Join Philly-based writers Tracey Levine ("At the Diner in Heaven") and Grady Chambers ("Great Disasters") for a reading & discussion.
About the Event:
Join us on Tuesday, April 7 at 7 PM where authors Tracey Levine and Grady Chambers will read from their work and discuss their craft. Tracey and Grady's books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
Registration on Eventbrite is highly recommended! Tickets are free or pay-what-you-want.
Questions? Email events@theheadandthehand.com.
About the Books:
At The Diner in Heaven, they’re serving up Bubbie’s chicken soup, cigs, abandoned malls, roller skates, Tastycakes, 7-11s, exes, homemade bullets, and the feeling of constantly being angled by boys, some of them pretending to be men. Levine’s crisp, intimate prose is—much like an Edward Hopper painting—saturated with loneliness and suggestion. These stories feel like sharing fries with a friend at midnight, leaning in for the whispered secret that will change you both. - Annie Liontas, Sex With a Brain Injury
Great Disasters is set largely in Chicago against the backdrop of 9/11, the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the protests against them. Moving between memories of high school and early adulthood, the book follows the lives of six friends as one joins the military, some join the protests, and each of them reckon with a changing relationship to their country, to one another, and to their shared past. The novel explores themes of friendship, first love, patriotism, protest, addiction, and is an intimate portrait of disasters big and small, personal and political, and the ways the two are intertwined.
About the Authors:
Tracey Levine grew up in northeast Philadelphia and teaches creative writing and film courses at Arcadia University in Glenside, PA where she coordinates the creative writing program for undergraduates. Her creative writing work has appeared in many journals such as Crack the Spine, Streetlight Voices, the anthology Broken Skyline, she has a chapbook with The Head and The Hand Press, and was included in Best Stories of Philadelphia from Toho publishing in 2021. She is the creator and former co-host of the Philadelphia reading series The Hatchery. She is also a dedicated yogi and yoga instructor who plays competitive darts.
Grady Chambers is the author of the novel Great Disasters (Tin House Books, 2025), and the poetry collection North American Stadiums (Milkweed Editions, 2018), winner of the Max Ritvo Prize. His poems and stories can be found in The Atlantic, The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Joyland, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Grady received his MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. Born and raised in Chicago, Grady now lives in Philadelphia. You can find him online at gradychambers.com