Amelia Possanza, author of Lesbian Love Story, in conversation with Amy Hoffman

Porter Square Books is thrilled to welcome Amelia Possanza for the paperback release of her memoir Lesbian Love Story! Author Amy Hoffman will join Possanza in conversation. This event will take place on Wednesday, May 29 at 7pm at Porter Square Books (25 White St. Cambridge, MA 02140).

ABOUT LESBIAN LOVE STORY

For readers of Saidiya Hartman and Jeanette Winterson, Lesbian Love Story is an intimate journey into the archives—uncovering the romances and role models written out of history and what their stories can teach us all about how to love

When Amelia Possanza moved to Brooklyn to build a life of her own, she found herself surrounded by queer stories: she read them on landmark placards, overheard them on the pool deck when she joined the world’s largest LGBTQ swim team, and even watched them on TV in her cockroach-infested apartment. These stories inspired her to seek out lesbians throughout history who could become her role models, in romance and in life.

Centered around seven love stories for the ages, this is Possanza’s journey into the archives to recover the personal histories of lesbians in the twentieth century: who they were, how they loved, why their stories were destroyed, and where their memories echo and live on. Possanza’s hunt takes readers from a drag king show in Bushwick to the home of activists in Harlem and then across the ocean to Hadrian’s Library, where she searches for traces of Sappho in the ruins. Along the way, she discovers her own love—for swimming, for community, for New York City—and adds her record to the archive.

At the heart of this riveting, inventive history, Possanza asks: How could lesbian love help us reimagine care and community? What would our world look like if we replaced its foundation of misogyny with something new, with something distinctly lesbian?

PRAISE FOR LESBIAN LOVE STORY

NPR, A Best Book of the Year

Esquire, A Best LGBTQ Book of the Year

Harper’s Bazaar, A Best Book of 2023

Publishers Weekly, A Best Book of the Year

Shelf Awareness, A Best Book of the Year

Named a Most Anticipated Book by Time, BuzzFeed, Them, Literary Hub, Zibby's Mag, and more

"The stories are deeply researched and imaginatively told through a mix of historical record, primary sources, invented scenes and the author’s own wrestling with the meaning of what she finds. Possanza challenges the history we’re taught, one that codifies and reproduces heteronormativity." —Brittany Cronin, NPR

"Lesbian Love Story boasts an inventive blend of genres. Amelia Possanza spins together memoir, archival nonfiction, and fictional passages with ease." —Laura Zornosa, Time

"Possanza puts together a history of lesbianism that’s filled with care, warmth, love, and community . . . Reading this book feels like having a passionate conversation with a good friend whose special interests perfectly align with yours. Lesbian Love Story is charming, heartfelt, and wonderfully gay." —McKayla Cole, Literary Hub

"Writing with empathy, wit, and imagination, Possanza constructs a personal, political, and romantic history of lesbian life and love." —The Millions, A Most Anticipated Read

"Possanza’s centuries-spanning document–which melds her own story with hidden, intimate histories of drag kings and olympians, artists and activists–is a manifesto of love: of erotic love and platonic love, of familial and communal love, and maybe most importantly, self-love." —Michelle Hart, An Electric Literature Most Anticipated Book of 2023

"Lesbian Love Story cracks open a vault of queer lives that were so meaningful to dig into—sporty girls, masc forbears, illicit loves. These juicy stories are filled with pathos and inspiration, and Ameila Possanza's thrill at excavating them is personal, palpable and contagious." —Michelle Tea, author of Knocking Myself Up: A Memoir of My In/Fertility

"Intimate and sexy, voraciously researched and vibrantly imagined, Amelia Possanza has given us the romantic history all lesbians deserve." —Nina LaCour, author of Yerba Buena

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

A full-time book publicist and part-time writer, Amelia Possanza currently lives in Brooklyn with her cat. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Electric Literature, The Millions, and NPR’s Invisibilia. Lesbian Love Story is her first book.

Amy Hoffman is the author of the memoirs Hospital Time, about taking care of friends with AIDS; An Army of Ex-Lovers: My Life at the Gay Community News; and Lies About My Family; as well as the novels The Off Season and Dot & Ralfie. She has taught creative writing and literature at the University of Massachusetts, Emerson College, and the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program. She was editor in chief of Women’s Review of Books for fourteen years, and her essays and reviews have appeared in the Boston Review, the Gay & Lesbian Review, the Women’s Review of Books and other publications. Her MFA is from the University of Massachusetts. Amy lives in Boston with her wife, Roberta Stone. They have no cats.

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