Molly's Bookstore presents Novels in Progress Series.

Thorns & Roses: A Stem by Lauren Holguin

Poet and burnt out elementary teacher Lola is devastated by the death of her beloved Abuela. Rushing from Philly to the Los Angeles she worked to get away from, Lola misses her opportunity to read Abuela the children's story she always wished Lola would write for her. With the stem who held them all together gone, the landscape of this already strange family is further complicated when post-funeral, Abuela returns as a stubborn rose plant sprouting within Lola’s body. When everything from an over-the-phone exorcism to a pack of razors fail to alleviate her condition, Lola reluctantly follows the instincts of Abuela’s spirit through dreams and uncomfortable bodily urges. With her resentful older sister Dora and a couple of favorite cousins, Lola embarks on an answer-seeking road trip though the Southwest beginning in the Mojave desert of Abuela’s childhood— the source of her environmentally caused cancer. Thorns & Roses explores the past, present, and future anatomy of a Mexican-American family, particularly the thorns of estranged relationships amidst roses of memories. Full of desert delirium, rest stop karaoke, family secrets, and drama, Lola journeys through the following questions: What are your thorns?  What are your roses?  Who or what is your stem?

Lauren Holguin is a Chicanx writer, educator, and dancer from Los Angeles who calls Philly home. She is a recent grad of Rutgers Camden's MFA program, a poetry and fiction editor at Barrelhouse Mag, and co-host of the Philly reading series Spit Poetry. She currently works as a high school special education teacher in Camden, NJ. Her words have been featured in No Tokens Journal, The Fourth River, Subnivean, and Barrelhouse Magazine

STOPPING by Nikki Volpicelli

Stopping is a novel-in-stories about coming of age in and around Philadelphia during the opioid crisis that follows Danni, a teenager searching for—and refusing to accept—love, obliteration, and rescue. Years later, her life consists of staying sober, separating from her husband, and avoiding her mother’s phone calls about her little sister, Alyssa, who lives in a tent in Kensington. To reconnect with Alyssa, test her sobriety, or both, Danni returns to the neighborhood where her addiction began to volunteer at a syringe exchange, finding that her past is still very much alive, and more dangerous than ever.

Nikki Volpicelli is a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her work has been shortlisted for The Masters Review Short Story Award for New Writers and the Craft Literature Short Story Award. Her writing has been featured in Neutral Spaces, XRAY, Entropy, Expat, and more. She lives in Philadelphia with her two chihuahuas, Gene and Bones, and her human, Eric.

The event is free takes place in the Heim Center Rooms131/132 Special thanks to Blue Stoop for their Support.