Ivan & Misha, 40 Wild Crushes, and The Root: Books at July 2016 Perfectly Queer

  

In Ivan and Misha, a novel in linked stories by Michael Alenyikov, events swirl around fraternal twins and their father, Louie, as they make their way from Soviet-era Kiev to New York City in the late nineties and early aughts. Socially adrift, father and sons search for meaning in their divergent romantic relationships. Louie embarks on a traditional heterosexual dating relationship late in life, Ivan is sexually opportunistic and omnivorous, and Misha is torn between his family and the prospect of a committed gay relationship. The brothers’ search for connection leads them through a multitude of subcultures, all depicted in vivid detail.

40 Wild Crushes: Stories by Lambda Literary Award Winner Jim Provenzano is comprised of new and previously stories, as well as excerpts from Provenzano’s forthcoming novels. He presents teenage lust in summer theatre, cheating boyfriends on “The Tonight Show,” a transgender performer on the rise, and an escapee from a pumpkin farm—among other vivid characters and stories. Varying from terse accounts of an anti-gay assault to a post-9/11 moment of resolution, Provenzano shares a diverse array of contemporary experiences in rural Ohio and New York City, at funerals and wrestling matches, inside Manhattan cathedrals and Paris museums.  

The Root by Na’amen Gobert Tilahun is a dark, gritty urban fantasy debut set in modern-day San Francisco, filled with gods, sinister government agencies, and worlds of dark magic hidden just below the surface. When a secret government agency trying to enslave you isn’t the biggest problem you’re facing, you’re in trouble. A darkness is coming, something no one has faced in living memory. It eats. It hunts. In The Root, a dark and surging urban fantasy, two worlds must come together if even a remnant of one is to survive.

Michael Aleynikov, Author of Ivan and Misha

Michael Aleynikov is the pen name of the author of Ivan and Misha: A Novel in Stories, the forthcoming novella collection Sorrow's Drive: A Quartet, a novel in progress Angor Anime--the conjoined lives of four friends told from a different viewpoint each chapter, and numerous short stories published in literary magazines and anthologies, including the Chicago Quarterly Review of Books, the Georgia Review, the James White Review, Modern Words, and New York Stories.  He is a MacDowell Fellow and Gina Berriault Award winner.  Ivan and Misha won the Northern California Book Award for Fiction and was nominated for the Edmund White Award.  His short stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and other honors.

Michael is originally from New York City but now lives in San Francisco.  He has worked as a cab drive, bookstore clerk, "interactive media writer," and a clinical psychologist.  He is the organizer of a  long-running free-write group in San Francisco and is a known frequenter of coffee shops and bookstores.

He will read from Ivan and Misha in "The Long & Short of It," the July 11 Perfectly Queer reading at Books Inc. Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness Avenue, in San Francisco.  Wine and appetizers at 6:45 p.m.  Readings begin at 7 p.m.  www.facebook.com/events/619573908219248 to rsvp.

A Place for Us, a Time and Place for Us

It's depressing when a bookstore closes, especially when it's become your home. As we've blogged, when Books Inc. Castro closed, the Books Inc. owners asked us to continue the Perfectly Queer book reading series at the Opera Plaza store. That store will be adding Queer books on display and hopes to host Queer book clubs and events. We agreed to move. Here's a photo of the entrance. The location is on Van Ness between Golden Gate and Turk in the Civic Center cultural district, just up from the Symphony and the War Memorial Opera House. There's a parking garage in the building, buses run along Van Ness and you're only a 15 minute walk from the MUNI stop at Van Ness or the BART stop at Civic Center. Come see us Monday, July 11--6:45 for wine, water and snacks, 7pm for readings by Michael Aleynikov, Jim Provenzano and Na'amen Gobert Tilahun. More info at https://www.facebook.com/events/619573908219248/

The Long & Short of It

Here's the poster for the July 2016 Perfectly Queer book reading at our new home, Books Inc. Opera Plaza. Come see us at 601 Van Ness in San Francisco on Monday, July 11--6:45pm for wine and desserts, 7pm for the readings. 3 authors who write short fiction AND long fiction will be reading. Panel discussion and book signing follow the readings. Here's the link for more information: Facebook.com/events/619573908219248/