Adam Morgan presents A DANGER TO THE MINDS OF YOUNG GIRLS, with Shelbi Polk
Schedule
Thu Jan 08 2026 at 05:30 pm to 07:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
752 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd (Historic Airport Rd, Next to The Root Cellar), Chapel Hill, NC, United States, North Carolina 27514 | Chapel Hill, NC
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The life and times of literary pioneer and queer icon Margaret C. Anderson, who risked everything to be the first to publish James Joyce’s Ulysses in America. Perfect for fans of The Editor, Flapper, and Nasty Women.Flyleaf will offer seating for up to 70 in-person guests, with priority access given to folks who purchase the book. Please indicate in the "Customer Comments" field (at checkout) if you’d like 1-2 seats held for you at the event!
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Already under fire for publishing the literary avant-garde into a world not ready for it, Margaret C. Anderson’s cutting-edge magazine The Little Review was a bastion of progressive politics and boundary-pushing writing from then-unknowns like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, and Djuna Barnes. And as its publisher, Anderson was a target. From Chicago to New York and Paris, this fearless agitator helmed a woman-led publication that pushed American culture forward and challenged the sensibilities of early 20th century Americans dismayed by its salacious writing and advocacy for supposed extremism like women’s suffrage, access to birth control, and LBGTQ rights.
But then it went too far. In 1921, Anderson found herself on trial and labeled “a danger to the minds of young girls” by a government seeking to shut her down. Guilty of having serialized James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses in her magazine, Anderson was now not just a publisher but also a scapegoat for regressives seeking to impose their will on a world on the brink of modernization.
Author, journalist, and literary critic Adam Morgan brings Anderson and her journal to life anew in A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls, capturing a moment of cultural acceleration and backlash all too familiar today while shining light on an unsung heroine of American arts and letters. Bringing a fresh eye to a woman and a movement misunderstood in their time, this biography highlights a feminist counterculture that audaciously pushed for more during a time of extreme social conservatism and changed the face of American literature and culture forever.
Adam Morgan is a culture journalist and critic who lives near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His writing regularly appears in Esquire, and has also been published in The Paris Review, Scientific American, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and more. He spent a decade in Chicago, during which time he founded the Chicago Review of Books and covered the city’s arts and culture for Chicago magazine and the Chicago Reader.
Shelbi Polk is a writer, student, and teacher based in Durham, North Carolina. She covers books for INDY Week and Shondaland, and her work has also appeared in Publishers Weekly, High Country News, Electric Literature, The News & Observer, and other outlets. She is also an MFA candidate at NC State University, where she gets to write ghost stories for graduate credit.
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Where is it happening?
752 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd (Historic Airport Rd, Next to The Root Cellar), Chapel Hill, NC, United States, North Carolina 27514Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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