The Power of Desire with Caro de Robertis and R.O. Kwon

Join bestselling authors Caro de Robertis and R.O. Kwon for an electric Valentine’s Day conversation on the power of desire in writing. In Palace of Eros, Robertis rewrites Olympus in a sapphic tale of infatuation and independence with lovers Psyche and Eros. In Exhibit, Kwon depicts an intense affair between artists Jin and Lidija, bound together by passion, ambition, and a family curse. Both authors defy conventional depictions of love, lust, and longing while bringing forth innovative and intoxicating queer narratives. 

About the Authors

A writer of Uruguayan origins, Caro De Robertis is the author of the forthcoming So Many Stars: an Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color (May 2025), as well as The Palace of Eros, a finalist for the Octavia Butler CALIBA Golden Poppy Award; The President and the Frog, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award; Cantoras, winner of a Stonewall Book Award and a Reading Women Award, a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and a Lambda Literary Award, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice; The Gods of Tango, winner of a Stonewall Book Award; Perla; and the international bestseller The Invisible Mountain, which received Italy’s Rhegium Julii Prize. De Robertis is also an award-winning translator of Latin American literature, and editor of the anthology Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times. De Robertis is a professor at San Francisco State University, and lives in Oakland, California with their two children.

R. O. Kwon is the author of the nationally bestselling, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, which was published in 2024. Kwon’s bestselling first novel,, has been translated into seven languages and was named a best book of the year by over forty publications. The Incendiaries was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award. Kwon and Garth Greenwell co-edited, a New York Times Notable Book. Kwon’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, New Yorker, Time, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and awards from MacDowell, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Yaddo. Kwon was the Stein Visiting Writer at Stanford University and the Mary Routt Chair of Writing at Scripps College, and has taught at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Workshop, and the University of San Francisco. Born in Seoul, Kwon has lived most of her life in the United States.

Host or Publisher Mechanics' Institute