Hello.
I'm delighted to be here tonight to introduce Andrea Lawlor.
This introduction has been supported and inspired
especially by Kate Bernheimer, Isaac Esposto, and Maria Tatar.
As children, if we are very lucky, we are read to,
cross-legged on the floor, tucked into bed,
flashlight under the covers.
We read to ourselves, too.
This space, the reading space, is cozy and magical.
Here, we meet friends who dress up
as rain clouds to catch a bit of honey.
We visit neighbors in upside-down houses,
their chandeliers like campfires in the middle of the floor.
The titular main character of Andrea Lawlor's novel Paul
Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl is
a shapeshifter with a voracious and adventurous
sexual appetite.
Perhaps Paul is not the most suitable companion
for young children, but just under a year ago,
I found myself sitting cross-legged on the floor
of Professor Kate Bernheimer's classroom, listening
as a video-projected Andrea Lawlor read us fairy tales
from their novel for the benefit of their sweet child,
who had snuck into the magical room
of our writerly conversation.
Right now, this week, and always, I
think we could all use some joy.
In the face of horror, dread, fear,
I am trying to seek out joy.
I bought Andrea Lawlor's novel for my brother and then
for myself, so we might explore the queer geography of Paul's
life in the early '90s.
Activist scenes, music festivals, bookstores,
leather bars, and riot girl shows,
places full of beautiful people and ideas and music and sex,
places, to borrow a phrase from Paul Polydoris, that
taste like glitter.
If the world of Paul feels real, it
is because of Andrea Lawlor's rigor,
over 15 years of meticulous research and documentation.
I ask you, as you experience Andrea Lawlor's work,
to also listen and read for familiar storytelling forms.
A student and reteller of Greek myth, Lawlor
conjures personalities and journeys of mythic proportions.
Fairy tales skulk in Iowa City basement shows where--
and I quote from the novel--
"at the bar, a fair young punk emerged from a forest of plaid,
caught Paul's attention by sucking
on one of those fake beers, an O'Douls."
Andrea Lawlor's fiction allows us
to imagine how magic might make us more real, more
various in ways not permitted by current laws of science
or society.
Even in the novel, after Paul's extremely cool friend Jane
makes plans with a cute barista who might be a lesbian, quote,
"Jane experienced a feeling to which she attached first
the word 'abundance,' then the word 'plenitude,' and she
considered how this might indeed be the best of all possible
worlds."
Who better than Jane's author and Paul's author
to lead us tonight into still more better possible worlds?
Andrea Lawlor teaches writing at Mount Holyoke College,
edits fiction for Fence magazine,
and has been awarded fellowships by Lambda Literary and Radar
Labs.
Their work has appeared in various literary journals,
including Ploughshares, Mutha, The Millions, jubilat,
The Brooklyn Rail, F-Word Dinosaur,
and Encyclopedia, Vol.
II.
Their publications include a 2016 chapbook called Position
Papers on Factory Hollow Press.
Their novel Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
was a 2018 finalist for the Lambda Literary and CLMP
Firecracker Awards.
Paul, originally published by Rescue Press in 2017--
it quickly sold out--
is now out from Vintage Knopf in the US and Picador UK
in the UK and Ireland.
Please join me in welcoming to the mic Andrea Lawlor.
[APPLAUSE]