Calendar of Events

What You Don’t Know: A Story of Liberated Childhood (Dottir Press, JAN 26, 2021), is Higginbotham’s latest book about being young. It illustrates how families, teachers, counselors, and other “stars” are already beaming love at queer, gender nonconforming, and trans children, to protect and bless them as they are. The Roller-skating Party Collage Workshop lets kids put their community in the rink with them—real life people they know and  trust, as well as strangers or historical figures whose radiant and genuine presence (even in spirit) is liberation.

RSVP here to receive a PDF of the roller rink back drop and the link to attend the event by email.

Like most of our events, this event is free. If you decide to attend and to purchase books we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by making a donation or purchasing a gift card below. Thank you!

When you purchase What You Don’t Know: A Story of Liberated Childhood from Malaprop’s below, you will also recieve a pre-printed roller rink backdrop.

SUPPLIES for the Workshop:
•  Pens and pencils
•  Scissors
•  Glue stick
•  Squares or rectangles of plain brown grocery bag (or flattened out packing paper or  construction paper) for creating faces, bodies, and hands
•  Images from magazines and catalogs to make clothes, hair, jewelry, hats, shoes, skates,  wheelchairs, and assistive devices. Nothing has to be like it is in real life. Your people  can have wings and tails, dress in actual flowers, have hair made of fire! Animals can  skate!
•  IMPORTANT—There are no rules about the materials! A pencil or pen and paper is  enough! The back of an envelope or some newspaper is enough! Stick figures are  enough! You can write “my rebel auntie” and “my gay uncle” on a couple of popsicle sticks and skate them all over the rink.

We are thriled to celebrate the release of Ground Zero with Asheville author Alan Gratz! Click here to register to attend on Crowdcast.

Alan Gratz’s eagerly-anticipated new novel is just in time for the twentieth anniversary of 9/11. Ground Zero is another pulse-pounding and unforgettable take on history and hope, revenge and fear — and the stunning links between the past and present. The book tells the parallel stories of Brandon—who is visiting his dad at work at the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001—and Reshmina—who stumbles upon a wounded American soldier in her village in Afghanistan on September 11, 2020. Two kids. One devastating day. Nothing will ever be the same.

Alan Gratz will sign and personalize books purchased from Malaprop’s! Please leave your personalization request in the comments section during checkout. 

This is a free event. If you decide to attend and to purchase the authors’ books, we encourage you to purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. If you would like to support us without purchasing a book, you may purchase a gift card or make a donation of any amount. Thank you!

Alan Gratz is the New York Times bestselling author of several highly acclaimed books for young readers, including Allies, Grenade, Refugee, Projekt 1065, Prisoner B-3087, and Code of Honor. Alan lives in North Carolina with his wife and daughter. Look for him online at alangratz.com.

Malaprop’s is delighted to host the virtual launch event for In Love & Pajamas with Catana and John!

*Your book is your ticket. Pre-order a signed copy of In Love & Pajamas from Malaprop’s to secure your spot at the event. Couples welcome. For personalization use the order comments field to provide the name to which the book should be autographed. Please note that due to Covid-19 related delays in processing and mailing, books will be delivered after February 2.

*When you order the book below, your name and email address will be added to the invitation list for the event. Please order by 4:00 PM ET on February 2 if you wish to attend the live virtual event. Please provide a valid email address when you order and make sure your email filters allow messages from malaprops.com.

*On the day of the event, an email will be sent with the link required to attend.

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Snug and the bestselling Little Moments of Love comes an all-new collection, In Love & Pajamas by Catana Chetwynd of Catana Comics! 

When you’ve reached that sweatpants-wearing cozy place in your relationship, it’s all In Love & Pajamas! This brand-new collection of Catana Comics presents 50 percent never-before-seen comics and some fan favorites that delight and amuse readers of all ages. Wholesome, sweet, feel-good humor, a perfect gift for your other half and a welcome add-on to any wedding, anniversary, or Valentine’s Day gift.

Catana Chetwynd is a self-taught traditional artist and the enthusiastic author of Catana Comics. She grew up in Saratoga Springs, New York, where she spent her time creating art and pursuing an education in psychology until accidentally stumbling into the world of comics. Not only is her fiancé, John, the daily inspiration for her drawings, but he was also the one who suggested a comic series about their relationship in the first place. Thanks to his idea and his inspiring daily antics, Catana was able to pursue her childhood dream of being a cartoonist. She currently lives on the East Coast with John and their tiny, angry dog, Murph.

Joan Frank and Peg Alford are two writers who’ve written to one another over years—beginning with physical letters and now through emails—in the course of which they talk about their writing lives. The authors will choose a section from one another’s books to read.

Click here to RSVP for this event. Prior to the event, we will email you with the link required to attend.

Like most of our events, this event is free. If you decide to attend and to purchase the authors’ books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!

The Outlook for Earthlings traces an unusual, difficult friendship across a lifetime, between women of stunningly opposite natures. Melanie Taper is timid, compelled to obey and venerate authority. Yet in unguarded moments she demonstrates such deadly insight into human foibles as to suggest a strength that has, for dark reasons, deliberately hidden itself. Scarlet Rand, by contrast, is rash, willful, and impatient of reverence of any stripe. Scarlet is shocked by Mel’s passive reserve; despite her obvious gifts, Mel is–bafflingly–self-erasing. Mel’s saintliness maddens Scarlet–because finally and most troublingly, Scarlet disbelieves it. Their friendship suggests to each a final frontier, a saving sanctuary. Yet at its core, a pained impasse soon becomes evident: each woman takes a secret, moral offense at the other’s inmost nature–and choices. Living out these differences–against awareness of the illness which is slowly destroying one of them–proves an ultimate challenge. In each, a reckoning must occur. The Outlook for Earthlings examines what women want, amid conflicting layers of need. It ponders beginnings, endings, and Virginia Woolf’s declaration that good angels must be killed. It considers the limits of friendship–and of the act of witnessing. At its heart, it asks how we may finally measure a life–and who should do the measuring.

Joan Frank is the author of two essay collections and eight novels, including Miss Kansas City, which won the Michigan Literary Fiction Award.

Following her acclaimed debut, Show Her a Flower, A Bird, A Shadow, award-winning author Peg Alford Pursell explores and illuminates love and loss in 78 hybrid stories and fables. A Girl Goes into the Forest immerses readers in the complex desires, contradictions, and sorrows of daughters, wives, and husbands, artists, siblings, and mothers.In forests literal and metaphorical, the characters try, fail, and try again to see the world, to hear each other, and to speak the truth of their longings. Powerful, lyrical, and precise, Pursell’s stories call up a world at once mysterious and recognizable.

A Girl Goes into the Forest invites fans of Lydia Davis and Helen Oyeyemi into a world where “no one can deter a person from her mistakes.”

Peg Alford Pursell is the author of Show Her a Flower, A Bird, A Shadow, a collection of hybrid with praise from Peter Orner, Joan Silber, Antonya Nelson, Glen David Gold, and others, and featured by Poets & Writers magazine’s second annual 5 over 50, December 2017. Her work has appeared in Permafrost, the Los Angeles Review, Joyland Magazine, and other journals and anthologies. She is the founder and director of the national reading series Why There Are Words and of WTAW Press. She lives in Northern California.