Presented by Kelly Writers House

Penn Creative Writing Artist-in-Residence Abbey Mei Otis talks with writer Andrea Lawlor about their book Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, which “offers a speculative history of early ’90s identity politics during the heyday of ACT UP and Queer Nation. Paul is a riotous, razor-sharp bildungsroman whose hero/ine wends his way through a world gutted by loss, pulsing with music, and opening into an array of intimacy and connections.”

Cosponsored by Penn's Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Program, Fund for Feminist Projects at Kelly Writers House, and Wolf Humanities Center.

Andrea Lawlor is the author of a chapbook, Position Papers (Factory Hollow Press, 2016), and a novel, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl (Rescue Press, 2017; Vintage, 2019; Picador UK, 2019). Their stories, essays, and poems have appeared in publications such as Ploughshares, The Brooklyn Rail, jubilat, and The New York Times. They are the recipient of a Whiting Award for Fiction, as well as fellowships from Lambda Literary, Radar Labs, the Ucross Foundation, and Macdowell Colony. They are an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Mount Holyoke College, and live in Western Massachusetts.