Michelle Tea w/ Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, FREE LOVE

Michelle Tea, writer, co-creator of Sister Spit, podcast host, and editor of DOPAMINE books, presents her new book Free Love: Adventures in Marriage and Polyamory, alongside Seattle icon Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore.

Masks are recommended per request of the authors.

Registration is not required, but helps us anticipate audience size.

A revelatory and wildly entertaining chronicle of polyamory, from PEN/America Award winner, Guggenheim fellow, and beloved literary and tarot icon Michelle Tea.

In recent years, polyamory has become a topic of fascination for the general public, but it has long enjoyed a great deal of popularity in many subcultures formerly deemed “underground” or “alternative.” Having been a member of these communities for years, Michelle Tea explores the complexity, beauty and affirmation of this practice with candor, humor, and deep appreciation. Combining her prodigious skills as a storyteller, deep research, and the kind of gonzo reporting that has earned her scores of dedicated readers, Tea takes us into the lives and hearts of those who are creating new relationship systems and forms of honest, ethical communication.

Infused with the warmth and introspection that inform all of her various artistic practices, Free Love is Tea’s clarion call for greater visibility, acceptance, and a kinder, more sensual world. It is an unforgettable narrative from one of our most spirited ethnographers.

Michelle Tea is the author of over a dozen books, including the cult-classic Valencia, the essay collection Against Memoir, and the memoirs Black Wave and Knocking Myself Up. She is the recipient of awards from the Guggenheim, Lambda Literary, and Rona Jaffe Foundations, PEN/America, and other institutions. Tea's cultural interventions include brainstorming the international phenomenon Drag Queen Story Hour, co-creating the Sister Spit queer literary performance tours, and occupying the role of Founding Director at RADAR Productions, a Bay Area literary organization, for over a decade. She also helmed the imprints Sister Spit Books at City Lights Publishers, and Amethyst Editions at The Feminist Press. She produces and hosts the Your Magic podcast, where she reads tarot cards for Roxane Gay, Alexander Chee, Phoebe Bridgers, and other artists, as well as the live tarot show Ask the Tarot on Spotify Greenroom.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of seven books, and the editor of six anthologies. Her new novel, Terry Dactyl, was described by the New York Times Book Review as “a remarkably grounded look at what it means to be fully alive.” Her next book, Social Distancing, will be published in March 2027, and her next anthology, ACT UP Beyond New York: Stories and Strategies from a Movement to End the AIDS Crisis, will be out in Fall 2027.