Please join us to celebrate the launch of the paperback edition of Heartbroke, with the author Chelsea Bieker in conversation with fellow author Genevieve Hudson.
Heartbroke is a defining book of Californian stories where everyone is seeking or sabotaging love. United by the stark and sprawling landscapes of California's Central Valley, the characters in these stories boil with reckless desire. A woman steals a baby from a shelter in an attempt to recoup her own lost motherhood. A phone-sex operator sees divine opportunity when a lavender-eyed cowboy walks into her life. A mother and a son selling dream catchers along a highway that leads to a toxic beach manifest two young documentary filmmakers into their realm. And two teenage girls play a dangerous online game with destiny. Heartbroke brims over with each character's attempt to salvage grace where they can find it. Told in bright, snapping prose that reveals a world of loss and love underneath, Bieker brilliantly illuminates a golden yet gothic world of longing and abandonment under an unrelenting California sun. The book was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR.
Chelsea Bieker is the author of the debut novel Godshot, which was a finalist for both the Oregon and California Book awards, longlisted for The Center For Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and named a Barnes and Noble Pick of the Month. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, The Cut, Wall Street Journal, McSweeney’s, Los Angeles Review of Books, Lit Hub, No Tokens, Electric Literature, and others. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, as well as residencies from MacDowell and Tin House. Originally from California’s Central Valley, she lives in Portland with her husband and two children.
Genevieve Hudson is the author of the novel Boys of Alabama, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Their other books include the critical memoir A Little in Love with Everyone and Pretend We Live Here: Stories, which was a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist.
Rumor has it there might be cake involved in this event.....
