F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby is now in the public domain. This gives us the opportunity to dig deeper and fuller into the cultural image of our iconic literary figure.

Join the East Side Freedom Library and literary curator Danny Klecko at The University Club in welcoming AJ Odasso in conversation with Maryanne Grossmann! We will also be joined by special guests Doug Green, Kasey Payette, Klecko, Anthony Cebellos and emcee Clarence White.

The queering of Gatsby takes form in the new novel, The Pursued and the Pursuing by AJ Odasso. In their tale, Odasso explores what might have been had it left Gatsby with another chance at happiness. Find it he does, although not in the arms of Daisy Buchanan. As Gatsby travels the world with Nick Carraway, his friend and narrator, he sheds wealth, performance, and glamor in favor of honesty, intimacy, and love.

A. J. Odasso’s poetry has appeared in a variety of publications, including Sybil’s Garage, Mythic Delirium, Midnight Echo, Not One of Us, Dreams & Nightmares, Goblin Fruit, Strange Horizons, Stone Telling, Farrago’s Wainscot, Liminality, Battersea Review, Barking Sycamores, and New England Review of Books. A.J.’s debut collection, Lost Books (Flipped Eye Publishing), was nominated for the 2010 London New Poetry Award and was also a finalist for the 2010–11 People’s Book Prize. Her second collection with Flipped Eye, The Dishonesty of Dreams, was released in 2014; her third collection, Things Being What They Are, was shortlisted for the 2017 Sexton Prize. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Boston University, and works in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico. A.J. has served in the Poetry Department at Strange Horizons since 2012. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

See you Wednesday!

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