Author Reading and Discussion: Kristen Arnett and Cecily Parks

Book sales, signing, and a reception will follow the program. Co-sponsored by the Michener Center for Writers.

Kristen Arnett is the author of the New York Times-bestselling novel Mostly Dead Things (2019) and the award-winning collection Felt in the Jaw. A queer writer based in Florida, she has written for The New York Times, Guernica, McSweeney’s, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She has been a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and a winner of the Ninth Letter Literary Award in Fiction and the Coil Book Award.

Cecily Parks is the author of three poetry collections, including The Seeds, which was a finalist for the 2026 PEN/Voelcker Award and named one of NPR's Books We Love. She is the guest editor of Best New Poets 2025 and editor of the anthology The Echoing Green: Poems of Fields, Meadows, and Grasses. Her poems appear in The New Yorker, A Public Space, The Nation, The New Republic, several editions of The Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. She teaches in the MFA Program at Texas State University and lives in Austin.

Please have your reservation confirmation ready upon entering. A reservation does not guarantee a seat. Line forms upon arrival of the first patron, and doors open 30 minutes before the event begins. No food or beverages are allowed inside our theater or gallery space.