**Once advanced RSVPs end, you can buy a book or a seat to guarantee entry, or try for free general admission at the door unless we have reached capacity.** - Booksmith

Booksmith is thrilled to host Olivia Gatwood for the launch of her darkly brilliant debut novel, Whoever You Are, Honey, which explores how women shape themselves beneath the gaze of love, friendship, and the algorithm. More to be announced, but please save the date and join us!

About the book

What happens when what was once considered dystopia is now reality? 

Mitty can’t quite make out the expression on Lena’s face, but she doesn’t look distressed. She looks like nothing at all. She looks like the beginning, before thoughts, a white hallway with no doors, a room so long your voice disappears before it can echo. 

On the Santa Cruz, California, waterfront, every house is a flawless glass monolith. Except for one. In a dilapidated bungalow, Mitty and her elderly roommate, Bethel, are the oddball pair who represent the last vestiges of a free-spirited town taken over by the tech elite. But their lives are about to be forever changed when a new couple, Sebastian and Lena, move in next door. 

Sebastian is a renowned tech founder and Lena is his spellbindingly perfect girlfriend. But Lena has secrets; she feels uneasy about her oddly spotty memory and is growing increasingly wary of the way Sebastian controls their relationship. Mitty is also hiding something, and the way Lena appears to float through her luxurious life draws Mitty inexorably into her orbit. As the two women begin to form a close friendship, they are finally forced to face their pasts—and the urgent truths that could change everything. 

Showcasing Olivia Gatwood’s talent as an essential author for our hyper-digital age, Whoever You Are, Honey is a gripping, seductive, and prescient novel that dissects relationships between women and examines how striving for perfection and desirability plays out in spaces where technology and power intersect.

Advance praise for Whoever You Are, Honey

“A gorgeous, haunting, tender story of women finding different kinds of love and solace in each other, Whoever You Are, Honey looks directly into the deep, dark depths of what makes us alive—and what sustains that life. I loved every minute of it.” – Gabrielle Korn, author of Yours for the Taking

“Gripping and heartfelt . . . Gatwood has created a vibrant, uncanny world that I was reluctant to tear myself away from.” – Kate Folk, author of Out There

About the author

Olivia Gatwood is the author of two poetry collections, New American Best Friend and Life of the Party, and the co-writer of the film The Governesses and Adele’s music video for “I Drink Wine.” She has received international recognition for her poetry, writing workshops, and work as a Title IX Compliant educator in sexual assault prevention and recovery. Her performances have been featured on HBO, MTV, VH1, the BBC, and more. Her poems have appeared in The Poetry Foundation, Lambda Literary, and The Missouri Review. Originally from Albuquerque, she lives in Los Angeles. Photo by Michael Drummond

Hieu Minh Nguyen is the author of two collections of poetry,This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014) and Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018), which went on to win the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. Some awards and fellowships Hieu has received include: the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, a McKnight Writing Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship. He is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.Hieu lives in Oakland and is a Jones Lecturer in Poetry at Stanford University.

Please note:

• Masks are not required, but can be provided upon request.
• Check-in begins at 6:45. Unclaimed seats are given up beginning at 7:10.
• There will be a 30 minute post-show signing as time allows. Books will be for sale on the night of the event, but you can also purchase copies here (along with Olivia's other books).
• Please be aware of the ticket tier you are selecting. The free general admission tier *does not guarantee a seat* and may be standing room if our seated tiers sell out first.
• Questions? Accessibility requests? Write to us at [email protected].