P&T Knitwear is pleased to welcome back Debuts and Redos! Hosted by Evie Atkinson, Debuts and Redos showcase new debut writers and writers who released a debut book in 2020.

December’s D&R lineup features Luke Dani Blue, Gretchen Felker-Martin, & Sabrina Imbler.

Praise for our readers

“Luke Dani Blue has put words to realities that I have known without ever being able to articulate.” — Joss Lake, author of Future Feeling

As erotic as it is devastating, as brilliant as it is visceral, Manhunt is a modern horror masterpiece." — Carmen Maria Machado, bestselling author of In the Dream House and National Book Award finalist for Her Body and Other Parties

“Compulsively readable, beautifully lyric, and wildly tender, How Far the Light Reaches asks the reader to sink down, slip beneath, swim forward with outstretched hands, trusting that Sabrina Imbler is there to guide us through the dark.” — Kristen Arnett, NYT bestselling author of With Teeth.

About “Pretending it’s my body”

Misfit mothers, prodigal “undaughters,” con artists, and middle-aged runaways populate these ten short stories that blur the lives we wish for with the ones we actually lead. A tornado survivor grapples with a new identity, a trans teen psychic can read only indecisive minds, and a woman informs her family of her plans to upload her consciousness and abandon her body. Luke Dani Blue invites the reader into a world of outlier lives made central and magical thinking made real. Surreal, darkly humorous, and always deeply felt, Pretend It’s My Body is bound together by the act of searching—for a spark of recognition and a story of one’s own.

About “Manhunt”

Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs gruesomely to ensure they’ll never face the same fate. Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren’t safe. After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics—all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.

About “How far the light reaches”

A queer, mixed-race writer working in a predominantly white, male field, science and conservation journalist Sabrina Imbler has always been drawn to the mystery of life in the sea, and particularly to creatures living in hostile or remote environments. Each essay in their debut collection profiles one such creature: the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs, the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams, the bizarre Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena), and other uncanny creatures lurking in the deep ocean, far below where the light reaches. Imbler discovers that some of the most radical models of family, community, and care can be found in the sea, from gelatinous chains that are both individual organisms and colonies of clones to deep-sea crabs that have no need for the sun, nourished instead by the chemicals and heat throbbing from the core of the Earth. Exploring themes of adaptation, survival, sexuality, and care, and weaving the wonders of marine biology with stories of their own family, relationships, and coming of age, How Far the Light Reaches is a book that invites us to envision wilder, grander, and more abundant possibilities for the way we live.

• This is a free in-store event with limited amphitheater-style seating
• We encourage all guests to wear masks.
• The talk will be followed by a book signing. Books signed at P&T Knitwear events must be purchased from P&T Knitwear. If you would like a signed copy and cannot attend the event, we’re happy to take your pre-order over the phone or online! We ship to most places!

About the authors

Luke Dani Blue’s stories have appeared in the Colorado Review, and Crab Orchard Review, and have been included on the list of the year’s most distinguished stories in Best American Short Stories 2016. Originally from Michigan, Luke Dani Blue (they/them) is a two-time college dropout and time-traveling Victorian invalid who resides most reliably on the internet. They are also an astrologer.

Gretchen Felker-Martin, the author of Manhunt, is a Massachusetts-based horror author and film critic. You can follow her work on Twitter and read her fiction and film criticism on Patreon, Nylon Magazine, The Outline, and more.

Sabrina Imbler is a writer and science journalist living in Brooklyn. Their first chapbook, Dyke (geology) was published by Black Lawrence Press. They have received fellowships and scholarships from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Tin House, the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat, Millay Arts, and Paragraph NY, and their work has been supported by the Café Royal Cultural Foundation. Their essays and reporting have appeared in various publications, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, Catapult, and Sierra, among others.

About the host

Evie Atkinson is a writer and teacher, and formerly the director of Catapult’s writing program and Chautauqua Institution’s literary arts programs.

Time: 7:00 PM — 8:00 PM EST

Free!

Registration