#s: Connor x Edgar

[sadserotonin]

so you’ve got your murder husbands wires crossed... aka a comprehensive method to our madness @lewistan

[hub-pub-bub]

‘Bringing Together Authors and New Audiences’

The National Book Foundation’s spring NBF Presents lineup of two dozen events comprises sessions in many parts of the United States, all set between January and May.

This is the second season of expanded outreach programming made possible by a three-year $900,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Publishing Perspectives readers will recall the program moving into 10 states in its first season.

This season of NBF Presents—a moniker under which all of the Foundation’s public programs now fall—highlights the foundation’s continued commitment to providing and supplementing national access to literary programming at libraries, colleges, festivals, conferences, schools, and performance venues in a wide range of American communities.

In addition to standalone events bringing foundation-honored authors to new cities for public conversations and panels, the spring season of NBF Presents will include two large events—in Albuquerque and New Orleans—tied to the Foundation’s Author in Focus and Literature for Justice programs.

While the season will see the return of programming with partners in New York, Minnesota, Texas, Massachusetts, Florida, Arizona, and other states, the foundation is also newly partnering with five libraries, five colleges and universities, and four festivals.

In a prepared statement, David Steinberger, chairman of the board of directors of the foundation, is quoted, saying, “For the foundation, the launch of NBF Presents was a promise to continue to think about access to literature and quality literary programming in a truly national way.

“The National Book Awards and the work of the foundation exist to reach beyond any one region and any one type of reader. NBF Presents makes that possible, bringing authors and new audiences together for meaningful discussions around books and the universal themes to which they are able to speak.”

At an NBF Presents event in Albuquerque, where this spring’s program will see a large-scale event. Image: National Book Foundation

Foundtaion-Honored Authors on the Road

As with the fall 2018 season, the spring season will offer conversations on an array of relevant themes to a wide range of communities in regions across the country.

Authors confirmed to appear at NBF Presents events in the spring season include Carol Anderson, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Robin Benway, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Jamel Brinkley, Robert A. Caro, Jennifer Clement, Leslie Connor, Sloane Crosley, Charmaine Craig, Anthony Doerr, Casey Gerald, Daniel Gumbiner, Adam Haslett, Brandon Hobson, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Victoria Johnson, Min Jin Lee, Robin Coste Lewis, Karan Mahajan, Rebecca Makkai, Ibram X. Kendi, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Sigrid Nunez, Tommy Orange, Erika L. Sánchez, Sarah Smarsh, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, John Edgar Wideman, Monica Youn, and Kevin Young, with more to be named.

“The National Book Awards and the work of the foundation exist to reach beyond any one region and any one type of reader.” – David Steinberger

Programs will include continued partnerships with Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, and Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. These recurring campus events, presented under the program title NBA on Campus in years past and the inspiration for the expanded work through NBF Presents, will take place as part of NBF Presents in 2019.

The NBF Presents lineup also includes a new season of the “Eat, Drink & Be Literary” series, presented since 2006 with the Brooklyn Academy of Music and comprising unique evenings of dinner and conversation with acclaimed contemporary writers. Events tied to two of the foundation’s other programs—Author in Focus: James Baldwin, supported by funding from Velvet Film via the Ford Foundation, and Literature for Justice, made possible by a grant from the Art for Justice Fund—will also be part of the spring season, in Albuquerque and New Orleans.

Since its launch last year, NBF Presents has put an emphasis on working with new partners at a variety of presenting venues, including public libraries able to program around their communities’ audiences and interests. This month at the Tulsa City-County Library, the site of one of the first of the season’s programs, 2017 NBA Winner Robin Benway (Far From the Tree) and Brandon Hobson, an Oklahoma resident and 2018 NBA Finalist (Where the Dead Sit Talking), will delve into themes of family, childhood, and identity, topics which both of their Awards-honored novels address at length.

“Tulsa City-County Library is thrilled to partner with the National Book Foundation to bring authors Robin Benway and Brandon Hobson to Central Library,” said Rebecca Harrison, assistant manager at the central branch of the library. “The NBF Presents program has given our library the opportunity to start a community-wide conversation about fiction and family, with the help of two acclaimed authors.”

Established Partnerships Maintained in Spring Season

The 2019 spring season will continue establishing new partnerships with colleges and universities throughout the country, including an event this month at the Community College of Philadelphia, where 2018 National Book Award longlister Nafissa Thompson-Spires (Heads of the Colored People) and two-time National Book Awards author Adam Haslett (You Are Not a Stranger Here and Imagine Me Gone) as they discuss the vitality of stories that reflect the lives of everyday people, the struggles they face, and how humor can work to reveal deeper truths.

Jeffrey Markovitz, director of the creative writing certificate program at the Community College of Philadelphia, is quoted by the foundation, saying, “The Community College of Philadelphia is excited to welcome National Book Foundation—honored authors to our campus.

“Philadelphia has a rich literary tradition and community, and our students are always enthusiastic to meet and discuss craft with established writers. Such an event gives our students the chance to see where they themselves may be as working writers.”

An updated NBF Presents calendar will soon be available at the Foundation’s site.

At an NBF Presents event in Boston in 2018’s inaugural season. Image: National Book Foundation

More from Publishing Perspectives on the National Book Foundation and its programs is here.

[sadserotonin]

längre | connor&edgar

It wasn’t the deep rumbling storm that had been booming around the vineyard all night that jolted Connor to alert consciousness, but rather the pinched echo of the power cutting out around him. Given the immediate darkness that his eyes were met with, Connor should have been reaching for the pistol that he kept fixed behind the headboard in case of particularly skilled intruders. That, or the knife beneath his ornate bedside lamp, or the revolver beneath the nightstand. But what he reached for instead, on sheer instinct and unquestionable priority, was his boyfriend. It was powerful pull to hearing the man’s voice in a pitch he wasn’t used to, trembling with debilitating urgency.

With his back pressed to Connor’s chest, Edgar was already safer than he would be anywhere else in the world, but the demons of his mind lived outside the confines of their existence and Connor knew as much. His voice lacked its usual rasp when he urged Edgar to turn towards him, firm when the man seemed too paralyzed to do so on his own. And as they faced each other, Connor searched for Edgar’s hand to guide it to his bare and brutally textured chest. Connor had never been well-spoken enough to tell Edgar that he was there for him, but he was capable of pressing Edgar’s fingertips against each link of the chain around his neck. The very present that never left his skin, rain or shine. 

Connor still didn’t have the right words to plead, it’s me by your side, I have never let you be harmed and I never will. But he did thread each of his fingers with Edgar’s, holding the man’s hand steadfast to squeeze the silver bands and stones that decorated his digits against Edgar’s skin. Given the time of night, some of the more embellished pieces were missing from the line-up, but at least one always remained on Connor’s person. It’s me, that one prized ring begged. It’s me and you don’t just adore me, you have adorned me. 

Connor leaned his forehead to forehead to Edgar’s, a breath shaking through his lips as though the younger man’s pain cut him just as deep. He was never good with words but Connor would never let the demons lurking in the dark prevail, and tonight, he needed Edgar to know why. “Jag älskar dig.” His heart pounded louder in his ears now than either of the nights he had pulled the trigger on the living manifestation of Edgar’s fears. “I love you.” The gravel had returned to his voice but only from the gravity of his fealties. “You are brave and magnificent and a good man. And I love you for it.” 

On his next deep breath, Connor carefully untangled their hands, replacing the cool metal of his rings against Edgar’s jaw. “You are safe,” he implored his prince to believe strongly enough to come back to him for the few moments of darkness that remained, before they could reclaim the lives they’d cultivated together. “Je t'aimerai jusqu'à bout. Je t'aimerai plus longtemps.”

[sadserotonin]

[  INCOHERENT  ]: for whichever of the dummies you’d prefer

[  INCOHERENT  ]: while sick/feverish/intoxicated/otherwise incoherent, the sender tells the receiver that they love them.

Waiting for the best doctors in the country to be flown in specially to aid him should not have been such a grueling experience, but for Connor, it was hard to focus on much more than the bullet holes that had been ripped into him earlier that day. He hadn’t missed a beat between retaliating to the attack and settling himself somewhere safe to self-treat despite the tremble in his hand and the sweat sheening his forehead. There was something almost nostalgic about fashioning a tourniquet to save Edgar yet again, just in a different sense this time. But it was worth it now just as it had been then, and Connor made as much known.

Or at least he tried to. Further than spilling out in his native tongue, Connor’s words were fragmented at best, crammed between pained groans and involuntary chills. He wasn’t a man who easily reached for comfort but gripping Edgar’s hand seemed to ground his feverish skin from its boiling point, and he drank in the precious seconds he was spared to simply breathe. Losing the train of thought he was on a moment earlier, Connor found a moment of focus in the hazel of Edgar’s eyes to ask in English, “You’re okay, my love?” 

Whether he licked his lips from the unfamiliarity of the endearment or the faint metallic taste on them was unknown to even him. And though he waited for an answer to his misplaced worry, whatever Edgar provided was fleeting in the haze of his mind anyway. 

Connor knew very well that he was supposed to stay awake in these situations, but every last bit of strength left in him was busy relentlessly pressing his fingers against Edgar’s. He was tired. “Min kärlek…” he mumbled, belatedly realizing that he couldn’t expect Edgar to have actually retained any snippets of Swedish he’d playfully imparted in their sweeter, more relaxed moments between the sheets. “Min kärlek.”

His blink this time lingered longer than the last. As the darkness behind his lids beckoned quietly, he wondered, had he prefaced his question as well as he meant to? Had he reminded Edgar that he wasn’t to blame in any of this, reminded him why the outcome of Connor’s sacrifices were so important? Had he explained why he acted as he did with the right combination of syllables? The real important ones, those three foolish words that he’d never spoken to another soul before?

Connor would have to ask Edgar himself when he awoke. And he would wake, for leaving the man at his side alone was simply not an option. For now though, he would rest.