In-Person: Where to Carry the Sound by Nina Sudhakar

Join us on Thursday, February 6th for an event with Nina Sudhakar, celebrating the release of Where to Carry the Sound. For this event, Nina will be joined in conversation by Ananda Lima.

Please note: This event is free to attend, but registration is requested. Masks are required for our in-person events.

The stories in Where to Carry the Sound center on characters excavating their own lives: unearthing family secrets, exploring inherited silences, and rediscovering what might have seemed lost to them. Wherever these characters find themselves—including brewing bootleg liquor in Prohibition-era Bombay, finding remnants of a new language at an archaeological dig in Andhra Pradesh, seeking mirages above the Arctic Circle, or setting up an outpost on the moon—each seeks to reconcile a past continually bleeding into the present and to forge a path of belonging to carry them into the future.

“This collection of nine magical stories (including a few actual fairy tales) enchanted me. Many of the stories are set in India, and most of the narrators are women—photographers, bootleggers, archeologists, religious pilgrims, perfumers, and one lonely lunar caretaker. The writing is both lush and lean, and the images of marigolds, haunted villages, and man-killing tigers are memorable. The ends aren’t always happily-ever-after but are always satisfying. Where to Carry the Sound is a delight to read.”—Molly Giles, judge and author of The Home for Unwed Husbands

Nina Sudhakar is a writer, poet, and lawyer based in Chicago. She is the author of Where to Carry the Sound (winner of the 2024 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction) and two poetry chapbooks. Her work has appeared in Salamander, The Rumpus, Witness, and elsewhere. She serves as Dispatches and Book Reviews Editor at The Common and on the board of the Chicago Poetry Center. For more, please see www.ninasudhakar.com.

Ananda Lima is the author of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil and Mother/land, winner of the Hudson Prize. Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Poets.org, and elsewhere. She is a Contributing Editor at Poets & Writers and Program Curator at StoryStudio, Chicago. Craft, her fiction debut, has received starred reviews from Kirkus Review, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal, and was longlisted for the New American Voices Award and the ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. The New York Times describes it as “a remarkable debut that announces the arrival of a towering talent in speculative fiction.” Originally from Brazil, she lives in Chicago and New York.

Accessibility: This event is hosted at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are required. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email [email protected] by no later than 14 days before the event. For other questions or access needs, please email [email protected].

Host or Publisher Women & Children First