Join us in excitedly welcoming author and poet Melissa Lozada-Oliva in celebration of her newest story collection, Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus is Alive! In stories humorous, heartbreaking, and horrific, Lozada-Oliva explores the absurdities and dangers of being a woman in contemporary American life. From the mundane to the supernatural, our social structures are no match for her insightful wit and criticism.
Sitting in conversation with Lozada-Oliva is renowned musician and poet, Sadie Dupuis. Reuniting following Melissa’s Candelaria tour, the Speedy Ortiz songwriter has a spellbinding book of poetry, Cry Perfume, tackling themes of grief, misognyny, and the bitter pill of nostalgia. This conversation is not one to miss!
Melissa Lozada-Oliva is a Guatelaman-Colombian-American writer. Her chapbook peluda (Button Poetry 2017) explores the intersections of Latina identity and hair removal. In her novel-in-verse Dreaming of You (2021, Astra House), a poet brings Selena back to life through a seance and deals with disastrous consequences. Candelaria (Astra House, 2023) follows a Guatemalan grandmother at the end of the world and her three lost American granddaughters who started it. Candelaria was named one of the best books of 2023 by VOGUE and USA Today. Her collection of short stories BEYOND ALL REASONABLE DOUBT, JESUS IS ALIVE! will be released in September (Astra House, 2025). Her newsletter READING SUCKS tracks the books she’s read and the distractions she had while reading them, while interviewing authors about their relationship to reading. She is currently adapting Dreaming of You into a film and working on a new novel. Melissa has done brand work with Facebook, Instagram, Google, Armani, and Topo Chico Hard Seltzer. Melissa’s work balances the line between horror and humor. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in NPR, VOGUE, REMEZCLA, PAPER, The Guardian, BreakBeat Poets, Kenyon Review, Vulture, Bustle, Glamour Magazine, The Huffington Post, Muzzle Magazine, The Adroit Journal, and BBC Mundo. She teaches fiction and poetry at the Center for Fiction and the Red Hook Public Library.
Sadie Dupuis is the guitarist, songwriter & singer of rock band Speedy Ortiz, as well as the producer & multi-instrumentalist behind pop project Sad13. Sadie heads the record label Wax Nine, edits its poetry journal, and has contributed to Spin, Tape Op, Talkhouse, and more. She holds an MFA in poetry from UMass Amherst, where she also taught writing. Mouthguard, her first book, was published in 2018 (Gramma); Cry Perfume, a second poetry collection, was released in 2022 (Black Ocean). She is a founding organizer of United Musicians & Allied Workers and its local UMAW Philly.