Authors on Tap: Marie-Helene Bertino and Rebecca Makkai

Please join us in person on Tuesday, February 6th at 7:00pm central to help celebrate Marie-Helene Bertino's new novel, Beautyland. If you have spent any time with us, you have heard us rave about Marie-Helene's phenomenal novel, Parakeet! You can imagine just how excited we are to finally host Marie-Helene in person! Marie-Helene will be in conversation with Exile MVP Rebecca Makkai!
About Beautyland:
A wise, tender novel about a woman who doesn't feel at home on Earth, by the acclaimed author of Parakeet.

At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she is different; she also possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of earthlings.

For years, as she moves through the world and makes a life for herself among humans, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and surprising joys of their existence. But at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her messages with the world. Is there a chance she is not alone?

A blazing novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life in our universe, Marie-Helene Bertino's Beautyland is a remarkable evocation of feeling in exile at home and introduces a gentle, unforgettable alien for our times.
About the authors:
Marie-Helene Bertino is the author of the novels Parakeet (NYTimes Editor's Choice) and 2 a.m. at The Cat's Pajamas, and the short story collection Safe as Houses.Awards includeThe O. Henry Prize, The Pushcart Prize, The Iowa Short Fiction Award, The Center for Fiction NYC Emerging Writers Fellowship andThe Frank O'Connor International Short Story Fellowship in Cork, Ireland.In June 2021, "Disrupting Realism," an online master class and panel she designed for Electric Literature to make graduate level resources available at no charge, was attended by 1,300 people. She has taught in the Creative Writing programs of NYU, The New School, and Institute for American Indian Arts. She teaches in the Creative Writing Department at Yale University. Her fourth book, the novel Beautyland, will be published in January 2024 by FSG. More info: www.mariehelenebertino.com

Rebecca Makkai is the author of this year’s New York Times bestselling as well as the novels, , and , and the short story collection . The Great Believers was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and received the ALA Carnegie Medal and the LA Times Book Prize among other honors. A 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, Rebecca teaches graduate fiction writing at Northwestern University, UNR Tahoe, and Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English; and she is Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago. She lives in Chicago and Vermont.

About this event:
This event is a free, in person event and registration is required. Please click on the link below to register for free! Marie-Helene and Rebecca will be happy to sign/personalize copies of their books after the event! Can't make it to the event? We will have signed copies available in store and online with national shipping.

Host or Publisher Exile in Bookville