Books and Burlesque combines award-winning writers with exciting burlesque performers for an evening of literary & sexy live entertainment.

BOOKS AND BURLESQUE, Saturday, December 13 from 9:00pm-11:30pm. Doors 9:00pm. Show: 9:30pm-11:30pm with an intermission.

If the show is sold out there will be a waiting list at the door.

We are excited to celebrate the holiday season with LGBTQ+ writers and performers! Featuring award-winning and debut authors reading excerpts from their books: Clarence A. Haynes "The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery" (debut novel) Lauren Morrow "Little Movements" (debut novel), Elissa Altman "Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create " (nonfiction), Eshani Surya "Ravishing," (debut novel), and Peter J. Kim "Instant Ramen Kitchen" (cookbook).

Each author has been paired with a spectacular burlesque or drag performer who will be creating new acts inspired by the books they read! Starring Calamity Chang, Fancy Feast, Professor M, Trinity Starlight and Queensinera. Produced and hosted by Fortune Cookie.

Our local bookstore partner, Book Club Bar (197 East 3rd Street) will be selling signed copies of all our featured authors books.

Eshani Surya joins us to discuss her debut novel RAVISHING, in conversation with editor and publisher Roxane Gay and agent Dana Murphy. The Authors Guild Foundation presents the series From Manuscript to Marketplace as case studies of the path to publication, featuring candid talks between an author and members of their publishing team about each step of the publication process: acquisition, editorial, marketing, and more. A Q&A will follow the presentation; you can pre-submit a question when registering for the event. A recording will be made available for those who cannot attend live. The event will take place via Zoom with automatic closed captioning. To request any other accessibility features, please email support@authorsguild.org and we will make every effort to accommodate.

In an electric book talk that will speak directly to those coming-of-age in a world ever more focused on one's body-image, Eshani Surya introduces Ravishing, her debut novel that tackles the dark side of the beauty industry. Surya will be in conversation with writer and professor Leslie Johnson.

Event guidelines:

• Each ticket will include either a copy of the featured book or a $10 Books Are Magic gift card.

• Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.

• A signing will follow the talk.

• Home address is collected for contact tracing purposes; it will not be used otherwise.

• The event will also be livestreamed for free here: https://youtube.com/live/wzh0H1KjdXk

• As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event, even if you have a ticket; email us and we'll work it out.

If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact eventhelp@booksaremagic.net.

Join Eshani Surya and Emma Copley Eisenberg for a reading, vibrant conversation, and signing to celebrate RAVISHING’s pub day.

A Mixer and Panel Discussion Featuring: John Vercher, Kristen Martin, Eshani Surya, Michael Ivory, Maya Afilalo, and Alexandra Naughton. Moderated by Taylor Townes and Julian Shendelman, Blue Stoop’s Co-Directors

The path from emerging novelist to published author can be winding and mysterious. In this lively panel discussion, writers at various stages of their careers will unpack the strategies, pitfalls, and surprises one might encounter on the way to literary “success,” however you define it. Attendees will witness the power of mentorship in real time, as early career writers get candid answers to key questions about the writing life from those who have made their journey. Before the panel discussion begins, attendees will have the chance to network and connect with other debut and seasoned writers; learn more about local resources, opportunities, and organizations; and enjoy a truly immersive literary experience. Books will be available for purchase.

Michael J. Ivory, Jr. is a Miami, FL native whose journeys have led him to Philadelphia. He explores the magic of Black folks in his work, and alchemizes his queer church boy upbringing into power for himself and others. His work can be read in Waterproof: Evidence of a Miami Worth Remembering and heard in the Audio-Anthology: Who We Are is Made, both published with O, Miami. You can also read his work with Duke and Iansá Magazine. Michael holds an MFA in Fiction from North Carolina State University and is currently writing his debut novel. 

Maya Afilalo is a queer writer living in Philadelphia. The recipient of the 2022 James Hurst Prize for Fiction, her stories and essays appear in New Ohio Review, The Rumpus (Funny Women), Porter House Review, Bayou Magazine, The /tƐmz/ Review, and elsewhere. Maya has an MFA in fiction from North Carolina State University and is working on a short story collection and a novel.

Alexandra Naughton is a writer, publisher, and events producer based in Philadelphia. She is the author of two published novels and at least eight poetry collections. Her latest collection, Sick of Being Inside Myself, was published by House of Vlad Press in September 2025.

Kristen Martin is a writer and critic. Her work has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and elsewhere. She received an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University. The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow is her first book. She lives in Philadelphia.

Eshani Surya is the author of RAVISHING, out in November from Roxane Gay Books/Grove Atlantic. A disabled South Asian writer, Eshani is a 2025 Publishers Weekly Writer to Watch, a 2023 Finalist for the A.C. Bose Grant for South Asian Speculative Literature, a 2022 Asian Women Writer’s Workshop mentee, a 2022 Kenyon Review Writers Workshop scholarship recipient, and a 2021 Mae Fellowship recipient. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The Rumpus, DIAGRAM, [PANK], Catapult, and Joyland, among others, and she holds an MFA from the University of Arizona in Tucson. Find her online at @eshanisurya or at http://eshani-surya.com.  

John Vercher is the author of three novels. His most recent, Devil Is Fine, was named one of TIME Magazine’s Top 100 Books of 2024 and was longlisted for the Aspen Literary Award, The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, The Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, and named a Finalist for the Library of Virginia’s Virginia Literary Award. John serves as returning faculty at Randolph College’s low-residency MFA program and is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing in the graduate and undergraduate programs at Monmouth University, where he also served as the ’24-’25 artist-in-residence. 

Founded in 2018, Blue Stoop provides high quality classes, inspiring events, and transformative professional opportunities to creative writers in the greater Philadelphia area. Blue Stoop envisions a radically inclusive literary community where Philadelphia readers and writers are thriving and supported. Learn more about their work at bluestoop.org

Special thanks to The Author’s Guild for supporting this event. Learn more about their work at authorsguild.org

Join me in celebrating Hyeseung Song’s new paperback!

A daughter of Korean immigrants, Hyeseung Song spends her earliest years in the cane fields of Texas where her loyalties are divided between a restless father in search of Big Money, and a beautiful yet domineering mother whose resentments about her own life compromises her relationship with her daughter. With her parents at constant odds, Song learns more words in Korean for hatred than love. When the family’s fake Gucci business lands them in bankruptcy, Song moves to a new elementary school. On her first day, a girl asks the teacher: “Can she speak English?”

Neither rich nor white, Song does what is necessary to be visible: she internalizes the model minority myth as well as her beloved mother’s dreams to see her on a secure path. Song meets these expectations by attending the best Ivy League universities in the country. But when she wavers, in search of an artistic life on her own terms, her mother warns, “Happiness is what unexceptional people tell themselves when they don’t have the talent and drive to go after real success.” Years of self-erasure take a toll on Song as she experiences recurring episodes of depression and mania. A thought repeats: I want to die. I want to die. Song enters a psychiatric hospital where she meets patients with similar struggles. So begins her sweeping journey to heal herself by losing everything.

Join me in celebration Claire Jia’s new novel, Wanting!

A searing debut novel of envy, longing, and regret across three lives and two countries that asks how far we’ll go for a friendship, a romance, a dream.

Ye Lian is thriving in Beijing. She has a well-paid job, a nice boyfriend, and plans to marry and move into a luxury high-rise apartment. She’s wanting for nothing—until her childhood best friend, Luo Wenyu, comes whirling back into her life after a decade in California with seemingly everything—a successful career as an influencer, a millionaire American fiancé, and a bespoke mansion in the Beijing suburbs—throwing Lian’s own reliable choices into high relief.

As the two women rekindle their friendship, Wenyu reveals a shocking secret about a past love that pushes Lian to question her own relationship. A few neighborhoods away, aging architect Song Chen is forced to confront his own past and the dissolution of his marriage as he’s tasked with building Wenyu’s dream home. And when the dark side of Wenyu’s enviable life emerges and threatens everything Lian and Wenyu have built for themselves, they must make a choice between the stable known and the frightening unknown that may have devastating and unexpected consequences.

In girlhood memories and karaoke afternoons in Xidan Square, in aspirational YouTube channels and billboard ads, in private hotel rendezvous and secret WeChat messages, Claire Jia’s debut novel is a love letter to friendship; a powder keg of impossible, interwoven desires; a siren song that explores why, even as it destroys us, we always want more.

These 90 minute virtual masterclasses, available for purchase individually or as a pair, will guide students through the process of getting an agent. Separated by genre, students in these standalone sessions will learn how to identify the ideal agent, write a successful query letter and choose comp titles, and manage the query process and communications, as well as what happens after you acquire representation. Participants will get an overview of best practices, the opportunity to ask questions about the publishing industry, and helpful tools to shape their future queries.

NONFICTION: Sunday, April 27, 6:30 – 8:00 PM (ET) — Zoom. Taught by Elizabeth Greenspan

FICTION: Wednesday, April 30, 6:30 – 8:00 PM (ET) — Zoom. Taught by Eshani Surya

When writing about the self, the inner state becomes the last frontier. Come explore the borderland between what is known and what is yet-to-be discovered via the writing process across genres with these four Philly authors: Jiordan Castle, Alina Pleskova, Eshani Surya, and Joseph Earl Thomas.

Head House Books returns for the second Philly Bookstore Crawl with a full lineup of events through the day! Stop by to hear readings and get books signed by local writers, including Emma Copley Eisenberg, Eshani Surya, and Alyssa Songsiridej.

Join Barnes & Noble - Philadelphia in Philadelphia, PA on Monday, July 1st at 6pm as we welcome Emma Copley Eisenberg, author of Housemates: A Novel, and Santiago Jose Sanchez, author of Hombrecito into the store for a discussion of their newly published novels. They will be joined in conversation by Eshani Surya.

An AWP panel with Eshani Surya, Mimi Mondal, Swati Sudarsan, Sarah Thankam Mathews & Sophia Babai.

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Despite the innovative art South Asian writers are creating, the United States writing world often expects our work to fit into the same single-story immigrant narrative that has been in vogue for decades. Join five South Asian writers of various intersectional identities as we discuss what South Asian fiction looks like in the 2020s, how we respond to and/or critique our lineages, how we navigate the Western publishing industry, and what we envision for an inclusive South Asian writing community.

AWP panel with Jaclyn Rachel, Eshani Surya, Jess Silfa, Sylvia Chan & Cat Ingrid Leeches.

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Disabled and chronically ill writers are writing vital work, especially in lieu of the COVID-19 crisis. But the writing world, through its in-person events, MFA programs, and tireless publishing expectations, often does not accommodate our needs—meaning that our voices are all too easily lost. Join us as we discuss how disabled writers can protect themselves from the industry’s ableism, as well as how the larger writing community can better support and uplift disabled writers.

Join us for a night of literary competition and lots of fun!

JUDGES:

Literary Merit: Conrad Benner, founder of StreetsDept.com, he's a photo-blogger, curator, and podcaster who was named one of the 76 most influential people in Philly by Philadelphia Magazine. The Guardian named his blog the 'Best Blogs for Travellers', his photography has been printed in Time and Encyclopedia Britannica, and he's co-curator of the booklet series Artseeing: Self-Guided Tours of Philly's Art World

Performance: Sarah Knittel, award-winning theater artist, event producer, and clown, she helped found the Free Fringe Philly festival, produces the monthly variety experience HELLRIDE, and recently wrote and starred in a series of horror comedy shorts called HELLTOWN. Follow her on Insta NOW: @sarahhmonster

Intangibles: Madinah Wilson-Anton, stand-up comedian, Delaware’s 26th District State Representative, she's the first Muslim to be elected to the Delaware State House, and is a champion for econimic and racial justice

READERS:

Round 1:

* Eshani Surya, author of the forthcoming novel, RAVISHING (Roxane Gay Books/Grove Atlantic, 2024), a 2022 Asian Women Writer’s Workshop mentee, a 2022 Kenyon Review Writer’s Workshop scholarship recipient, a 2021 Mae Fellowship recipient and a 2021 Semi-Finalist for Key West Literary Seminar’s Marianne Russo Award for Novel In-Progress

* Tara Murtha, award-winning journalist, policy strategist, writer pursuing an untidy range of topics & forms, and author of the critically-acclaimed Ode to Billie Joe

Round 2:

* Joseph Earl Thomas, author of the memoir Sink and winner the 2020 Chautauqua Janus Prize, he's received fellowships from Fulbright, VONA, Tin House and Breadloaf, and is now an Anisfield-Wolf Fellow at the CSU Poetry Center. His work's appeared in VQR, N+1, Gulf Coast and more, and he's Director of Programs at Blue Stoop, a literary hub for Philly writers

* Zachariah Ohora, author and illustrator of a number of award-winning books including the parent trap for cats epic Niblet & Ralph featured on The Today Show. He's also illustrator of the New York Times best-seller Wolfie the Bunny, and is the Creator and Executive Producer of the forthcoming animated PBS TV series Carl The Collector, about a raccoon on the spectrum

Hosted by LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga (author of the award-nominated novel Collision Theory)

Produced by Dennis DiClaudio, writer, editor and digital media strategist

Join us at Arcadia University for a reading and Q&A session!

Join us for the fourth Bricks Reading event of 2023 at H&H Books on Wednesday, September 20 @ 7PM. The readers are Elisa Gonzalez, Gerardo Sámano Córdova, and Eshani Surya. This event is sponsored by Blue Stoop! Light refreshments will be provided.

Featuring authors Jiordan Castle and Eshani Surya in conversation about Disappearing Act, Castle's debut memoir in verse for teens and adults. Get a free flower with every preorder pickup or purchase of the book at the event! Flowers by Books and Blooms based in West Philly.

This is a free workshop. Speculative fiction is an opportunity to slant reality, destabilize the reader, and dissect the world in interesting and unexpected ways. So let's expand our imaginations and play inside the world of "what if." In this generative session, we'll use prompts, discussion, and freewriting to go from speculative ideas to concepts that will not only engage readers but also deepen the themes in your work playfully and evocatively.

Join us for readings by Eshani Surya, Tobey Ward, Lauren Holguin, and Katie Bennett.

The way we revise is too often a norming process--a push towards sounding more like what institutions and gatekeepers want to hear. In this multidisciplinary class, we'll explore an alternative method of revision: finding the bright spots you love in your work and amplifying those spots until they are your bright sun. This strength-based revision technique seeks to help you discover the beauty that you already bring to writing, and encourages you to believe in it. 

We'll talk through The Bright Spots Revision Method and then you'll revisit a piece you've been stuck on lately. You will transform this work over the course of the class through many revisions, and through generative and thoughtful prompts, you'll rediscover what you love about your work every step of the way. Writers are encouraged to bring in a piece of writing that they've been struggling to revise (less than 1000 words may be more manageable, so excerpts are also completely acceptable), but an idea will work perfectly too. 

Thursdays On the Stoop is a series of free writing programming by Zoom every Thursday from 4 pm - 5 pm. From accountability co-writing to generative prompts to discussions of exciting forms and authors of all genres, these sessions are designed to be a constant structure--every Thursday at 4 you can count on Blue Stoop to plug you into your writing energy with an informal and supportive session.

Join us to celebrate 8 writers taking risks and reading never-before-read work (rough drafts/debuts) within a 3-minute time limit + a community feature + live music. All ages are welcome. Emceed by Raina J. León.

Link here.

Outside of academia, how can literary writers make a living? Most fiction and literary nonfiction authors do not earn enough from book sales alone, but the creative economy offers a variety of ways to sustain yourself while still making space for your art.

Intended especially for new and emerging writers—or any writer interested in a new career path—this panel will discuss how writers can get creative to find income streams from both gig work and job opportunities.

Register here.

Our bodies witness all the events of our lives, both traumatic and joyful. What stories does the body carry and how can we uncover them? Join us for a generative writing session where we will use prompts to map our bodies and discover what hidden truths we are carrying. This session will include reading and discussing short excerpts of writers like Sarah Manguso, Esmé Weijun Wang, and Leslie Jamison. This is a space to excavate, acknowledge, interpret, and nurture our bodies by communicating their histories and memories, along with their hopes and futures.

This is a FREE event with Blue Stoop, but requires registration for the Zoom link.

Register here.

The way we revise is too often a norming process--a push towards sounding more like what institutions and gatekeepers want to hear. In this multidisciplinary class, we'll explore an alternative method of revision: finding the bright spots you love in your work and amplifying those spots until they are your bright sun. This strength-based revision technique seeks to help you discover the beauty that you already bring to writing, and encourages you to believe in it. 

We'll talk through The Bright Spots Revision Method and then you'll revisit a piece you've been stuck on lately. You will transform this work over the course of the class through many revisions, and through generative and thoughtful prompts, you'll rediscover what you love about your work every step of the way. Writers are encouraged to bring in a piece of writing that they've been struggling to revise (less than 1000 words may be more manageable, so excerpts are also completely acceptable), but an idea will work perfectly too. 

Sign up information TBA.

Some writers take pages upon pages to give you goosebumps, while others need less than a thousand words. But a flash piece isn’t just a condensed short story or essay. It’s an art in itself. Join us for a generative writing session while we use prompts and easy tips and tricks to spark your flash prose. We’ll also spend some time with work from writers like Kathy Fish and Monica Brashears as models. This is a space to experiment and play with a flexible, imaginative, and often surprising form!

This is a FREE event with Blue Stoop, but requires registration for the Zoom link.

Register here.

For this Northern Arizona Book Festival ancillary event, Carbon Copy presents a reading and panel with Craig Santos Perez, Eshani Surya, Taylor Brorby, & more.

Zoom Meeting ID: 98887628219

Password: noazbf

The Workshop will be hosting a free I Applied To MFAs: What’s Next? panel for MFA applicants (as well as any of you out there who sat out this cycle, but are thinking of applying down the line).

Our panelists are graduates in poetry, fiction, CNF, and hybrid-genre writing from the University of Alabama, Brown, Cornell, Indiana University, Northern Michigan University, UNC-Wilmington, and Warren Wilson. Members of The Workshop team with MFAs from OSU and CU Boulder will also be in the chat helping answer questions, and the event will be spearheaded by returning moderator Eshani Surya (U of Arizona). We’ll be answering questions on how to proceed once you’ve heard back from your programs, no matter your results.