National Book Award finalist Karen E. Bender returns with stunning speculative stories of parents and children, together and apart, surviving near-future dystopias that feel all-too-possible—and realities that can be even stranger.

Karen E. Bender is the author of the story collections The New Order and Refund, a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Fiction. She is also the author of the novels Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, and other magazines. Her stories have been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery Stories, and New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, and have won three Pushcart prizes. She lives in Brooklyn with her family. Find out more at karenebender.com.

Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of, among other titles, The Wife, The Female Persuasion, and The Interestings, which is currently being adapted as a musical, with a book by Sarah Ruhl and music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles. Wolitzer is a faculty member in the Creative Writing and Literature Program at The Lichtenstein Center at Stony Brook University, where she is co-founder and co-director of BookEnds, a yearlong intensive for emerging novelists. She is also the host of the literary radio show and podcast Selected Shorts.

About the event: The rear half of the store will be used exclusively for this event. The front bar will be open to the public for drinking and chatting. Book browsing will be limited to a few display tables and shelves closest to the front of the store.

Time: 8:00-9:00 pm EST

Free!

Registration