, he’s sure to secure his place as one of the finest essayists of his generation as well.
“How to Write an Autobiographical Novel” is the author’s manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation’s history, including his father’s death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing—Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley—the writing of his first novel,Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump.
By turns commanding, heartbreaking, and wry, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel asks questions about how we create ourselves in life and in art, and how to fight when our dearest truths are under attack.
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