PGHwrites: Almost Perfect Press Presents What a Book is For

Almost Perfect Press presents What a Book is For at Alphabet City on Sunday, November 8, from 3 PM to 4 PM. It's part of the PGHwrites series, put on by City of Asylum in partnership with the press.

The hour is a mix of reading, performance, game show and panel talk, all centered on one question: what is a book, and what can it be? It pulls in perspectives from writers, readers, publishers, distributors and performers. From there, the conversation opens up into bigger territory: What is reading? What is writing? What is publishing? What is a story? What is knowledge? What is language? The organizers say they'll ask those questions, but they aren't promising to answer them.

Moderating the session is Jenna Peng, with writers Dani Lamorte and Emma Honcharski and Almost Perfect Press owner Brent Nakamoto. Nakamoto is a Queer Japanese-American Buddhist artist who specializes in hand-bound, small-batch publications by emerging writers and artists. He's also taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon and the Community College of Allegheny County.

Once the talk wraps, there's a hands-on workshop where you can bind your own copy of a new Almost Perfect Press chapbook. The whole thing is free, both in person and via livestream. It runs from 3 PM to 4 PM at Alphabet City, 40 W. North Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15212.