Welcome!
About Reading the City
Welcome to Reading the City, a weekly newsletter of bookish events in and around NYC.
Think of it as your weekly diary of upcoming New York literary life on a need-to-know basis. No long blurbs, no reviews, just book events of all stripes.
I aim to be comprehensive in my coverage, and I won’t prioritize bigger name authors over the lesser-known. But I will highlight anything of particular excitement or noteworthiness in the introduction (this is wholly subjective).
I aim to cover all corners of the city. If I’m missing an awesome bookstore in your neighborhood, I want to know about it!
Due to the sheer quantity of events happening each week (so many readings…), I don’t list events for cookbooks (unless they’re very literary), children’s books, or the very academic/niche.
I don’t tend to list book clubs (that could be a newsletter of its own).
I aim to link to the author’s books, website, or social pages when possible – but it’s just me, so person power around here is in short supply!
I’m a big believer in the power of the literary community to raise each other up, champion one another, and help make this an inclusive and welcoming space for all writers and readers. I am here for feedback or chats. Get in touch anytime!
About me
I’m a Brooklyn-based writer, editor, and teacher, and the author of No Way Home: A Memoir of Life on the Run (St. Martin’s Press) and Amphibian (forthcoming from Virago). I’m here and here on Instagram.
I arrived in New York from London in 2014, knowing just three people. I carried a manuscript I’d written alone in a Victorian outhouse at the end of my mother’s garden in Devon. My entire experience of the writerly life thus far was solitary—and pretty cold. Somehow I found my way to a very special place called the Oracle Club (RIP) in Long Island City, and there I met real life authors for the first time. We stayed up late talking craft, drinking gin, and playing records, or reading poetry and howling into the night. From there, this city gifted me a community, and through that community the practical and intellectual resources I needed to become an author myself. I hope this newsletter offers a small way to give back, shining a spotlight on other authors’ work, and on the reading series, bookshops, and events that give the book community here a home.
