The Gyre

Join us for an evening with novelist Stacy Carlson, celebrating the release of her new novel, The Gyre, in conversation with poet Paul Corman-Roberts.

Part historical epic, part spiritual odyssey, The Gyre follows Arkady Afanasyev, a nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox monk who journeys into the unforgiving Arctic wilderness to become the northernmost holy man in the world. Armed only with prayer books and pursued by memory, myth, and regret, Arkady traverses a landscape where Orthodox saints, Slavic tricksters, and the immense forces of the natural world converge. The result is an unforgettable meditation on faith, solitude, transformation, and what it means to lose oneself in order to become someone new.

Together, Carlson and Corman-Roberts will explore the novel's remarkable intersection of history, folklore, ecology, spirituality, and imagination. Their conversation will wander through the landscapes that inspired the book and into the deeper questions that animate all great literature: Why do we seek? What do stories reveal that facts cannot? And how does writing become its own kind of pilgrimage?

The evening will begin with a brief reflection from anthropologist Cari Borja, inviting us into a question for our moment: In a world spinning with uncertainty, why do we continue to write? Why do we continue to read? And what do stories make possible that headlines cannot?

Stacy Carlson is a writer who's latest novel, The Gyre, won the 2025 Electric Book Award and the 2026 IndieReader Discovery Award for historical fiction. Her essays and fiction have appeared in Novus Literary and Arts Journal, Tin House, Post Road, Inkwell, Sparkle+Blink, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships from The Mesa Refuge, The Community of Writers, The Arctic Circle, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and Signal Fire. Her background also includes work as a historical ecologist, hot springs caretaker, and hiking guide in Big Sur. Stacy grew up in Seattle, lived for many years in Oakland, and now calls Minneapolis home.

Paul Corman-Roberts is the author of the Firecracker nominated poetry collection Bone Moon Palace (Black Lawrence 2021) and the recently released chapbook 19th Street Station Volume 2 (Collapse Press 2025.) He currently teaches with the Caravan Writers Collective, the San Francisco Creative Writing Institute and the Oakland Unified School District while raising his hellspawn in Oakland CA. Along with Lynn Alexander he is co-founder of Collapse Press and it’s online showcase “The Friday Collapse” and occasionally fills in as drummer for the US Ghostal Service, and his own project, The There Their They’re.