Author Appearance: Margie Sarsfield - Beta Vulgaris

Join us at Hive Mind Books in Bushwick as author Margie Sarsfield speaks about and signs her new novel, Beta Vulgaris, about a young couple whose foray into sugar beet harvesting take an ominous turn. She’ll be joined in conversation by Brooklyn-based writer Zefyr Lisowski.

This event is free and open to the public. We strongly encourage masking and will have masks available for anyone who needs one.

Books will be available for purchase at Hive Mind Books the night of the event. We ask that all books signed at Hive Mind Books events be purchased from Hive Mind Books. If you already have the book(s) and would like to get them signed, we ask that you buy something else at the store while here, if it’s within your means. Thank you for supporting an independent queer bookstore!

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A young woman’s seasonal job working a sugar beet harvest takes a surreal turn in this surprising and vivid debut.

Elise and her boyfriend, Tom, set off for Minnesota, hoping the paycheck from the sugar beet harvest will cover the rent on their Brooklyn apartment. Amidst the grueling work and familiar anxieties about her finances, Elise starts noticing strange things: threatening phone calls, a mysterious rash, and snatches of an ominous voice coming from the beet pile.

When Tom and other coworkers begin to vanish, Elise is left alone to confront the weight of her past, the horrors of her uncertain future, and the menacing but enticing siren song of the beets. Biting, eerie, and confidently told, Beta Vulgaris harnesses a distinct voice and audacious premise to undermine straightforward narratives of class, trauma, consumption, and redemption.

Margie Sarsfield was the recipient of the 2019 Calvino Prize. She earned her MFA from Ohio State University. Her work has appeared in Salt Hill, CutBank, the Normal School, Seneca Review, Hippocampus, and elsewhere. She lives in Reno, Nevada.

Zefyr Lisowski is the author of the forthcoming Uncanny Valley Girls, an essay collection about horror movies, exes, and intimacy (Harper Perennial 2025). A 2023 NYFA/NYSCA Fellow in Nonfiction and 2023 Queer|Art Fellow, she’s also the author of two poetry collections, Girl Work (Noemi Press 2024) and Blood Box (Black Lawrence 2019). Raised in the Great Dismal Swamp, North Carolina, Zefyr lives in Brooklyn and has seen grave robbers twice.

Host or Publisher Hive Mind Books