The Urbane Conspirators : Summer fête
a night of music, art, books, and revelry
Date
7:45 PM – 9:15 PM | Mingling & conviviality over drinks at the Wiggins Bar (Dinner for VIP ticketholders)
Location
Sponsors
Admission
Eventbrite RSVP required
$100 | General admission
$75 | Coffee House and Salmagundi members
About the Event
The Coffee House Club’s Urbane Conspirators welcome you to a Summer Fête to remember! There will be special guests, including literary luminaries—Meg Wolitzer, Sara Lippmann, Sidik Fofana, and Jeanne Thornton. Copies of their books will be available for sale and signing. Plus, we’ll soak in a spectacular musical performance from the very talented Miwa Gemini, and there will be a micro live auction (sponsored by Christie’s) with outstanding prizes on offer.
Afterward, stay for drinks and more revelry in the downstairs Wiggins Bar. Or, opt in for a three-course dinner with a VIP Ticket (sales end June 5), and enjoy conversation with our literary stars around the Coffee House long table.
Don’t miss what’s sure to be a magical night of music, art, books, prizes, good food and drinks, and much conviviality—all in celebration of the summer season, the joy of reading, and creative community in one of NYC’s best literary venues, according to a recent roundup in BBC Travel. Coffee House hopes to see you there in your summertime best!
Please note that dress is cocktail attire.
Hungry?
VIP ticket holders (sales ended June 5 at 2 PM) will be served a three-course prix fixe dinner with a glass of wine to follow the program. Additionally, members of the Salmagundi Club are always welcome to reserve for dinner via our Reservations page.
Meet the Musical Artist
It’s hard to describe the music of Miwa Gemini. Much like the name suggests their sound is mercurial, drawing influences that range from Erik Satie to Beyoncé. Their songs were soaked in a whiskey barrel, dried off a balcony in Paris in the 1920’s, and finally polished by the hustle and bustle of NYC. Their unique blend of watertight harmony is accompanied by a simple yet intricate instrumentation, and their infectious melodies will have you smiling in no time.
Meet the Authors
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times–bestselling author of The Interestings, The Uncoupling, The Ten-Year Nap, The Female Persuasion, The Position, The Wife, and Sleepwalking. She is also the author of the young adult novel Belzhar. Wolitzer lives in New York City.
Sara Lippmann is the author of the novel Lech (Tortoise Books) and the story collections Doll Palace (re-released by 7.13 Books) and Jerks (Mason Jar Press.) Her fiction has been honored by the New York Foundation for the Arts, and her essays have appeared in The Millions, The Washington Post, Catapult, The Lit Hub and elsewhere. With Seth Rogoff, she is co-editing the anthology Smashing the Tablets: Radical Retellings of the Hebrew Bible for SUNY Press. She received a BA from Brown and an MFA from The New School, and has been teaching creative writing for over 20 years to students of all ages, most recently with the teaching cooperative Writing Co-lab, of which she is a founding member. Raised outside of Philadelphia, she lives with her family in Brooklyn.
Sidik Fofana is a graduate of NYU’s MFA program and a public school teacher in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in the Sewanee Review and Granta. He was also named a fellow at the Center for Fiction in 2018. Stories from the Tenants Downstairs, his debut short story collection composed of eight narratives about residents of a fictional building in Harlem was published by Scribner in August 2022.
Jeanne Thornton is the author of the novel The Dream of Doctor Bantam and the collection The Black Emerald, both shortlisted for the Lambda Literary award. She is also the copublisher of the independent press Instar Books and the writer and illustrator of the webcomics, Bad Mother and The Man Who Hates Fun. She is a 2015 Lambda Literary Fellow in fiction and has been published in Wired, n+1, and The Evergreen Review.