Laura Levitt, in conversation with Ruth Ost, will be launching her newest book The Objects That Remain. She'll be discussing the process of creating the work and answering questions.

This is an online event. You must RSVP to receive the link for the meeting: https://forms.gle/xhbqNdD9Q5zGK32x8. Books can be purchased here - Laura will be autograph/personalize books you can pick up after the event.

On a November evening in 1989, Laura Levitt was raped in her own bed. Her landlord heard the assault taking place and called 911, but the police arrived too late to apprehend Laura’s attacker. When they left, investigators took items with them—a pair of sweatpants, the bedclothes—and a rape exam was performed at the hospital. However, this evidence was never processed.Decades later, Laura returns to these objects, viewing them not as clues that will lead to the identification of her assailant but rather as a means of engaging traumatic legacies writ large.

"The Objects That Remain" is equal parts personal memoir and fascinating examination of the ways in which the material remains of violent crimes inform our experience of, and thinking about, trauma and loss. Considering artifacts in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and evidence in police storage facilities across the country, Laura’s story moves between intimate trauma, the story of an unsolved rape, and genocide. Throughout, she asks what it might mean to do justice to these violent pasts outside the juridical system or through historical empiricism, which are the dominant ways in which we think about evidence from violent crimes and other highly traumatic events.Over the course of her investigation, the author reveals how these objects that remain and the stories that surround them enable forms of intimacy. In this way, she models for us a different kind of reckoning, where justice is an animating process of telling and holding.

Big Blue Marble kicks off National Poetry Month with two great Philadelphia poets: Cynthia Arrieu-King and Emily August, in celebration of Cynthia's new book "Futureless Languages."

From Louisville, Kentucky, Cynthia Arrieu-King is an associate professor of creative writing and a former Kundiman fellow. Her full-length books of poetry include People are Tiny in Paintings of China (Octopus 2010), Manifest (Switchback Books 2013) winner of the Gatewood Prize selected by Harryette Mullen, and Futureless Languages (Radiator Press 2018). She edited the posthumous volume of poems by Hillary Gravendyk The Soluble Hour (Omnidawn 2017). Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, BOMB Magazine, Crazyhorse, and others. She has worked as a stagehand for Mister Rogers, as a nanny in an infant nursery, and on the line at a tomato sauce factory. cynthiaarrieuking.blogspot.com

Emily August is an Assistant Professor of Literature at Stockton University, where she teaches courses in nineteenth-century British literature, medical humanities, and creative writing. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in Missouri Review, Callaloo, Ninth Letter, Southern Humanities Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, and other journals. Her current manuscript of poems, The Punishments Must Be a School, explores a centuries-long family legacy of domestic violence.

Please join us to help store favorite Amy Ignatow launch the final book of her Mighty Odds trilogy - Odds & Ends

The ragtag Odds crew’s useless gifts have gotten out of control. Farshad’s thumbs are so strong that just trying to send a text will break his phone, and Cookie can now send mental directions instead of just listening in on them with her telepathy. To make matters worse, a bunch of their less-than-gifted classmates have become town celebrities thanks to their suspiciously good exam results. But Jay and Nick realize that all these whiz kids have parents who work for Auxano, so they race off to find out what’s really going on. Fans won’t want to miss the conclusion to the adventures of this motley group of heroes and their patchwork powers!

Join us to help launch a new book by award-winning Philly photographer Hinda Schuman!

Hinda Schuman is an international award winning photographer based in Philadelphia PA. She was a staff photographer at The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty years. Since leaving the Inquirer, she's been teaching photojournalism, night & lowlight, travel and street photography classes at University of the Arts Continuing Education Division.

The photo collection "Dear Shirley" is a first-person saga of love and loss captured over more than four decades. The photographs and text contained in this deeply personal account take an unflinching look at the dissolution of two marriages: Hinda Schuman's marriage of 10 years to Jeremy, and of 27 years to Susan. "Dear Shirley is about falling in love and the promise and excitement of finding someone to spend my life with and watching it fall apart. I see 2018 as the right time for a conversation about the hopes for queer marriages and the risks entailed."

Please join us to help Janet Mason launch her new novel! THEY,  a biblical tale of secret genders weaves Biblical, Pagan, fantastical and modernist roots to create a world where gender is as complex and fluid as the emotional bond between twins.

Germantown resident Janet Mason is an award-winning creative writer, teacher, radio commentator, and blogger for The Huffington Post. Her book "Tea Leaves: a memoir of mothers and daughters" was chosen by the American Library Association for its 2013 Over the Rainbow List. She is the author of three poetry books. Mason is a lay minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of The Restoration located on Stenton Avenue in East Mt. Airy.

Big Blue Marble is thrilled to host a launch for one of our own! Former staffer Cordelia Jensen's second YA novel in verse comes out in April, so we're partying. The event will include special guest teen blogger Annie Rupertus, who will be introducing and interviewing Cordelia.

The Way the Light Bends is a powerful novel in verse about fitting in, standing out, defining your own self-worth, and what it takes to keep a fracturing family whole. The story follows virtual twins Linc and Holly, who were once extremely close. But while artistic, creative Linc is her parents' daughter biologically, it's smart, popular Holly, adopted from Ghana as a baby, who exemplifies the family's high-achieving model of academic success.

Cordelia Jensen graduated with a MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2012. Cordelia has three verse novels: Skyscraping (Philomel/Penguin) and two forthcoming books, The Way the Light Bends (Philomel/Penguin) and Every Shiny Thing (Amulet/Abrams), which she co-authored with VCFA classmate Laurie Morrison. Skyscraping was named an American Library Association’s 2016 Best Book for Young Adults. Cordelia teaches Writing for Children at Bryn Mawr College. She runs a kids’ literary journal called the Mt. Airy Musers.