Author Events

To commemorate the 2021 edition of the Best American Poetry anthology, Greenlight invited editor and former poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, series editor David Lehman, and contributing poets Chen Chen, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Nancy Miller Gomez, and Dora Malech for a reverent evening. Selected by Smith, this year’s exceptional collection explores...

Celebrated local writer and performer Nelson Simon graced Greenlight's (virtual) stage to share his new book, Soul of the Hurricane, the unlikely and harrowing true account of his experience sailing into Hurricane Grace, the southern end of the “Perfect Storm.” It was October 1991, and Simon didn’t exactly want to sign up as a last-minute crew...

For the better part of a decade, Uli Beutter Cohen rode the subway through New York City’s underground to observe society through the lens of our most creative thinkers: readers of books. Greenlight welcomed the acclaimed creator of Subway Book Review to our (virtual) stage to launch her new book Between the Lines, a timely collection of beloved...

New Yorker staff writer and acclaimed music journalist Kelefa Sanneh joined Greenlight virtually to launch Major Labels, his debut book of nonfiction and a deeply researched, expansive study of popular music over the past fifty years, refracted through the big genres that have defined and dominated it: rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop,...

In his memoir Never Silent, Peter Staley shares the untold story of his journey from closeted Wall Street bond trader to one of the leading AIDS and LGBTQ rights activists of his generation. Infusing personal chronicle with what Tony Kushner (Angels in America) praises as an “incisive, precise, and revelatory insider’s history of ACT UP” and “an...

PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of literati darlings Call Me Zebra and Fra Keeler took to Greenlight’s virtual stage to launch her third novel, Savage Tongues—a personal and political exploration of desire, power, domination, and human connection that’s equal parts Marguerite Duras and Shirley Jackson, Rachel Cusk and Clarice Lispector,...

Award-winning authors Caoilinn Hughes and Diane Cook took to the Greenlight virtual stage to discuss their recent novels, The Wild Laughter (winner of the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award 2021) and The New Wilderness (shortlisted for the 2020 Man Booker Prize). Along with exploring shared themes of legacy, climate change, “generational...

Rising star Ibi Zoboi (author of the young adult novels American Street and Pride) presents her middle grade fiction debut My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich , in a conversation with her mentor, iconic young people’s fiction author Rita Williams-Garcia, centered on the culture of 1980s Harlem, hip-hop, and sci-fi and black girl nerdiness....

Mina Stone, author of the cult-favorite Cooking for Artists, joined Greenlight (virtually!) to launch her stunning new cookbook, Lemon, Love & Olive Oil—featuring 80 Mediterranean-style recipes rooted in the traditions passed to her by preceding generations. Stone learned to cook from her Yiayia, who taught her that food doesn’t have to be...

In a heartrending and deeply moving evening, two Asian-American literary luminaries, Qian Julie Wang and Charles Yu (Interior Chinatown) welcomed Wang’s incandescent debut, Beautiful Country--an essential American story about a family fracturing under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the shadows, who never stops seeking...

Jai Chakrabarti graced our virtual stage to launch his debut novel, A Play for the End of the World--an unforgettable love story set in early 1970's New York and rural India, a provocative exploration of the role of art in times of political upheaval, and a deeply moving reminder of the power of the past to shape the present. Chakrabarti, joined...

When acclaimed author Yiyun Li and A Public Space magaine invited people to read War and Peace together at the start of the pandemic, thousands around the globe joined for an 85-day journey through Tolstoy’s epic novel. Tolstoy Together, based on this experiment, is a book about the art of reading and an invitation to the collective act of book...

Award-winning journalist Eyal Press joined Greenlight to present his groundbreaking, urgent book Dirty Work, which illuminates the moving, sometimes harrowing stories of the people doing the work that society considers essential but morally compromised. Urging us to think about both secrecy and apathy as enabling injustice, Dirty Work reveals...

What does it mean to write a narrative of yourself? Whiting award winner Nadia Owusu joined Greenlight to launch the paperback edition of Aftershocks, her debut book and a deeply felt memoir about belonging, the seismic emotional toll of family secrets, and the heart it takes to pull oneself out of the wreckage. Tope Folarin (A Particular Kind... Read more »

The inimitable Lindy West (author of Shrill) owns the stage at St. Joseph’s College for a reading from her new book The Witches Are Coming and a frank and hilarious talk on women (and men) in media and politics, internet trolls, abortion stories, and more. (Recorded at St. Joseph’s College on November 7, 2019)

Bestselling authors Deborah Copaken and New Yorker staff writer Tad Friend (also Copaken’s actual friend!) graced Greenlight’s virtual stage for the launch of Copaken’s new memoir, Ladyparts. An inventory of both the female body and the body politic of womanhood in America, Ladyparts moves body part by body part and confronts divorce, single... Read more »

On the heels of an unprecedented, unforgettable year of quarantine, Geoff Manaugh (A Burglar’s Guide to the City) and science journalist Nicola Twilley launched their new book, Until Proven Safe. Tracing the history and future of quarantine around the globe, Manaugh and Twilley unfold the connections between emergency isolation and freedom,... Read more »

Katie Kitamura, acclaimed author of A Separation and Greenlight neighbor, joined us virtually to launch her electrifying new novel. In Intimacies, an interpreter and woman of many languages and identities relocates to The Hague in search of a sense of home and finds herself drawn into simmering dramas of violence, political controversy,... Read more »

Award-winning author Joshua Henkin graces the virtual Greenlight stage to share from his sweeping new novel Morningside Heights, “a richly textured family portrait” (Wall Street Journal) about a marriage enduring hardship, cognitive decline, estrangement, and reconnection. Julie Orringer (The Invisible Bridge) engages Henkin in a conversation... Read more »

Critically acclaimed author Kiese Laymon and Robert Jones Jr. (The Prophets) discuss and celebrate the newly revised and reissued Long Division, Laymon’s 2013 debut novel. Described by the New York Times as “a time-traveling metafictional romp set in Mississippi that probes fame, creativity and the toll of racism,” Long Division upends... Read more »