Two groundbreaking debut story collections published last year investigate relationships, desire, gender, and transformation, from powerfully queer and brilliantly real perspectives. Merritt Tierce will moderate a conversation between Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties, and Jess Arndt, author of Large Animals: Stories, that will explore the authors' interests and expertise in writing "dark" stories (what exactly does that mean?), breaking and inventing fictional forms, how the body and the self are connected, and how literature can shape and explain and be that connection.