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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260904T190000
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SUMMARY:TRANS-SPLENDOR: Community Book Launch! meTamorphosis x Two Lines Press
DESCRIPTION:We invite you to join us at TRANS-SPLENDOR\, a community book launch of Splendor: Trans Poets\, a new collection showcasing the breadth of work of five international trans poets. Imaginative\, confrontational\, funny\, and sensual\, Two Lines Press is thrilled to bring their fresh perspectives to an English-reading audience. In celebration of Splendor\, Two Lines Press is supporting bookstore-organized reading series to uplift trans voices and meTamorphosis is ecstatic to collaborate with them! Part book launch\, part community event\, TRANS-SPLENDOR is an opportunity to build international trans solidarity through poetry. We are grateful to host a lineup of local community organizers reading poems from Splendor\, with opening performances by Windafire and Sue Flay-Munroe. Splendor will be available for purchase during the event! \nAbout Splendor: Trans Poets:\nIntroducing readers to five trans and nonbinary poets\, Splendor is an ode to queer bodies\, with previously unpublished translations from Argentina\, Denmark\, Korea\, Norway\, and Quebec. From the irreverent and irresponsible to the quiet and meditative\, these poems decentralize our ideas of trans experience and poetics. \nSplendor presents a sliver of the wide possibilities of what trans literature can offer. This is trans literature that transcends borders and binaries in order to engage with a messy world. As Camila Sosa Villada writes\, “Let us keep loving one another in this swamp of contradictions.” \nAbout Windafire and Sue-Flay:\nWindafire is a musician\, healer\, spiritualist\, and storyteller. They draw upon folktales\, myths\, and oral history to connect our shared humanity. They are a Co-Founder of Black Dream Escape which is a therapeutic arts practice for Black and Indigenous people. Windafire has an album out with Black Dream Escape called All This Beauty which is on all platforms. \nSue Flay-Munroe is a rising PGH Princess in the Haus of Munroe. Captivating audiences with her big hair\, clean mug\, humor\, and musicalty\, Sue Flay brings the epitome of Black drag to every stage. Sue Flay’s performances remind us to never let the world get you down and continue with your greatest passions! \nAbout Two Lines Press & meTamorphosis:\nCreated by White Whale’s events coordinator\, Amari Onyx\, meTamorphosis is a local queer & trans led event series committed to uplifting emerging LGBTQ+ writers by curating inclusive community readings in Pittsburgh\, PA. meTamorphosis celebrates queer & trans people’s commitment to ongoing transformation and embracing change to become who they know themselves to be. \nAmari Onyx is a Black trans poet & artist based in Pittsburgh\, PA. Poetry\, art\, and community sustain his existence\, which inspired the creation of meTamorphosis in 2024. His work has appeared in Black Warrior Review and The Shade Journal and is set to appear in Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora and Callaloo. Amari is an editor working within\, across\, and between genres for 3 Sisters journal. He is a proud trans vogue fem. \nTwo Lines Press is an award-winning press committed to publishing daring and original literature in translation in striking editions. Two Lines Press specializes in exceptional new writing and overlooked classics that have never been translated into English. Much of the most exciting literary work is being done by diverse and traditionally underrepresented voices. Two Lines Press is committed to championing diversity in the languages\, translators\, and authors that they publish. They have published authors and translators from Indonesia\, Suriname\, Mauritius\, Chile\, Malaysia\, Cameroon\, and beyond\, expanding the geography of literature available in English.
URL:https://qburgh.com/event/trans-splendor-community-book-launch-metamorphosis-x-two-lines-press/
LOCATION:White Whale Books & Coffee\, 4754 Liberty Avenue\, Pittsburgh\, PA\, 15224\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://qburgh.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/trans-splendor-sept-4.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="White Whale Books & Coffee":MAILTO:info@whitewhalebookstore.com
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260908T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260908T203000
DTSTAMP:20260720T231705Z
CREATED:20260720T231705Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260720T231705Z
UID:10023190-1788894000-1788899400@qburgh.com
SUMMARY:I Have a Thing for Flowers by Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn (in convo with Diana Khoi Nguyen)
DESCRIPTION:We are grateful to host regional writer Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn at the Whale to celebrate her new essay collection\, I Have a Thing for Flowers! Structured like an herbarium\, each essay pairs a flower with a person from Sawchyn’s life to compose a delightful blend of botanical research and intimate meditations on love. Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn will be joined in conversation by local poet\, multimedia artist\, and educator\, Diana Khoi Nguyen. \nSix months before her wedding\, Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn’s fiancé broke off their engagement. Stunned\, reeling\, and newly uninsured\, Alysia married her friend Sarah in an arrangement that secured them both free health insurance. They moved in together in the midst of the pandemic\, and\, with time and while tending a garden\, their marriage of convenience grew into a marriage of love. \nIn science\, art\, and mythology\, we cannot help but to see flowers as metaphors for the fleeting nature of youth\, vitality\, and love. It’s easy to casually admire something beautiful\, but it takes a discerning eye to appreciate the effort that went into nourishing and tending to that beauty. In both gardening and relationships\, one cannot expect to fill your garden with flowers if you are unwilling—or unable—to put in the work they need to thrive. In I Have This Thing For Flowers\, Sawchyn does just that\, likening the many flowers she has grown in her gardens to a range of relationships and moments of her life\, reflecting on topics from motherhood to perfumery to scientific illustration. \nCataloguing many of the great romances and loves of her life like an herbarium of flowers preserved from the garden\, Sawchyn examines the kinds of love that can’t be explained. \nDIANA KHOI NGUYEN is the author of Root Fractures and Ghost Of\, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship\, and her video work has been exhibited at Miller ICA. A Kundiman and MacDowell fellow\, Nguyen teaches creative writing in the MFA programs at Randolph College and the University of Pittsburgh. \nALYSIA LI YING SAWCHYN teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Bucknell University. Her essay collection A Fish Growing Lungs was a finalist for The Believer Book Awards\, and her second book\, I Have This Thing for Flowers\, is forthcoming from Flatiron Books. Formerly the editor-in-chief of The Rumpus\, she has received fellowships from The Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. \nSign up for the livestream!
URL:https://qburgh.com/event/i-have-a-thing-for-flowers-by-alysia-li-ying-sawchyn-in-convo-with-diana-khoi-nguyen/
LOCATION:White Whale Books & Coffee\, 4754 Liberty Avenue\, Pittsburgh\, PA\, 15224\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/webp:https://qburgh.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/i-have-this-thing-with-flowers-sept-8.webp
ORGANIZER;CN="White Whale Books & Coffee":MAILTO:info@whitewhalebookstore.com
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260924T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260924T193000
DTSTAMP:20260720T231916Z
CREATED:20260720T231807Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260720T231916Z
UID:10023191-1790272800-1790278200@qburgh.com
SUMMARY:Pod Picks Book Club: Ramona's Pick: Unprecedented Times
DESCRIPTION:Pod Picks Book Club is White Whale staff picks and a community book club combined! \n\n\n\n\nIt’s the powerful forces of White Whale staff picks and a community book club combined: the Pod Picks Book Club! Each month (usually on the last Thursday)\, a different bookseller gets to pick a book for the club to read\, and they’ll host the meeting\, too. Book club picks will be 10% off 30 days in advance of the meeting day\, to give you time to read it. And plan on grabbing a drink and a snack from the café when you come to the meeting! \nRamona’s pick: Unprecedented Times by Malavika Kannan \nRAMONA (they/them) is a semi-recent transplant to Pittsburgh from Austin\, Texas. They love film photography\, bad movies\, high camp\, general kitsch\, and miniature versions of things. They are a brothmonger loyalist and a generally sentimental guy. Ramona can be found consuming beautiful translated fiction\, absurdist short story collections\, and devastating essay collections. \n𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝\nOne of Ms. Magazine and Debutiful’s Most Anticipated Debut Books of the Year \nOne of LGBTQ Read’s Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Fiction Books \nOne of Debutiful’s Most Anticipated Debut Books of the Year \n“Unprecedented Times made me laugh\, cry\, and rage—often within the same paragraph . . . Kannan’s voice is hilarious and generous\, and her incisive portrayal of navigating college as a second-generation immigrant kept me up late into the night. I absolutely could not put this book down.” —Lamya H\, award-winning author of Hijab Butch Blues \nMalavika Kannan establishes herself as an inimitable voice of Gen Z in this piercing coming-of-age debut novel. \nWhich comes first: experience or narrative? Rishi thinks she knows the answer as she arrives on campus for her first year at Stanford. A burnt-out youth climate activist\, she used to want to save the world\, but now she just wants to have gay sex. Her plan is set—she’s going to leave behind the strict trappings of her Indian American childhood in Florida\, study literature\, experiment with love\, and write all about it. Within a few months\, she makes her first best friend\, falls in love with her situationship\, and promptly gets her heart broken. \nWhat is not a part of Rishi’s plan is the onset of the COVID pandemic. As the outside world becomes a terrifying place\, she increasingly finds solace in the friendships she’s made. Instead of virtual college\, however\, Rishi and her classmates join a farm collective\, where their political discussions and growing disillusionment collide with sexual tension and responsibility. It’s only when those relationships start fracturing under the stress of careless decisions\, unrequited crushes\, jealousies\, and\, yes\, unprecedented times\, that Rishi begins to question her own story. \nUnprecedented Times captures the beauty\, humor\, pain\, and straight-up chaos that exist in relationships between best friends and lovers\, mothers and daughters\, and between storytellers and themselves. Malavika Kannan’s fresh\, arresting novel is a testament to the power of self-narrative for Gen Z American women: of writing oneself into existence where no previous script exists.
URL:https://qburgh.com/event/pod-picks-book-club-ramonas-pick-unprecedented-times/
LOCATION:White Whale Books & Coffee\, 4754 Liberty Avenue\, Pittsburgh\, PA\, 15224\, United States
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/webp:https://qburgh.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/pod-picks-sept-24.webp
ORGANIZER;CN="White Whale Books & Coffee":MAILTO:info@whitewhalebookstore.com
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