Join us when we welcome Isabel Waidner to discuss their phenomenal new novel, STERLING KARAT GOLD, with Maz Murray of The right lube. The conversation will be streaming via Instagram Live.

Sterling is arrested one morning without having done anything wrong. Plunged into a terrifying and nonsensical world, Sterling – with the help of their three best friends – must defy bullfighters, football players and spaceships in order to exonerate themselves and to hold the powers that be to account.

Sterling Karat Gold is Kafka’s The Trial written for the era of gaslighting – a surreal inquiry into the real effects of state violence on gender-nonconforming, working-class and black bodies.

Following the Goldsmiths Prize–nominated We Are Made of Diamond Stuff, Isabel Waidner’s latest novel proposes community, inventiveness and the stubborn refusal to lie low as antidotes against marginalisation and towards better futures.

Isabel Waidner is a writer and academic based in London. They are the author of three novels: Sterling Karat Gold (2021), We Are Made of Diamond Stuff (2019) and Gaudy Bauble (2017). They were shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize (twice), and won the Internationale Literaturpreis. They are a co-founder of the event series Queers Read This at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), and the programmer and presenter of This Isn’t a Dream, a fortnightly literary talk show, also hosted by the ICA via Instagram live.

Maz Murray is an artist based in Basildon and London, working mainly in film and writing. They’ve made short films for ICA and Random Acts, and have written for montez press as part of The right lube, a collaborative blog and social space for trans people.

We’re truly delighted to be welcoming Brontez Purnell for the UK launch of his new book, 100 BOYFRIENDS. Brontez will be joined in conversation by Huw Lemmey, and the event will be streaming via Instagram Live.

Transgressive, foulmouthed, and wildly funny, 100 BOYFRIENDS is a filthy, unforgettable, and brutally profound ode to messy queer love. From one-night stands to recurring lovers, Brontez Purnell’s characters expose themselves to racist neighbours, date Satanists, and drink their way out of trouble, all the while fighting – and often losing – the urge to self-sabotage.

Brontez Purnell is a writer, musician, dancer, filmmaker, and performance artist. He is the author of a graphic novel, a novella, a children’s book, and the novel Since I Laid My Burden Down. The recipient of a 2018 Whiting Writers’ Award for Fiction, he was named one of the 32 Black Male Writers of Our Time by The New York Times Magazine. Purnell is also the frontman for the band the Younger Lovers, a co-founder of the experimental dance group the Brontez Purnell Dance Company, the creator of the renowned cult zine Fag School, and the director of several short films, music videos, and the documentary Unstoppable Feat: The Dances of Ed Mock. He lives in Oakland, California.

Huw Lemmey is a novelist and essayist based in Barcelona. He is the author of three novels: Unknown Language (2020), Red Tory (2019) and Chubz (2014), and co-host of the podcast Bad Gays.