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Please join us for a reading with Max Fischer (Writing for Children and Young Adults, 2024) to celebrate his debut novel, The Unpoetic Life of August Grey. A conversation with Charlotte Nicole Davis (Writing for Children and Young Adults, 2016) will follow.
About The Unpoetic Life of August Grey:
You can only hold your breath underwater for three minutes before you go unconscious. For seventeen-year-old August Grey, life in his small Nebraska town has felt like that endless third minute ever since his best friend Waylon died.
When August earns a coveted spot at a prestigious summer writing program in New York, he believes it’s his one chance to heal—and to keep the promise made to Waylon to pursue his dream. But New York brings its own challenges: a strained reunion with an estranged father, the weight of trying to write without Waylon there, and the unexpected arrival of Levi, August's old crush who knows nothing of his failed coming out.
As August wrestles with grief, secrets, and the tentative spark of new love, he must decide if he can finally surface—embracing his queer identity and the joy of being himself before the past threatens to drown his future.
In the tradition of The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver, and Me (Moth) by Amber McBride, Pushcart Prize-nominated poet Max Fischer delivers a searing, unforgettable debut about loss, queer joy, and the strength it takes to breathe again.
Presented by the Creative Writing Program at The New School for Social Research.
Max Fischer is a transgender Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and nonfiction author who holds an MFA in writing for children and young adults from The New School. His stories focus on queer joy told through the lens of unconventional narrative structures and the merging of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.
His debut, The Unpoetic Life of August Grey, is a YA novel in verse. When not writing poetry, you can find Max wandering the piers or working as Professor of Writing Studies at Montclair State University.
Author of The Good Luck Girls duology and other critically acclaimed works of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror for young adults.
Originally from Kansas City, Charlotte (any/all) moved to NYC to get their MFA in Writing for Children from The New School. They’ve been living and working in the city ever since.
Whether writing about found family and female rage in a western gothic fantasy, about gender euphoria and second chances in a cybernetic near-future, or about dark secrets and twisted traditions in a picture-perfect suburb, the one thing Charlotte is committed to in all their stories is creating characters that Queer and Black kids can call family in world.
The New School offered the first academic creative writing workshop in 1931 and pioneered a new philosophy of education. The idea: students would make their own lives and their own stories part of their education. Today, The New School continues to celebrate and cultivate daring and diverse new voices through its Creative Writing program. The value of this approach is reflected in the publications and achievements of our MFA Creative Writing graduates and faculty.
Visit New School Writing, the blog of the MFA Creative Writing Program, for interviews, profiles, and a digital bookshelf featuring the New School writing community.
Discover more Creative Writing Program events here.
Committed to amplifying diverse voices, The New School offers more than a thousand public programs and events each year, providing fresh perspectives and unique learning opportunities. These lectures, exhibitions, concerts, and performances feature prominent and emerging artists, activists, and thought leaders.
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