A lifelong [literal] hot take: added daylight aside, summer is a drag. My daily baseline is lethargic & cranky (with a precipitous spike in climate anxiety), the entire city smells like a large, sweltering armpit, & algorithms distort my already-wobbly perception into the sense that everybody else is having fun in or near a body of water.
Since childhood, I’ve found relief from these symptoms with two potent remedies: water ice (the apartment complex I grew up in was across the street from a Rita’s—everyone knows they give out free ices on the first day of spring, but real heads know they used to give kids a free one in exchange for showing a good report card) (these days, Fred’s & Siddiq’s are my faves) & flopping in a cool, dim place with books that can keep my attention in a way that pleasantly wiles away these slow hours.
Here’s my current view from Solar Myth—one of the coolest, dimmest vibes around & the home of this reading series—where I’m doing just that, sans water ice but plus the excellent company of co-working pals & lots of excitement for the June event!
(Kyle at the bar, Patrick & Kevin at the tables)
Coming up on June 2: local favorite Emma Copley Eisenberg and Monika Ostrowska, stopping over from Brooklyn, with two formidable (& highly recommended) additions to your summer reading pile: the recently-published short story collection Fat Swim & the poetry collection Squirming, respectively.
✧ ✦ Tickets & More Info ✦ ✧
Emma Copley Eisenberg is the nationally bestselling author of the novel Housemates, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Fiction and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Prize, as well as the nonfiction book The Third Rainbow Girl, a New York TimesNotable Book and Editor’s Choice. Her fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared widely including in The Yale Review, Granta, The Paris Review, The New Republic, The Cut, TIME, The New York Times Review of Books, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She lives in Philadelphia, where she co-founded Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts, and is a 2026 Pew Foundation fellow. She’s received fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Bread Loaf, Tin House and others, and has taught creative writing at Wesleyan University, Haverford College, Bryn Mawr College, Temple University and independently. Her next book of fiction, Fat Swim, which includes the Pushcart Prize-winning title story, was published by Random House in April 2026.
Monika Ostrowska is a writer and founder of Triangle House whose work has appeared in Joyland, New York Times Magazine, Guernica, Peach Mag, Newest York, and other publications. Born in Poland, she now lives in Greenpoint, NY with her son. Her first book, the poetry collection Squirming, was published by Coffee House Press in April 2026.
If you missed (or want to reminisce on) May’s wonderful Track Changes event with Steffan Triplett & Kirwyn Sutherland, here’s the soundtrack to our discussion about avant-garde sensibilities & genre-defying writing, Missy Elliott’s incredible fits, the seismic cultural impact of Outkast’s double album, making art after life-shattering grief, Mariah Carey’s comparatively under-recognized songwriting chops, & more.
♫ Track Changes 007: Kirwyn Sutherland + Steffan Triplett ♫
The bar just started playing a Yo La Tengo song that starts ”You tell me summer’s here / And the time is wrong”, & we all agreed it’s time to switch to wine. Here beats the algorithm, every time.
♡ Alina