The Best Kind of Hell: Relationships in Contemporary Fiction - Tickets Required

Taper Hall 101

Saturday, Apr 26

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

Event Description

Can you ever really know the people closest to you? Can they ever really know you? These stories take us behind the scenes of the woman shocked to learn that her husband doesn't think their life is...

Love and Heartbreak
Hosted by Timothy Liu

From the moment we feel the stirrings of our first big crush, romantic love—getting it, giving it, committing to it, figuring out what to do when fights erupt and passion fades—takes up a huge space in our hearts and minds. Love is one of life’s greatest joys, and losing it is one of life’s greatest torments. Journalist Lisa A. Phillips uses insights from what she calls “the love and heartbreak beat” to help us better understand romantic relationships in the teen years and beyond. Ada Calhoun’s fiction shows us that no matter how much we think we understand love, it can turn our lives upside down without warning. Join us for a conversation about love, hosted by poet Timothy Liu, whose poetry explores identity and sexuality with bold eroticism.

The Ex-Wives Club: Fiction of Marital Decay

Ada Calhoun, Wieke Wang, Alissa Bennett, Susan Minot, and Alexandra Jacobs

IN PERSON and ONLINE - Tickets $25-35

 “One’s duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful,” wrote Gustave Flaubert in Madame Bovary, his seminal novel of marriage and desire, “and to not accept the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.”

Throughout literary history countless writers, from Flaubert, to Jean Rhys, to Nora Ephron, have written characters who heeded this advice — navigating the ignominy of their societies, and seeking out their own desires amidst various kinds of marital catastrophe — but perhaps never more so than in contemporary literature. Join our panel of writers, whose recently published, widely celebrated novels, explore the lives of women who endeavor to feel what is great and beautiful, and refuse to accept convention.

Their discussion will take place alongside readings from the novels that inspired these modern masterpieces, including Ursula Parrott’s newly rediscovered Ex-Wife, as we consider the novels that have reshaped our understanding of love, power, and marriage.

“What a mistake, above all, it had been to believe that I couldn’t live without him,” Elena Ferrante writes in Days of Abandonment, her novel of marital catastrophe, “when for a long time I had not been at all certain that I was alive with him.”

Join us Wednesday, March 12, 2025 at 6 pm at The Country Bookshop as Ada Calhoun is in conversation with Kimberly Daniels Taws about her new book CRUSH (https://www.thecountrybookshop.biz/book/9780593832028) . Ada Calhoun is the author of Also a Poet, named one of the best books of 2022 by The New York Times, NPR, and The Washington Post, longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and featured on the Today show and PBS NewsHour. Her other books include St. Marks Is Dead and the New York Times bestseller Why We Can’t Sleep. Crush is her first novel.

Ada is a returning friend to Fountain and we're so excited to have her! She'll be talking about her new (and first!) novel with Kelly at the store.

Left Bank Books & the Left Bank Books Foundation present Ada Calhoun

Join us as we welcome Ada Calhoun, NY Times Bestselling author of Why We Can't Sleep, Also a Poet, & St. Marks Is Dead. We are excited to welcome Ada back for another great visit to St. Louis for her first novel Crush!

"The word 'crush' often conjures the innocence of adolescence--a time when your life story isn't yet written and anything is possible. But what happens when that dormant feeling is awakened in middle age? Ada Calhoun's Crush is a gripping fever dream of a book leading the reading into the beguiling depths of desire, ecstasy, and obsession." --Molly Ringwald

Calhoun will personalize and sign copies after the presentation! Personalized and signed copies will be available to be mailed anywhere in the country. For personalized copies, please order before noon on March 5th.

Calhoun will be in conversation with Left Bank Books' event coordinator Shane Mullen.

OFFSITE: Ada Calhoun presents CRUSH with Caitlin Shetterly

Monday, March 3, 2025 - 7:00pm to 8:00pm

Location: SPACE Gallery, 538 Congress St., Portland, ME

Tickets are required. To purchase tickets, please click here. 

Print: A Bookstore and SPACE Gallery present acclaimed author Ada Calhoun to discuss her first novel, Crush! The New York Times bestselling author of Why We Can't Sleep, Also a Poet, & St. Marks Is Dead will be in conversation with Maine writer Caitlin Shetterly.

An Evening with Ada Calhoun, Author of "Also A Poet"
 

Bestselling author Ada Calhoun joins us for her seductive new novel CRUSH

in conversation with her friend, Miami Book Fair's Lissette Mendez

About this Event

The Books & Books Literary Foundation is proud to present an evening with Ada Calhoun discussing Crush: A Novel (Viking, $30). When a husband asks his wife to consider what might be missing from their marriage, what follows surprises them both—sex, heartbreak and heart rekindling, and a rediscovered sense of all that is possible.

***Please note: This event will take place at the Books & Books in Coral Gables at 265 Aragon Ave. Tickets are FREE and books will be available for purchase at the event.

• Tickets are limited to restrict capacity at our store, and each ticket will include either a copy of the featured book or a $10 Books Are Magic gift card.
• Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
• A signing will follow the talk.
• The event will also be livestreamed for free here: https://youtube.com/live/LwjQYd0Das0

THE EVENT IS SOLD OUT FOR IN-PERSON ATTENDANCE. BUT IT WILL BE LIVESTREAMED ON YOUTUBE. 

The Tompkins Square Library's 120th Anniversary Festival comes to a close with this powerhouse panel of East Village writers, hosted and moderated by Ada Calhoun (author of St. Marks is Dead and Also a Poet). 

Panelists include Lucy Sante (Low Life), Jessica Hagedorn (The Gangster of Love), Tim Murphy (Christodora), Abraham Chang (888 Love and The Divine Burden of Numbers), and Jerome Ellison Murphy (Crashing Cathedrals: Edmund White  By the Book).  There will be plenty of Q&A time at the end and representatives from Book Club Bar will be on hand to sell copies of books by the authors.

KATHLEEN HANNA: MY LIFE AS A FEMINIST PUNK – MEMOIR

Saturday, November 23 @ 12:30 pm

The Pavilion

NE Second Ave. at NE Third St. FL 33132 United States

In her memoir Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk, KATHLEEN HANNA, punk singer, writer, artist, and the frontwoman of the influential bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, takes us from her tumultuous childhood to her formative college years and her first shows. Being in a punk “girl band” was not an easy gig, or a safe one, as violence and antagonism threatened at every turn. Joining Hanna in conversation is author ADA CALHOUN.

SHARING OUR STORIES & OURSELVES – MEMOIR

Saturday, November 23 @ 3:30 pm

Auditorium (Building 1, 2nd Floor, Room 1261)

300 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33132 United States

With Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me, ADA CALHOUN sets out to complete an unfinished biography started 40 years earlier by her father, celebrated art critic Peter Schjeldahl. Grief Is for People is SLOANE CROSLEY’s moving memoir and a portrait of friendship that explores multiple kinds of loss after the death of her closest friend, Russell, to suicide. We’re Alone: Essays includes EDWIDGE DANTICAT’s personal narrative, reportage, and tributes to mentors such as Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin.

A talk and slideshow, with a Q&A session at the end. Free to all!

Want to study memoir with me? This August I’ll be teaching a weeklong seminar for the third straight summer at Omega Institute in upstate NY. The last two classes were really fun and students made tons of progress on their books! All levels are welcome! Sign up here.

Writing Lives
4:00 PM at The Norfolk Library
Ada Calhoun, author of Also a Poet; Frank O’Hara, My Father and Me and Priscilla Gilman, author of The Critics Daughter: A Memoir. In conversation with novelist and memoirist, Courtney Maum.

• WORKSHOP: MEMOIR
• Saturday, September 16, 2023
• 11:00 AM 3:00 PM

• The Church48 Madison StreetSag Harbor, NY, 11963United States
• Dig into memoir writing and find ways to interweave the personal and the universal, so that the resulting work is neither diary nor reportage—rather a work of art that lets readers in on a new way of being a human in the world.
  Led by New York Times bestselling author Ada Calhoun, this four-hour workshop will focus on the development of themes, characters, narrative arcs, and style in a memoir. Through writing exercises, readings, and group discussions, participants will learn what it means to write about themselves and the people they hold close – discovering the ways in which it can be fraught or liberating, or both at once. Hosted in The Rectory, our artists residency house, this class will be a safe, supportive place to develop ideas and begin work on a memoir of your own. Ticket purchase includes a light luncheon to be served at the halfway point.
  This workshop has been programmed in tandem with a memoir panel discussion at The Church on September 17th, 2023. Moderated by Jill Bialosky, Calhoun will be a featured speaker alongside authors Alice Carrière and Kelly McMasters for a conversation about their memoirs, all of which relate to the experience of intimacy with artists.
  

P&T Knitwear, in conjunction with the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative (LESPI), East Village Community Coalition (EVCC), and Village Preservation is pleased to welcome Ada Calhoun for a discussion of her books St. Marks is Dead and Also A Poet: Frank O'Hara, My Father, and Me, along with an audience Q&A and book signing!

Ada will be joined in conversation by Deborah Wye, Director of LESPI. After the talk, Ada will sign copies of her books. This event is presented in partnership with the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, the East Village Community Coalition (EVCC), and the Greenwich Village Sociaty for Historic Preservation as part of their programming.

"Wine and Pine: A Reading Series about Desire, Rachel Gilman's new series kicking off in August. Each month at Ten Degrees Bar in the heart of the East Village, three readers working across nonfiction, fiction, and poetry will share their writing in all its unabashed longing glory. Maisy Card (These Ghosts are Family), Taylor Zhang (of Choo Choo Press), and Ada Calhoun (Why We Can't Sleep, Also a Poet) will be kicking things off. There will be also curated drink specials, delicious food, and homemade desserts. Definitely a night you don't want to miss."

In this 5-day intensive, New York Times bestselling author Ada Calhoun helps you develop the themes of—and make significant progress on—a memoir. Calhoun is author of the New York Times bestseller Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis, as well as the New York history St. Marks Is Dead, the memoir Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give, and Also a Poet: Frank O'Hara, My Father, and Me. Class members will read and discuss one another's work, as well as the work of important memoirists, and each hour of class will feature multiple writing exercises.

Award-winning Elizabeth McCracken plays with genre in The Hero of This Book, her new novel about a writer ruminating on, and grieving, her recently deceased mother. New York Times bestselling author Ada Calhoun traces her life, her complicated relationship with her father, and their shared love of the poet Frank O’Hara in her new memoir Also A Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me. These two dynamic authors will talk about art, memory, and larger-than-life parents.

Woodstock Bookfest always closes with our signature panel, Memoir-A-Go-Go. Memoir speaks to our most basic impulse to tell our stories around the fire. It allows us insight into perspectives outside of our own, and a peek into the human experience of others. Moderated by Martha Frankel, the powerhouse behind Bookfest, this year’s Memoir-A-Go-Go is sure to be entertaining and engaging. With: Rebecca Carroll, Priscilla Gilman, Ann Hood, Courtney Maum, Aileen Weintraub.

SATURDAY: Moderating:

Saturday, November 19 @ 3:30 pmRoom 8203 (Building 8, 2nd Floor)300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

Samantha Cole With Ada Calhoun: A Conversation

Samantha Cole‘s How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex: A History is a serious yet entertaining look at the convergence of sex and the internet. Cole has been on this beat for years as a senior writer for Vice, and here she offers up a highly visual history filled with broad themes and backstories, pioneering personalities...

SUNDAY: Paneling:

Sunday, November 20 @ 4:30 pmAuditorium (Building 1, 2nd Floor, Room 1261)300 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33132 United States

Rebecca Donner, Ada Calhoun & Maud Newton: A Conversation

EARFULL is a performance series featuring writers and musicians doing their respective things in an intimate setting. WRITERS read from their new books, or about-to-be books, or right from their crumpled up notes. MUSICIANS range from harpists to horn blowers, from solo songwriters to full-on rock bands. EARFULL EVENINGS offer food & drink at the venue, and time between acts to socialize. Nov 15 we welcome authors Ada Calhoun and Peter Orner, and musical acts Matt Charette and Duel (Featuring Jen Kearney and Peter MacLean). More about Earfull at https://earfull.org/.

A rare memoir workshop this August 2022 at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY! Explore tactics of memoir writing, develop your themes, and get a lot of writing done in this intensive with New York Times bestselling author Ada Calhoun.

In conversation with Emma Straub of the delightful new novel THIS TIME TOMORROW! Expect lots about fathers and daughters, fiction vs. nonfiction, and NYC of many eras! Reserve soon because the event is in-store and will be capped at 50 people.

Please join us in person on Sunday, July 17 at 3pm, as Ada Calhoun reads and discusses her latest book: Also A Poet: Frank O'Hara, My Father, and Me. Publication date: June 14, 2022.

Magic City Books is proud to welcome Ada Calhoun for a free event to celebrate Also A Poet, her staggering memoir tracing her fraught relationship with her father and their shared obsession with a great poet.

Joining Ada in conversation will be Magic City Books co-founder Jeff Martin. They will be in conversation on Tuesday July 12 at 7:00 pm in the Algonquin Room at Magic City Books.

You can order a copy of Also A Poet by Ada Calhoun (to be published on June 14) at Magic City Books or online at: https://magiccitybooks.square.site/product/also-a-poet/773.

A free, in-person event to discuss the staggering new memoir from New York Times-bestselling author Ada Calhoun tracing her fraught relationship with her father and their shared obsession with a great poet.

Alongside Bay Area Book Fest’s Women Lit, we’re proud to host a visit by Ada Calhoun, author of Also a Poet, Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me, in conversation with Ruby member, Kristin Keane, author of Encyclopedia of Bending Time. The event is free but requires registration via this link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/irl-in-conversation-with-ada-calhoun-author-of-also-a-poet-tickets-354419266567

The location of the event will be sent only to registrees.

In honor of Frank O’Hara and Pride Week, we will also be collecting donations on behalf of the Trevor Project, a national, 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide prevention service for LGBTQ youth. This will be an all-genders welcome event.

Staff Pick

I picked this book up because, like Ada Calhoun, and her father, Peter Schjeldahl, I love Frank O'Hara's poems. As I hoped and expected it would, Also a Poet delivered wonderful anecdotes about O'Hara and his milieu that I hadn't previously heard. I was surprised and delighted to be just as invested in Calhoun's focus on her complex relationship with her father, writing, gender, and art. Also a Poet charmed and moved me. I'll be revisiting Frank O'Hara, and seeking out Calhoun's earlier books. Recommended By Adam P., Powells.com

Ada Calhoun will discuss Also a Poet: Frank O'Hara, My Father, and Me. She will be joined in conversation by Jeff Deutsch.

This event will be held in-person at the Seminary Co-op. Masks are required for attendees.

We are thrilled to welcome Ada Calhoun, the author of St. Marks Is Dead, Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give, and Why We Can’t Sleep. Ada has written for the New York Times, the New Republic, and the Washington Post and lives in NYC. Join us at the Farmer's Market under the tent for a conversation!

Join us in person to welcome Ada Calhoun discussing her new memoir Also a Poet! This is an in-store, in person event free and open for all to attend!

Porter Square Books is thrilled to welcome Ada Calhoun for Also a Poet: Frank O'Hara, My Father, and Me. “In this fluidly morphing, magnetically candid chronicle… Calhoun offers an arresting and provocative carousel of family dynamics, creative paradoxes, literary history, unnerving dilemmas, thorny questions of inheritance and legacy, wry humor, and love," praises Booklist in one of the four starred reviews Also a Poet has received from various publications. Alysia Abbott, local author and the head of GrubStreet's memoir incubator program, will join the author in conversation. This event will take place on Wednesday, June 15 at 7pm ET at Porter Square Books: Cambridge edition. Masks will be required for all in attendance. RSVPs, while not required, are strongly recommended!

Join us for a conversation about writing nonfiction about poetry! It’s FREE, and anyone can register, though the target audience is librarians and educators!

Panelists:

Ada Calhoun, Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me, Grove Press: Grove Atlantic

Ross Gay, Joy Is a Force, Algonquin Books: Workman Publishing: Hachette Book Group

Robert Pinsky, Jersey Breaks: Becoming an American Poet, W. W. Norton: W. W. Norton & Company

Moderator: Barbara Hoffert, Editor, Prepub Alert, LJ

THE QUICK PITCH: AUTHORS MEET BOOKSELLERS

Our author guests will rotate from table to table to give booksellers their best 4-minute pitches! Enjoy this fast-paced speed dating event, and discover a spectacular array of books and authors for your store.

Writing about Love in the Modern World : a conversation with Waylon Lewis (Elephant Journal)