In-Store: Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn: I Have This Thing for Flowers w/ Vic Liu
About this Event
Event guidelines:
- Each ticket will include either a copy of the featured book or a $10 Books Are Magic gift card.
- Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
- A signing will follow the talk.
- Home address is collected for contact tracing purposes; it will not be used otherwise.
- The event will also be livestreamed for free here: https://youtube.com/live/lZUhdc6zcmI
- As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event, even if you have a ticket; email us and we'll work it out.
If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact [email protected].
A story of love, marriage, and flowers from beloved writer and gardening enthusiast Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn.
It begins with an ending. Six months before they were to be married, Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn’s fiancée broke off their engagement, leaving her stunned and reeling. Looking for stability — and health insurance — she married a friend instead. Then, while sharing a home and tending to a garden together, the marriage of convenience turned into a marriage of love.
In science, art, and mythology, we cannot help but to see flowers as metaphors for the fleeting nature of youth, vitality, and love. While it’s easy to casually admire something beautiful, it requires a closer look to appreciate the effort that produces that beauty. In I Have This Thing For Flowers, Sawchyn does just that, likening the many flowers she has grown in her garden to a range of relationships and activities from motherhood to ex-boyfriends to Greek mythology.
Cataloguing all of the great romances of her life like an herbarium of flowers preserved from the garden, Sawchyn examines the kinds of love that can't be explained.
Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Bucknell University. Formerly the editor in chief of The Rumpus, she has received fellowships from The Kenyon Review and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Their first essay collection, A Fish Growing Lungs, was a finalist for The Believer Book Awards.
Vic Liu (they/she) is a multidisciplinary artist and writer in Brooklyn, NY. Their work spans themes of Pr*son abolition, marginalized identity, and handicraft. Their previous books include Bang! Masturbation for All Genders and Abilities (Microcosm, Oct 2022) and The Warehouse: A Visual Primer on Mass Incarceration, co-written with James Kilgore (PM Press, July 2024). Most recently, they just finished three months of community organizing throughout their exhibition The Warehouse, in collaboration with Mariame Kaba and Brooklyn Public Library, which seeks to imagine a world beyond prisons.
Where is it happening?
USD 10.89 to USD 31.56
