"Adulting for Amateurs" With Jess H. Gutierrez

As part of Tulsa LitFest and Independent Bookstore Day, we are excited to welcome Jess H. Gutierrez for an event to celebrate her latest book, Adulting for Amateurs. Jess will be in conversation with bookseller Kelly Brown.

In Adulting for Amateurs, Jess marvels at how—we can’t avoid the fact anymore—her cohort, the millennials, are approaching middle age. While 1998 seems like just yesterday, we are now grown-ups who feel like we’re still growing up. And at 42, Jess has quite a trove of stories to tell.

“With self-deprecating humor, Gutierrez, who was born in 1984, unpacks the bewildering experience of becoming the adult in the room regardless of feeling mature enough for the job... Wincingly relatable.” —Publishers Weekly

After the conversation, Jess Gutierrez will sign books. You can purchase a copy through Magic City Books ahead of time or at the event.

About the Book

From the author of A Product of Genetics (and Day Drinking) comes a rowdy and hilarious new collection of essays on life as an elder millennial, filled with life lessons on everything from marriage to parenting to rolling with the punches when Gen Z mocks your TikTok dances.

In Adulting for Amateurs, Jess H. Gutierrez marvels at how—we can’t avoid the fact anymore—her cohort, the millennials, are approaching middle age. While 1998 seems like just yesterday, we are now grown-ups who feel like we’re still growing up. And at forty-two, Jess has quite a trove of stories to tell.

Jess is leaning into her geriatric millennial years and reflects on how growing up does not necessarily bestow one with maturity. When the dinner covers were lifted to reveal vertically posed sausages, hundreds of the fanciest wedding guests, including the mayor, were treated to a demure and refined Jess’s explosive guffaws. While Jess’s brothers now have wholesome families and responsible jobs, she can’t stop one-upping them, even if it gets her brother nearly fired by a potty-brained prank right before he scrubs into surgery. When Jess and her wife booked their first grown-up vacation, they discovered too late that their Hawaiian trip was to a Mormon resort and therefore completely alcohol free. So Jess and her wife bravely put on their big-girl panties—and slunk off in a makeshift escape from this cheerful teetotaler paradise.

Turns out, even as a responsible homeowner with a mortgage, three kids, and a yard of chickens, Jess might not have matured much beyond her twenties. She’s still the woman who in an earlier era survived queer-dating fails and aughts-era pop culture moments—ultimately discovering that an illegal rave cannot heal a broken heart and that vampire-romance franchises are terrible dating manuals for a budding trailer park lesbian.

Altogether these are the makings of delightful material for this bawdy—sometimes poignant and, dare we say, occasionally wise—new read.

About the Author

Jess H. Gutierrez is the author A Product of Genetics (and Day Drinking) and a humor columnist for Paxton Media Group newspapers. She was an award-winning reporter for the Northwest Arkansas Times and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and has written for Out magazine and Electric Literature. She lives with her wife, a fire captain, and three small kids who have already surpassed Jess in both intellect and cunning. They live in Arkansas.

About the Moderator

Originally from Texas, Kelly Brown (she/her) found her way to Oklahoma by way of the University of Oklahoma, where she majored in Journalism and History. Although she considered a career in academics or museums, obtaining several graduate degrees and certificates at the University of Tulsa and Ohio University, she always knew her heart belonged in the stacks. When not at Magic City Books, she can be found at home with her 3 kids, playing a board game, working a puzzle, attempting a new hobby, or trying to nourish the creative side of her soul.

Tulsa LitFest is brought to you by The Center for Poets and Writers, Tri City Collective, and Magic City Books.

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