Alyson and Su Read at Librairie Paragraphe

Thursday, October 17, 2024, 5:00-7:00 pm ET

Librarie Paragraphe Bookstore and Renaissance Press present readings by Alyson Hope and Su J. Sokol.

Join us as authors Alyson Hope and Su J. Sokol discuss and sign their books The Smell of Rain and Run J Run.

Admission is free.

About the Books

The Smell of Rain

Each family has their story, and each one is different, depending on who tells it.

Fighting encroaching darkness, Nina picks up a pencil and begins to write. Her deeply personal entries tell a story of love, loss, and learning how to piece it all back together. Weaving her way through past and present, she spins a kaleidoscopic and increasingly fragmented narrative.

“I am a person today, but have no idea what will be left of me tomorrow,” writes Nina.

Both delicate and iridescent, The Smell of Rain is bound to make you think: what happens when the fragile thread of life begins to fray?

Run J Run

Jeremy, a high school English teacher coming to grips with a shattered marriage and haunted by the brother he lost, unexpectedly falls in love with his best friend, Zak. Attractive, wildly unconventional, and happy in an open relationship with his partner Annie, Zak seems to embody everything missing from Jeremy’s life, but when the arrest and death of a marginalized student at the Brooklyn high school where they both teach trigger Zak’s mental breakdown and slow descent, Jeremy and Annie are compelled to cross boundaries, both external and internal, in a desperate attempt to save him.

About the Authors

Alyson Hope is a writer who currently lives in Montreal, the island of Tiohtià:ke – unceded land of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation. In 2014, Hope received her Master’s Degree in literature from the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. Based largely on ecocritical theory, her thesis examines the multi-faceted relationship between nature and the characters in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Hope’s love and respect for the natural world is what drew her to the study of ecocriticism. The Smell of Rain, published by the brilliant folks of Renaissance Press, is Hope’s debut fictional novel.

Su J. Sokol is a social rights advocate and a writer of speculative and interstitial fiction. A former legal services lawyer from New York City, xe now makes Montréal xyr home. Sokol is the author of three novels: Cycling to Asylum, which was long-listed for the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic and has been optioned for development into a feature-length film, Run J Run (Renaissance Press 2019!) and Zee (2020). Sokol’s short fiction has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. When xe is not writing, battling slumlords, bringing evil bureaucracies to their knees, and smashing borders, Sokol curates and participates in readings and literary events in Canada and abroad.