11/21 Universe of Grace: Talk & Signing with Rachel Calnek-Sugin

About this event

Join us in welcoming writer, social worker, and educator Rachel Calnek-Sugin for a talk and signing of her new release, Universe of Grace. Joining her in conversation about this kaleidoscopic coming of age novel is local author Rachel Meredith. More about the book: One afternoon, on a visit to the Bronx Zoo, a jaguar tells six-year-old Grace Goldberg-Li she isn’t human. Not that this comes as a total surprise. Her life looks normal, but no one else, not even her beloved sister, seems to be experiencing things as brightly and painfully as she does. As she approaches adolescence, Grace begins to think that she might be an alien. Maybe this would explain the urge to steal every beautiful object she can find, or the peculiar voice that’s started issuing apocalyptic warnings inside her head. In adulthood, Grace still can’t figure it out. Is it the world that’s crazy and falling apart? Or is it her? She will attempt, over and over, to remake herself and find her place in it. She will fall recklessly in love with a gorgeous doctoral student; she will live as a tree in a backyard during the pandemic; she will become the best employee that Wendy’s has ever seen; she will travel to the ends of the earth and keep going. Moving, imaginative, and endlessly surprising, Universe of Grace is at once a tender family portrait, a queer love story, and an epic quest for self-discovery in a world that’s uncertain and wondrous in equal measure. Covering the span of a single life and everything it touches, Universe of Grace shows us that we are each more interconnected and vast than we can ever know. More about Rachel Calnek-Sugin in her own words: I'm a writer, social worker, and educator committed to our individual and collective liberation through art-making, community building, and personal transformation. I love trees, dancing down the streets of Brooklyn, and cooking extravagant meals for my loved ones. I work as a therapist in schools and I write fiction, nonfiction, plays, and the occasional subway-poem. My first novel, UNIVERSE OF GRACE, will be published by Holt in 2026. More about Rachel Meredith: Rachel has been writing something or other her entire life. Born in New York City, raised on Long Island, and now a New Havener, she spends her days as a copy editor and proofreader, where she’s able to put her English degree to use on all sorts of grammatical minutiae. Her debut adult rom-com, Girl Next Door, was published in Fall 2025 by Harper Perennial.

Who

• Rachel Calnek-SuginAuthor

The book

• Universe of GraceRachel Calnek-Sugin

Venue

Possible Futures

318 Edgewood Ave, New Haven, CT 06511

Venue website

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