Seattle writers Manning, Millares Young and Koh all met each other around the same time, while they were still at work, writing and wondering if anyone would finally publish them. Each author’s book had a particular intimacy they were striving to find within their own lives and communities. The manuscripts all found homes recently with West Coast independent presses—but the literary kinships between these authors run even deeper.

To join us for the free launch We Had No Rules, Subduction, and The Magical Language of Others, register in advance for the Zoom webinar. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event. If you would prefer not to use Zoom, we will be premiering a recording of the event on Youtube the following evening from this page and on social media.

During their reading, the authors will be arranging bouquets and house plants in the foreground of the video—we encourage you to join us in doing the same! And, we encourage you to order these writers’ books from co-presenter Elliott Bay Book Company, or from your favorite independent bookstore (links below).

Corinne Manning is the author of the debut story collection We Had No Rules (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020), which has received starred reviews from Booklist and Publisher’s Weekly—the latter noting it “exquisitely examines queer relationships with equal parts humor, heartache, and titillation.” Their stories and essays have been published widely, including in Toward an Ethics of Activism and Shadow Map: An Anthology of Survivors of Sexual Assault. Corinne is a Writer-in-Residence for Writers in the Schools and founded The James Franco Review, a project that sought to address implicit bias in the publishing industry. Buy We Had No Rules.

Kristen Millares Young is the author of Subduction (Red Hen Press, 2020), named a staff pick by the Paris Review and called “whip-smart” by the Washington Post. A prize-winning journalist and essayist, Kristen serves as Prose Writer-in-Residence at Hugo House. Her reviews, essays and investigations appear in the Washington Post, the Guardian, and the anthologies Latina Outsiders: Remaking Latina Identity and Pie & Whiskey, a New York Times New & Notable Book. She was the researcher for the New York Times team that produced “Snow Fall,” which won a Pulitzer Prize. From 2016 to 2019, she served as board chair of InvestigateWest, a nonprofit newsroom she co-founded to protect vulnerable peoples and places of the Pacific Northwest. Buy Subduction.

E. J. Koh is the author of the memoir The Magical Language of Others (Tin House Books, 2020) and the poetry collection A Lesser Love (Pleiades Press, 2017) winner of the Pleiades Press Editors Prize for Poetry. Her poems, translations, and stories have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Slate, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. She has accepted fellowships from the American Literary Translators Association, Kundiman, the MacDowell Colony, and others. Koh earned her MFA at Columbia University in New York for Creative Writing and Literary Translation. She is completing her PhD in English Language and Literature at the University of Washington in Seattle. You can find her on Twitter @thisisEJKoh. Buy The Magical Language of Others.

Paul Lisicky, our moderator for the evening, is the author of five books, including Later: My Life at the Edge of the World, The Narrow Door, and Famous Builder. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts, among others. He teaches in the MFA program at Rutgers University and lives in Brooklyn. Buy Later: My Life at the Edge of the World.