TAF Alum Sarah Perry Explores the Sweet and Eclectic World of Candy

Name: TAF Alum Sarah Perry Explores the Sweet and Eclectic World of Candy
Start: 2025-03-18T19:00:00-05:00
Location: Magic City Books

Schedule

Tue, 18 Mar, 2025 at 07:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Magic City Books | Tulsa, OK

Magic City Books is proud to welcome Tulsa Artist Fellowship alum Sarah Perry back to Tulsa in celebration of her new book, Sweet Nothings, with a free, in-store event on Tuesday March 18 at 7:00 pm.
Sarah Perry received the 2020-2022 Tulsa Artist Fellowship and is currently teaching in the graduate program in Creative Writing at the Colorado State University. Her previous book, After the Eclipse: A Mother’s Murder, a Daughter’s Search, was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Poets & Writers Notable Nonfiction Debut, and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick.
Sweet Nothings is a fun collection of essays that catalog the simple and not so simple pleasures of the eclectic world of candy. Illustrated by Forsyth Harmon, Sweet Nothings is a tart and sweet ode to finding small joys where you can.
Sweet Nothings will be published on February 4 by Mariner Books and will be for sale at Magic City Books in store or online at: https://magiccitybooks.square.site/product/sweet-nothings/3115.
About Sweet Nothings
A fun, sophisticated illustrated collection of essays that catalogs the simple and not so simple pleasures of the eclectic world of candy from the award-winning author of After the Eclipse. With illustrations by Forsyth Harmon.
A taxonomy of sweetness, a rhapsody of artificial flavors, and a multi-faceted theory of pleasure, Sweet Nothings is made up of one hundred illustrated micro essays organized by candy color, from the red of Pop Rocks to the purple Jelly Bonbon in the Whitman's Sampler. Each entry is a meditation on taste and texture, a memory unlocked. Everyone's favorites--and least favorites--are carefully considered, including Snickers and Trader Joe's Peanut Butter Cups, as well as the beloved Good n' Plenty and Werther's Originals.
An expert guide and exquisite writer, Sarah Perry asks such pressing questions as: Twizzlers or Red Vines? Why are Mentos eaters so maniacally happy? And in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, how could Edmund sell out his siblings for, of all things, Turkish delight? She rejects the dreaded "What is your favorite candy?" question and counters: Under what circumstances? F The question itself is flawed--favorite under what circumstances? In what weather? On the road, or at home? In what mood? For candy is inextricably tied to the seasons of our lives. Sweet Nothings moves associatively, touching on pop culture, art, culinary history, philosophy, body image, and class-based food moralism. It challenges the very idea of "junk" food and posits taking pleasure seriously as a means of survival.
Sarah Perry's pure love of candy weaves together elegiac glimpses of her 90s childhood--and the loss at its center--with stories of love and desire. Surprisingly smart and frequently funny, Sweet Nothings is a tart and sweet ode to finding small joys where you can. Yes, even in black licorice.
Sarah Perry is the author of the memoir After the Eclipse, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, a Poets & Writers Notable Nonfiction Debut, and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. Perry is the recipient of the 2018 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award and was a nominee for the 2024 MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award from the James Beard Foundation. She holds an MFA in nonfiction from Columbia University, was the 2019 McGee Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Davidson College, and teaches in the graduate program in creative writing at Colorado State University.