Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore and Thea Hillman at Books Inc. in the Castro January 22, 2009

Local Authors Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore and Thea Hillman will be stopping by to read from their two latest books, "So Many Ways to Sleep Badly" and "Intersex"

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's exhilarating new novel is about struggling to find hope in the ruins of everyday San Francisco--battling roaches, Bikram Yoga, chronically bad sex, NPR, internet cruising, tweakers, the cops, $100 bills, chronic pain, the gay vote, vegan restaurants, and incest, with the help of air-raid sirens, herbal medicine, late-nightepiphanies, sea lions, and sleeping pills. "So Many Ways to Sleep Badly" unveils a gender-bending queer world where nothing flows smoothly, except for those sudden moments when everything becomes lighter or brighter or easier to imagine.

"Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word)" chronicles one person's search for self in a world obsessed with normal. What is "intersex"? According to the Intersex Society of North America, the word describes someone born with sex chromosomes, genitalia, or an internal reproductive system that are neither clearly male nor clearly female. In first-person prose as intimate as a diary, Thea Hillman redefines memoir in a series of compelling stories that take a no-holds-barred look at sex, gender, family, and community. Whether she's pondering quirky family tendencies ("Drag"), reflecting on "queerness" ("Another"), or recounting scintillating adventures in San Francisco's sex clubs, Hillman's brave and fierce vision for cultural and societal change shines through.

About the authors:

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the author of the novel, Pulling Taffy, and the editor of four nonfiction anthologies, including Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity and That's Revoling! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation. Sycamore writes regularly for a variety of publications, including Bitch, Utne Reader, AlterNet, Make/Shift, and Maximumrocknroll. She lives in San Francisco.

According to a special report by the Traditional Values Coalition entitled "Homosexual Urban Myth," award-winning writer Thea Hillman is a radical who conducts erotic readings to promote the "homosexual revolution." Thea offers presentations about sex and gender and performs her work at colleges and festivals around the country. She lives in Oakland, California.

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Books Inc. is a locally owned and operated independent bookseller with 10 locations in California. Books Inc.'s origin dates back to the Gold Rush Days of 1851 when Anton Roman struck it rich in Shasta City, California and set himself up in business selling books. That small bookstore was moved, bought, sold, burned, rebuilt, renamed and became Books Inc., as we know it today, in 1946.

Today, with 10 Stores and 200 employees, Books Inc. serves as a shining example that independent bookselling can survive and prosper, even if we must dance among the elephants.

This Event is Free at Books Inc. 2275 Market St., San Francisco 94114
For Questions:415.864.6777 or on the web at http://www.booksinc.net and
http://www.myspace.com/booksinccastro

Official Website: http://booksinc.net/NASApp/store/Search?s=results&initiate=yes&ks=q&qsselect=KQ&title=&author=&qstext=milk&x=0&y=0