Victoria Redel with Ruth Ozeki and Carole DeSanti

Join us on Sunday afternoon, October 5 at 4 PM as Victoria Redel talks about her new novel, I Am You, with Ruth Ozeki and Carole DeSanti.

This “lush, sexy, absorbing novel” of historical fiction “brings to life two artists who are inextricably linked in passion and competition” (Melissa Febos, bestselling author of Girlhood)A “captivating” lesbian romance set in the “wonderfully atmospheric” art world of 1600s Amsterdam (Sarah Jessica Parker, SJP Lit)At eight years old, Gerta Pieters is forced to disguise herself as a boy and sent to work for a genteel Dutch family. When their brilliant and beautiful daughter Maria sees through Gerta’s ruse, she insists that Gerta accompany her to Amsterdam and help her enter the elite, male-dominated art world.While Maria rises in the ranks of society as a painting prodigy, Gerta makes herself invaluable in every way: confidante, muse, lover. But as Gerta steps into her own talents, their relationship fractures into a complex web of obsession and rivalry—and the secrets they keep threaten to unravel everything.A mesmerizing historical novel, I Am You is a meditation on gender, an ode to artistic creation, and an unforgettable love story that reimagines the life of renowned still life painter Maria van Oosterwijck during Dutch’s Golden Age.“A stunning accomplishment.” —Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Day and The Hours“A beautiful tale of extraordinary women making their own way in ordinary times.” —Book Riot

Victoria Redel has written four books of poetry, most recently Paradise; her last novel, Before Everything, was published in 2017. Her short stories, poetry and essays have appeared in Granta, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Bomb, One Story, Salmagundi, O,and NOON among many others. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center. She is a professor in the graduate and undergraduate creative writing programs at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York City.

Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. She is the author of the award-winning novels My Year of Meats, All Over Creation, A Tale for the Time Being, and The Book of Form and Emptiness. Her nonfiction work includes the short memoir, The Face: A Timecode and the documentary film Halving the Bones. She is currently completing a collection of stories, The Typing Lady, and Other Fictions, which will be published in the summer of 2026. A longtime Buddhist practitioner, Ruth was ordained as a priest in 2010 and is affiliated the Everyday Zen Foun­dation. She lives in Western Massachusetts, where she taught creative writing at Smith College and is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor Emerita of Humanities.

Carole DeSanti is an author, editor, educator, and co-director of Barnswallow, a new literary and arts gathering space in New England. As Vice President and Executive Editor at Viking Penguin (1997-2018) she was known for her commitment to women and debut writers, and for bringing forward marginalized voices and points of view, for which she received the Publishing Triangle’s Leadership Award. She has written for The New York Times, the Guardian, The Massachusetts Review, and other publications, and her writing has been supported by Hedgebrook, Aspen Words, the Catto-Shaw Foundation, and the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center. From 2019 – 2023, she was the Elizabeth Drew Professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College. Carole’s first novel, The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012), was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection. Her second, Plunder, the Exploits and Adventures of the Notorious Pyrates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, is forthcoming from Zando Projects in 2026.

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