Book Event: The Maidenheads by Benny B. Peterson

W&CF and StoryStudio Chicago are excited to present an event celebrating the release of The Maidenheads by Benny B. Peterson! For this event, Benny will be joined in conversation by JP Solheim.

Please note: Masks are required for this event! We'll have masks at the door for those who might need one, but we deeply appreciate you bringing your own!

A bighearted debut novel about queer yearning, indie musicians, and bushwacking a thorny path back to your first love

Jamie is bad at endings, which is why she's stuck at a dead-end Baltimore newspaper job, continuing to have break-up sex with her first-ever hetero partner, and haunted by the what-ifs of her ex-girlfriend Mari—a charismatic and brilliant musician—and their former band together, the Maidenheads. Since they (and their band) broke up a decade ago, Jamie hasn't been able to sing.

Then an unexpected opportunity to perform in DC with Mari's successful new band arises, and Jamie jumps at it. What begins as a return to music becomes a reckoning—with the weight of unfinished love, the voice she long buried, and her own complicated past. But as Jamie channels more of her energy into the band, other threads in her life begin to fray, and she must make some urgent choices about her future.

Electric, spine-tingling, and filled to the brim with tenderness and honesty, The Maidenheads is a novel about the tenacity of first love, the life-changing power of music, and the difficult, necessary work of becoming yourself.

Benny B. Peterson (they/them) is a writer and editor based near Washington, DC. A contributing editor at Washingtonian magazine, they have also worked at Foreign Policy, the New Republic, and Street Sense, DC's street newspaper. They have written about culture, politics, gender, and LGBTQ+ issues for The New York Times, Washington Post, Elle, Slate, and The Atlantic, among other places, and received an MFA in fiction from Bennington.

The coordinator for StoryStudio Chicago Queer Writers, JP Solheim is a fiction writer, literary critic, and musician. The author of The Performance of Listening in Postcolonial Francophone Culture (Liverpool University Press), their fiction has been published in Bellevue Literary Review, MQR: Mixtape, Midwest Weird Audio Literary Magazine, The Pinch,The Southampton Review, and Zone 3. They also played bass and sang in Chicago indie punk bands The Smoothies (Southern Records) and Minim (Tour de Vis).

Accessibility: This event is hosted at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are required for this event. We have one industrial air purifier, two smaller air purifiers, and four ceiling fans throughout our space. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com by no later than 14 days before the event. For other access needs please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com.