Reading Series at Books are Magic

Join us for the words of Charles Leerhsen, Chantal House, and Sam Graham-Felsen.

Charles Leerhsen, the author of the New York Times bestseller Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, has written for Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian,and many more. He has been an editor at SI, People and Us Weekly, as well as spending 11 years as a senior writer for Newsweekwhere he won the National Mental Health Association award for a cover story on alcohol and the family. Leerhsen’s previous books include the award-winning Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America, and the highly-acclaimed Blood and Smoke: A True Tale of Mystery, Mayhem, and the Birth of the Indy 500, which has been optioned for a TV series. He is an adjunct professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism and lives in Brooklyn with his wife Sarah Saffian.

Chantal House grew up in Lancashire, England where there is not much to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon but make up stories. She moved to New York to pursue a career in communications consulting, helping non-profits and social good brands tell their stories to a wider audience. She holds a BA from Cambridge University and her work has been recognized by Ad Age and The Guardian.  She currently lives in Brooklyn and is writing her first magic realism novel for children.

Sam Graham-Felsen’s debut novel, Green (Random House 2018), was a New York Times Editor’s Pick, an Indie Next selection, and an Amazon Best of the Month choice.  The Boston Globe called it a “a riot of language that’s part hip-hop, part nerd boy, and part pure imagination . . . Green earns . . . a spot on the continuum of vernacular in the American literary tradition, from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to The Catcher in the Ryeand Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” Before becoming a fiction writer, Graham-Felsen was a political journalist and worked as the chief blogger on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.