POOL PARTY PRESENTS: FUCK MARRY KILL
Join us for our inaugural reading at Grand Gesture Books on Tuesday, February 11, at 6pm. GGB is located at 814 SW 10th Ave, Portland, OR 97205 and will have titles available for purchase from our very talented readers. Learn more about our participants below!
Travis Abels hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since 2010, but as a result, has some fun stories to tell. He lives in Portland Oregon, where he makes stuff, performs, hosts The Tiniest Party – a monthly storytelling show, and has unreasonable enthusiasm for squirrels, interactions of color, and erotic thrillers from the 90s. Currently, he’s touring his one-person show, Things I Hide From Dad, about coming of age while being the son of a doomsday cult preacher. Catch him at travisabels.com or on instagram @travisjay.
Edy Guy is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. She works with Buckman Journal as an Editor and Publicist and teaches yoga at Forge on Alberta St. She runs a Substack called Intertext made up of poetic essays and chats with writers about the thinkers influencing their work. More can be found on Edy’s website: edyguy.com
Jules Ohman is the author of the novel Body Grammar (Vintage). Their writing has been published by Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Buckmxn Journal, Willow Springs, Camas Magazine, and others. They recently served as the Kittredge Visiting Writer at the University of Montana, and now teach in Portland at PNCA and the Attic. They are learning to play the fiddle, and their neighbors don’t even seem to mind very much.
Kimberly King Parsons is the author of the national-bestselling novel We Were the Universe, number two on TIME Magazine’s Best Books of 2024 and a Dakota Johnson Book Club pick the New York Times calls “a profound, gutsy tale of grief’s dismantling power.” Parsons’s debut collection, Black Light, was longlisted for the National Book Award and the Story Prize. A recipient of fellowships from Yaddo and Columbia University, Parsons won the 2020 National Magazine Award for “Foxes,” a story published in The Paris Review. We Were the Universe was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and was a best book of 2024 in Elle, TIME, Oprah Daily, Nylon, them, Marie Claire, Marie Claire UK, and others. Parsons lives in Portland and teaches fiction in the MFA Writing Program at Pacific University.
Ryan-Ashley Anderson is a queer, neurodivergent sex worker, writer, and multidisciplinary artist who recently left a too-long advertising career writing interior design copy to pursue writing, art-making, and orgasm faking, full time. When Anderson is away from her desk, out of the studio, and breaking from JOI, you can find her knitting, hanging with her tiny cat and one-eyed dog, and having actual sex with her very hot and talented partner. Anderson earned a BFA in Creative Writing from UNC-A, and is currently enrolled in a dual-degree masters program at PNCA, studying Critical Theory and Art. She has writing forthcoming in Icebreakers, Rejection Letters, and X-R-A-Y. You can find her on BlueSky and Substack at @FemmeInTheory
Kevin Maloney is the author of Horse Girl Fever, The Red-Headed Pilgrim, and Cult of Loretta. At times a TJ Maxx associate, grocery clerk, outdoor school instructor, organic farmer, electrician, high school English teacher, and teddy bear salesman, Kevin currently works as a web developer and writer. His writing has appeared in Fence, HAD, Little Engines, Forever Magazine, and a number of other journals and anthologies. He lives in Portland, Oregon, five blocks from his very hot and talented partner Ryan-Ashley Anderson. You can find him at kevinmaloney.net or on Bluesky, Twitter (X), and Instagram at @kevinrmaloney.
Sarah Ruby—designer, creative director, and producer—comes to us by way of L.A. where she was known for creating community spaces and producing interactive community events such as Queer Traffic. Since moving to Portland, she has produced interactive pop-ups: Playdates and Dating Profile Tuneups, both of which leave her participants feeling joy, ebullience, and delight.
* This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are producs of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
