VIRTUAL: Launch for Meg Elison / Find Layla, with Somaiya Daud, Rory Power, Adam Sass and Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Booksmith hosts a virtual event with Meg Elison for the launch of her new novel Find Layla. She’s joined by Somaiya Daud, Rory Power, Adam Sass and Maggie Tokuda-Hall for a panel discussion.

** Please note **

>  This is a free event, but RSVP is required. RSVP here.
>  If you’d like a copy of Find Layla, you can purchase one here, below, or when completing your registration. We are currently offering free shipping throughout San Francisco and the East Bay.

Underprivileged and keenly self-aware, SoCal fourteen-year-old Layla Bailey isn’t used to being noticed. Except by mean girls who tweet about her ragged appearance. All she wants to do is indulge in her love of science, protect her vulnerable younger brother, and steer clear of her unstable mother.

Then a school competition calls for a biome. Layla chooses her own home, a hostile ecosystem of indoor fungi and secret shame. With a borrowed video camera, she captures it all. The mushrooms growing in her brother’s dresser. The black mold blooming up the apartment walls. The unmentionable things living in the dead fridge. All the inevitable exotic toxins that are Layla’s life. Then the video goes viral.

When Child Protective Services comes to call, Layla loses her family and her home. Defiant, she must face her bullies and friends alike, on her own. Unafraid at last of being seen, Layla accepts the mortifying reality of visibility. Now she must figure out how to stay whole and stand behind the truth she has shown the world.

A heartbreaking and all-too-real portrait of many children’s lives, Find Layla tugs at your heartstrings as you root for Layla to stay strong, seek kindness, and believe in herself in the midst of crisis and uncertainty.

Meg Elison is a Bay Area author and feminist essayist. Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, won the 2014 Philip K. Dick award. Her second novel, The Book of Etta, was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick, and both were longlisted for the James A. Tiptree award. She has been published in McSweeney’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Catapult, and many other places. Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley. Find her online, where she writes like she’s running out of time at www.megelison.com, or follow her on Twitter @MegElison.

Adam Sass began writing books in Sharpie on the backs of Starbucks pastry bags. (He’s sorry it distracted him from making your latte.) Raised in an Illinois farm town, his desire for a creative career took him to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and currently, North Carolina, where he lives with his husband and dachshunds. When he’s not dropping hot takes on Twitter, Adam is a recurring co-host on the popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast Slayerfest98. Surrender Your Sons is his first novel.

This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required.