Named one the Ten Best Books of 2017 by the New York Times, Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy (Riverhead Books) is an unforgettable memoir of growing up in a family with a guitar- shredding priest for a father. Lockwood’s father, a Lutheran, converted to Catholicism after watching The Exorcist in a submarine, what he claims was the “deepest conversion on record.” Having received a rare dispensation from the authorities, Lockwood’s father became that rare thing—a married Catholic priest—and Lockwood herself “a human loophole.” Both hilarious and deeply moving, Priestdaddy is ultimately an exploration of our divided and contradictory world, in language so exuberant that it seems to bless everything it names.

Patricia Lockwood is also the author of two collections of poetry, Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals (Penguin, 2014) and Balloon Pop Outlaw Black (Octopus Books, 2012). Her work has appeared in the New Yorker , London Review of Books, Tin House , and Poetry .

Lockwood’s visit is co-sponsored by CAHI and the Susan D. Gubar Chair in Literature.

JOIN US AT OUR NEW HOME!
Bear’s Place!

Featured readers: Patsy Rahn, Charles Culp, Paul Smedberg, with musical guest Caleb Lail
plus an open mic

$5 cover

DETAILS TO COME

PATSY RAHN’s poetry and prose have been published in various journals and anthologies. Her book of poetry The Grainy Wet Soul is available through several online booksellers. She worked for many years as an actress in Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles and has given poetry readings in Toronto, Los Angeles, and Bloomington. She is a founding member and chairperson emerita of the Writers Guild at Bloomington. For more information visit her website at https://patsyrahn.com

PAUL SMEDBERG was born early in life and, over the years, inflated to his present size and age. He enjoys long walks on imaginary beaches, getting imaginary sand in his inexpensive street shoes. Blissfully married with three hominid spawn, Paul came to Bloomington so long ago that pterodactyls could be seen lazily circling the courthouse dome. He did some higher ed at the local land grant and then founded and crashed a number of small businesses in a never ending quest to avoid real work. His first volume of poetry, “Event Horizon” was self-published in the late Cenozoic era.

CHARLES CULP was born and raised in a town called Vincennes. After receiving his degree in Education from Indiana University in 2008, he joined Americorps. Since then he has been an advocate for non-profits and community education in Colorado, Tennessee, and now in his home state of Indiana. He is passionate about making a lasting connection with readers, and he believes every person has an opportunity to grow and thrive as they discover their passions through the never-ending, formative years of our lives.

CALEB LAIL, out of Shelby, North Carolina, is a lyrical-based singer/spoken word artist. He grabs influences from a wide range of musical genres, from Neutral Milk Hotel and mewithoutYou to Mos Def and Woody Guthrie. He’s always writing and is intentional about composing poetic lyrics to match his blues-infused melodies. Each song comes from a deeply personal place, an intersection of mental health, love, and religion. He’s been compared to a wide slew of musicians: U2 and R.E.M., Dinosaur Jr. and Housefires, Hotel Books and Bob Dylan. Most importantly, though, he has a cat named Maddie that he likes to annoy and he’s down to grab vegan tacos pretty much whenever.