Writing Events

Julia Glassman

Thursday, May 9
4 p.m.
Powell East Rotunda

Join UCLA Librarian Julia Glassman as she reads from her debut novel, Other Life Forms. Julia's reading will be accompanied by a student reading and discussion.

“[Julia Glassman] describes such emotions as anxiety and guilt with such precision that readers will feel relief in recognizing that, like Sylvie, they are not actually alone in the universe.” -Booklist

Sylvie, a frustrated sculptor-turned-waitress, decides to play an unusual prank: she hangs missing person posters featuring her own face in order to see who might call.  But the prank takes an unexpected turn when a handsome stranger swoops in to save her from herself and a band of cocky artists and writers takes her under its wing.  Before she knows it, she’s literally the poster child for an avant-garde movement that quickly veers out of control.  Meanwhile, Sylvie struggles to come to terms with the death of her college sweetheart, a shy gamer who, struggling to adjust to life after graduation, retreated to an online fantasy world and never returned.
Lampooning both the conservatism of Orange County and the privileged youths who rebel against it, Other Life Forms is a hilarious and deeply moving account of a late bloomer’s search for identity, a quirky meditation on what it means to be an artist and a woman when neither mode of being seems sustainable.

This event is cosponsored by Westwind, UCLA's journal of the arts.