Lydi Conklin: Songs of No Provenance – in Conversation with Henry Hoke

Join us for an evening with Lydi Conklin, who will read from their debut novel, Songs of No Provenance. A conversation with Henry Hoke will follow. This in-person event will be free and open to the public. We recommend arriving early for the best seating.

About the Book: A suspenseful, wildly engaging debut novel by the award-winning author of Rainbow Rainbow, following a musician spiraling in self-doubt and self-searching after a night-and a relationship-gone wrong.

Songs of No Provenance tells the story of Joan Vole, an indie folk singer forever teetering on the edge of fame, who flees New York after committing a shocking sexual act onstage that she fears will doom her career. Joan seeks refuge at a writing camp for teenagers in rural Virginia, where she's forced to question her own toxic relationship to artmaking-and her complicated history with a friend and mentee-while finding new hope in her students and a deepening intimacy with a nonbinary artist and fellow camp staff member.

A propulsive character study of a flawed and fascinating artist, Songs of No Provenance explores issues of trans nonbinary identity, queer baiting and appropriation, kink, fame hunger, secrecy and survival, and the question of whether a work of art can exist separately from its artist.

About the Author: Lydi Conklin is the author of Rainbow Rainbow, which was long-listed for the Story Prize and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. Their fiction has appeared in Tin House, American Short Fiction, and The Paris Review. They've drawn comics for The New Yorker, The Believer, Lenny Letter, and other publications. Songs of No Provenance is their first novel.

About the Moderator: Henry Hoke is the author of five books, most recently the novel Open Throat, finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction. He cocreated the performance series Enter>text in Los Angeles and edits humor at The Offing.