Booksmith and The Bindery are thrilled to host Joseph Fink and Meg Bashwiner for The First Ten Years: Two Sides of the Same Love Story. They'll be in conversation with Mara Wilson!

This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required. Event link will be sent to everyone who registers.

You can order The First Ten Years here.

About the book

In 2009, 22-year-old Joseph Fink, newly arrived to New York City from the West Coast, was juggling odd jobs to pay the rent and volunteering with a theater company in the East Village so he could snag free tickets to their shows.

Meg Bashwiner, a 22-year-old aspiring performer and playwright, was living with her parents in New Jersey, working a desk job and commuting to her internship with that same East Village theater company.

Joseph and Meg's stories meet when they both find themselves selling tickets in a cramped box office. They quickly became friends. Within a year, they were a couple. Within five years they were touring the world, performing on some of the world's greatest and not so great stages.

In this candid, soul-baring memoir, Joseph and Meg recount their first ten years together, each telling their story as they remember it, without having consulted the other. We hear both sides of their first kiss, first breakup, first getting back together, the death of a father, marriage, international fame, world tours, mental illness, and discussions about having children. Sometimes, they recall things differently—neither agrees on who paid for the morning after pill on their first date. Sometimes they remember the exact same details in the same way—but still have their own narrative on just what those details mean.

Poignant, funny, and real, alternately told in Joseph and Meg’s remarkably different, yet equally compelling voices, The First Ten Years is the story of two individuals finding their way in the world and becoming "adults" as they learn to become a couple.

About the authors

Joseph Fink created the Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn't Dead podcasts and is the author of the novel Alice Isn’t Dead, and co-author of the New York Times best-selling novels Welcome to Night Vale, It Devours!, The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home, and four Welcome to Night Vale episode script books: Mostly Void, Partially Stars, The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe, The Buying of Lot 37, and Who’s a Good Boy. 

Meg Bashwiner is a writer, performer, tour manager, podcaster and producer. She is the emcee for the international touring live show of the Welcome to Night Vale podcast. She is an alumni member of the acclaimed New York theater company The New York Neo-Futurists. They live in the Hudson Valley and Los Angeles. 

Mara Wilson is a writer and actor, perhaps best known for her childhood roles in Matilda and Mrs. Doubtfire. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Elle, McSweeney's, Reductress, Cracked, and on the fiction podcast Passenger List. Her book Where Am I Now? was published in 2016. A voice actor since childhood, her voice can be heard on BoJack Horseman, Batman Beyond, and Big Hero 6: The Series. She is the voice of the Faceless Old Woman on Welcome to Night Vale, and narrated the audiobook for The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home.

This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required.