Memorial
Second Tuesday presents: Bryan Washington in conversation with Pamela Sneed
Join Bryan Washington and Pamela Sneed as they discuss Washington’s debut novel, “Memorial.”
“Memorial” was on a dozen best-book-of-2020 lists and won a number of awards. Vogue magazine called it “A fresh, vibrant love story that interweaves race, queerness, nationality, family, and intimacy with narrative ease.” In the novel, Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson is a Black day care teacher. They’ve been together for a few good years, but now they’re not sure why they’re still a couple. There’s the sex, companionship, and love. But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye, leaving his mother in Benson’s care.
Washington will discuss the novel with Pamela Sneed, the poet, performer, visual artist, and educator who has been recommended by the NY Times. About her memoir “Funeral Diva”, the NY Times said that “Sneed is an acclaimed reader of her own poetry, and the book has the feeling of live performance. Its strength is in its abundance, its desire for language to stir body as well as mind.”
Please support The Bureau of General Queer Divison bookstore by purchasing the book here.
ABOUT BRYAN WASHINGTON
Bryan Washington is a National Book Award “5 Under 35” honoree, and winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. His first book, the story collection “Lot,” was a finalist for the NY Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award as well as well as one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2019. Washington has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, BuzzFeed, Vulture, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Tin House, One Story, Bon Appétit, and GQ. He lives in Houston.
ABOUT PAMELA SNEED
Pamela Sneed is a New York-based poet, performer, visual artist, and educator who has been recommended by the NY Times. She is the author of the praised memoir “Funeral Diva,” the chapbook of poems and essays “Sweet Dreams,” and poetry books “KONG” and “Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery.” Sneed has performed at the Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Poetry Project, The High Line, the New Museum, and the Toronto Biennale. She appears in Nikki Giovanni’s “The 100 Best African American Poems,” and has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes.
DETAILS
Thursday, February 11, 2021
6:30 p.m. ET