Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian to headline June edition of Literary Lights 2025

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The June edition of Literary Lights 2025 reading series features Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, professor, curator and author of national bestseller Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature, in conversation with award-winning writer Nancy Kricorian.

The virtual event, cosponsored by GALAS LGBTQ+ Armenian Society, will take place on June 28, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific / 1:00 p.m. Eastern / 9:00 p.m. Armenia time. Register here.

Growing up in the Hudson Valley, Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian felt most at home in the swamps and culverts near her house. A child who frequently felt out of place -- too much of one thing or not enough of another -- she found acceptance in these settings, among other amphibious beings. In snakes, snails, and, above all, fungi, she saw her own developing identities as a queer, neurodivergent person reflected back at her -- and in them, too, she found a personal path to a life of science.

In Forest Euphoria, Kaishian shows us this making of a scientist and introduces readers to the queerness of all the life around us. Fungal species, we learn, commonly encompass more than two biological sexes -- some with as many as 23,000. Some intersex slugs mutually fire calcium carbonate "love darts" at each other during courtship. Glass eels are sexually undetermined until their last year of life, a mystery that scientists once dubbed "the eel question." Nature, Kaishian shows us, is filled with the unusual, the overlooked and the marginalized -- and they have lessons for us all.

Wide-ranging, richly observant and full of surprises, Forest Euphoria will open your eyes and change how you look at the world.

Praise for the book

"By revealing how the natural order of the world very often rejects the rigidity imposed by heteronormativity...Forest Euphoria stunningly illustrates what lessons we might be able to glean about queerness from wildlife." -- Harper's Bazaar, "The 25 Best Books Coming Out This Spring"

"Just as nature resists easy categorization, so does this gem of a book. It is a heartfelt memoir. It is a lyrical feat of science writing. Perhaps above all else, it is a love letter to the messy, wondrous, complicated, binary-defying nature of the natural world -- and, within it, us. I loved it." -- Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms around Us

Dr. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian is the curator of mycology at the New York State Museum and a professor of biology with the Bard Prison Initiative. Her research focuses on fungal taxonomy, diversity and evolution, as well as queer theory and the philosophy of science. Her debut book, Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature, is a collection of essays that challenge our expectations of what is normal, beautiful and possible.

Nancy Kricorian, is a novelist and essayist born and raised in the Armenian community of Watertown, Massachusetts. She is the author of four novels about post-genocide Armenian diaspora experience, including Zabelle, which has been translated into seven languages, adapted for the stage and continuously in print since 1998. Her writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, Guernica, Parnassus, Minnesota Review, The Mississippi Review, and other journals. She has taught at Barnard, Columbia, Yale and New York University, as well as Teacher & Writers Collaborative in the New York City Public Schools and for the Palestine Writing Workshop in Birzeit. Her honors include a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a gold medal from the Writers Union of Armenia and the Anahid Literary Award. She lives in New York City. Sign up for the author's newsletter here.

About the series

Literary Lights 2025 is a monthly reading series organized by the International Armenian Literary Alliance, the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, and the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center. Each event -- held online or in-person -- features a writer reading from their work, followed by a discussion and audience Q&A.

Follow IALA's website and social media for upcoming event dates. You can read along with the series by purchasing titles from the IALA Bookstore powered by Bookshop.