HOW TO LOSE A BEST FRIEND | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation
Date and Time
Sep 9, 2024 6:00 pm
Location
450K
450 K St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20001
Sep 9, 2024 6:00 pm
450K
For as long as anyone can remember, Zeke Ladoja and Imogen Parker have been best friends. Their classmates, their parents, and even the school custodian think that they’re meant to be together. And that’s exactly what Zeke wants: for Gen to be his girlfriend. Now that she’s about to be sixteen (and allowed to date), Zeke is finally going to tell her how he feels—in front of everyone at her birthday party.
Imogen loves Zeke with all her heart, but only as a friend. The pressure to be with Zeke has sometimes been overwhelming, but up to this point, she’s been able to manage it. Then she falls for the new boy, Trevor Cook, and she knows the news will devastate Zeke. The last thing she wants to do is hurt her best friend, but she also resents the fact that no one seems to care about what she wants.
The night of Gen’s party, everything goes wrong. There’s backlash, most of it directed at Gen, and Zeke feels emboldened. He isn’t about to give up on his feelings, and he’ll do whatever it takes to prove that she made the wrong choice…even if it means destroying their friendship. But Gen isn’t about to give up on fighting for herself and the freedom to love the boy she wants, not the boy she’s expected to be with.
Jordan K. Casomar is joining us on the Busboys stage alongside author Ciera Burch to share more about “social systems that uphold the inherent entitlement of the friend zone myth as well as the costs of railing against its toxic messaging”. Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Casomar will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Please note that this event is in person and will not be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books
Jordan K. Casomar is a Black prose writer from West Des Moines, Iowa. He holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Minnesota. He was selected for a MacDowell Fellowship in fall 2021, was the runner-up for the Pinch’s Spring 2018 Literary Awards in creative nonfiction, received a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant in 2017, and is an alum of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation workshop for BIPOC writers. He currently lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, their son, and their two cats. He works as a professional Dungeon Master and creative writing instructor for teens. How to Lose a Best Friend is his debut novel. Visit him at JordanKCasomar.com.
Ciera Burch is a lifelong writer and ice cream aficionado. She has a BA from American University and an MFA from Emerson College. Her fiction has appeared in The American Literary Magazine, Underground, Five Points, Stork, and Blackbird. Her work was also chosen as the 2019 One City One Story read for the Boston Book Festival. While she is originally from New Jersey, she currently resides in Washington, DC, with her stuffed animals, plants, and far too many books. Visit Ciera at CieraBurch.com.
