Desire & Dissonance: In-Conversation with K Patrick

This program features a stop on author K Patrick’s limited United States book tour, promoting their new book Mrs. S—a sensual slightly obsessive sapphic romance set against the backdrop of an all-girls boarding school. Mrs. S is a sensational novel that explores in stylish prose the mercurial nature of love and attraction, the transformative power of desire, and the dissonance between self and place. 

In an elite English boarding school where the girls kiss the marble statue of a famous dead author who used to walk the halls, an outsider arrives to take up the antiquated role of “matron.” Within this landscape of immense privilege, where difference is often met with hostility, the matron finds herself unsure of her role, her accent, and her body. That is until she meets Mrs. S, the headmaster’s wife, a woman who is her opposite: an assured, authoritative paragon of femininity. Over the course of a long, restless summer, their unspoken yearning blooms into an illicit affair of electric intensity. The program will include a reading from the novel, a moderated conversation with S. Brook Corfman, an audience Q&A, and a book signing. 

You can purchase your own copy of K’s book, Mrs. S, at City of Asylum Bookstore.

About the Author:

K Patrick (they/them) was named one of 2023’s “Best New Novelists” by The Guardian newspaper. Their poetry has appeared in Poetry Review and Five Dials and was shortlisted for The White Review Poetry Prize in 2021, the same year that K was shortlisted for The White Review Fiction Prize for their short story “Eggs.” In 2020, they were runner-up in the Ivan Juritz Prize and the Laura Kinsella Fellowship. Mrs. S, published by Europa Editions, is their debut novel and was named a June Indie Next Title. They are based in Glasgow, Scotland.

About the Moderator:

S. Brook Corfman (they/them) is the author of My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites, one of The New York Times Best Poetry Books of 2020, finalist for a Publishing Triangle Award, and winner of the Fordham University Press POL Prize, chosen by Cathy Park Hong. They are also the author of the poetry collection Luxury, Blue Lace, chosen by Richard Siken for the Autumn House Rising Writer Prize, and their poems, essays, and criticism have appeared widely. More: @sbrookcorfman & sbrookcorfman.com

About Your Visit: 

The in-house restaurant 40 North will be closed.