TOC Reading Series + Craft & Release: Varela! Flournoy! Hansen!
A collaborative reading (with some audience participation!) with Craft & Release!
Readers of Content,
We’re excited to be back at Insa on Tuesday, October 21st! For our first full-on-fall event of the season, we’re adding some collaboration to the recipe, partnering with Craft & Release to celebrate storytelling in both written and spoken form. For this lineup we’ll have two beloved returning TOC alums alongside a dynamic storyteller (and debut-novelist-in-progress!) from the C&R community. We’ll also incorporate a few other signature Craft & Release touches like a portrait booth and some audience participation moments (!) we can’t wait to share with you.
We connected with Craft & Release last year and have been dreaming up a collab for a while now. I got to attend one of their “Release” storytelling events earlier this year and love the community vibe they’ve cultivated through gathering around stories both in their creation and in their presentation in the world. The space they create for artists across mediums, and for those who may not think of themselves as storytellers (but of course have their own brilliant stories inside) is really special. We’re so thrilled to be putting this event together, together!
Here’s some more info on our guests and Craft & Release, and a link to tickets. Additional event info (including the venue’s accessibility) is also below.
Alejandro Varela (he/him) is based in New York. His work has appeared in the Boston, Yale, and Georgia Reviews, The Point Magazine, Harper’s, and The Offing, among other publications. His debut novel, The Town of Babylon, was a finalist for the National Book Award. His short story collection, The People Who Report More Stress, was a finalist for the International Latino Book Awards, and longlisted for the Aspen Literary Prize, the Story Prize, and the Jean Stein Awards.
Angela Flournoy’s new novel, The Wilderness, will be released by Mariner Books in fall 2025. Her debut novel, The Turner House, was a finalist for the National Book Award. The novel won the VCU Cabell First Novel Prize and was also a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and an NAACP Image Award. Her nonfiction has appeared in many publications, including *The New York Times, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker.
Melinda Hansen lives in Greenwich Village, where she is at work on her debut novel. She writes wry reflections on culture, family, solitude, and the textures of city life. Melinda’s essays and travel writing have appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, Fodor’s, and The New York Times. Excerpts of her work can be found at The Lonely Villager.
About Craft & Release: Craft & Release is a global community for artists across mediums to sharpen their skills, share their stories, and connect with fellow creatives. Established on the belief that our gifts are not ours to keep, Craft & Release curates specialty craft workshops, showcases, and a dynamic mix of live and digital events—including a monthly storytelling series and annual film festival—designed to help artists bring their visions into the world. Through partnerships with leading brands such as Apple and Warner Music, Craft & Release bridges the gap between emerging voices and industry giants, positioning itself as a leading force in today’s creative landscape.
Each ticket includes three small dishes inspired by the passages, and one complimentary drink. Additional drinks will be available for purchase. Sammi and Olivia of Cocktails in Color will be mixing up cocktails inspired by our three authors’ books, so you’ll want to make room for a couple! And our buddies at Books are Magic will be with us selling books, so come ready to pick up a few copies.
We do have a handful of seats reserved for sliding-scale admission to keep these events as financially accessible as possible. Please let us know if this ticket price is prohibitive for you and we’ll find a way to get you a seat at the table. These sliding scale seats are limited, so please be thoughtful about your resources and needs when making a request.
For more information on physical accessibility at Insa or any other questions, please write us at biscuits@tablesofcontents.org.
We can accommodate gluten-free and vegetarian diets with advance notice. If you have other restrictions or aversions you are of course still encouraged to attend, you just may not be able to partake in every course. Please be sure to notify us of any serious allergies in advance and remind us at the event.
Doors will open at 6:30 so feel free to come a few minutes early to grab a drink, snap a portrait, and get settled in. See you all October 21st at Insa!
TOC
On Our Shelves
Our friend Rachel Meade Smith, founder of the invaluable newsletter Words of Mouth, is putting out a book to celebrate 10 years of the newsletter and the community of searchers who make up the WoM community. There’s a fundraiser to support the costs of the project that fall beyond the publisher’s support - chip in here!
MADE Bush Terminal in Sunset Park (the hosts of our September reading!) are hosting CDCMo a very cool interactive exhibit featuring circular economy designers, through October 25th. In partnership with Circular Design Co. the exhibit features artful furniture and design objects crafted from recycled organic waste. On Thursday October 16th from 6:30-8:30pm, we’re hosting a collaborative TOC design tasting with an upcycled grazing table of food and drink inspired by the zero-waste approach of the makers featured in the exhibition (if you were there, you can imagine a design-focused version of our party with MacDowell at Farm.One the other month!) Keep an eye out for the RSVP link this week!
Also save the date for Saturday November 1st, when we’ll be hosting a community gathering for our fall TOC Regenerative Residency at Glynwood in Cold Spring, NY from 2-5pm, with readings from our residents and snacks inspired by their work. Free admission, but RSVP required.
Our friends at Kundiman are hosting two online classes for BIPOC writers, including a one-day craft class on Writing the First-Person Travel Essay with Matt Ortile, and a four-week workshop on Literary Horror: Using Fear in Fiction with Annesha Mitha.
