Moderated by filmmaker Heather Buckley, this panel will take you from speakeasies to steam tunnels, mob kitchens to queer sanctuaries, this panel brings together four chroniclers of New York City's beautifully complicated past. Former cop turned memoirist Eddie McNamara stirs up tales from the city’s underbelly with wit and vegetarian meatballs. Historian Hugh Ryan (The Women’s House of Detention) resurrects forgotten queer spaces with archival precision. John Strausbaugh (City of Sedition, Victory City) spins sweeping, streetwise sagas of war and resistance in Gotham. And Laurie Gwen Shapiro (The Stowaway) uncovers the city’s eccentric dreamers and daring misfits. Together, they’ll explore what makes New York a city of endless reinvention—and irresistible stories.

Moderated by Laetitia Barbieri, author and former Chief Librarian of the Morbid Anatomy Museum.Four literary conjurors—Leila Taylor (Darkly), young adult author S.E. Porter, Colin Dickey (Ghostland), Alix Strauss (The Joy of Funerals) , and Sadie Dingfelder (Do I Know You?)—unearth the uncanny intersections of memory, identity, and the things that go bump in our collective unconscious.

Moderated by author Ilise S. Carter. Prepare to be dazzled and deeply moved at a panel that twirls through the intersection of burlesque, gender identity, and radical self-expression. Featuring legendary performers and thinkers of tease, this glittering lineup includes Jo Weldon, founder of the New York School of Burlesque and author of The Burlesque Handbook; neo-burlesque impresario Johnny Porkpie; sex-positive storyteller Fancy Feast; and academic and movement artist Elyssa Goodman. From firebrand feminism to gender play, they’ll peel back the layers—literally and figuratively—on what it means to shimmy in a world that says, sit still and look pretty.

Hosted by Trav S.D., this panel gathers three masters of the uncanny: James Taylor (Shocked & Amazed!), the archivist of American eccentricity; Jim Moore, poet laureate of the liminal and the lyrical; novelist Venessa V. Kelley, and Dawn Raffel (The Strange Case of Dr. Couney), historian of premature babies and carnival medicine. Together, they’ll explore how curiosity, the grotesque, and the unexpected shape the stories we tell—and why we can’t look away.

Nom! Nom! Nom!

Featuring everything from Shakespeare to shimmy to sideshow, we’ll cap off the day with a show of polymath performances. Hosted by The Lady Aye, the Fakir of Nonfiction and featuring the naked talent of authors Jo Weldon, Johnny Porkpie, and Fancy Feast. Plus, bawdy book reports by Victoria Vixen,Garth Schilling, and more. It's a full-sensory celebration of ink, intellect, and irresistible spectacle.