Julia McConnell

Magic City Books is proud to welcome Oklahoma native Julia McConnell for a reading and conversation celebrating her award-winning poetry collection, Landlocked, on Thursday, September 7 at 7:00pm. This free event will take place in the Algonquin Room at Magic City Books, and Julia will be joined in conversation with author Rilla Askew.

Lesbian bars, libraries, highways, churches, and oil rigs set the scene for the poems in Landlocked. Whether at work or at play, the speakers in Landlocked live in the space between longing and belonging, wanderlust and homesickness, and explore the intersection of place and identity. In the era of “don’t say gay”, these poems provide a defiantly queer perspective on Oklahoma, one of the reddest of the red states, and its many contradictions.

Copies of Landlocked are currently available for purchase in store or on our website, Landlocked | Magic City Books (square.site). Signed books will be shipped out beginning Friday, September 8.

Julia McConnell is a lesbian poet and librarian. Landlocked was awarded the 2022 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize. Her chapbook, Against the Blue, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016. Her publications include San Pedro River Review, Right Hand Pointing, Plainsongs, Screen Door Review, Lavender Review, and other journals. Originally from Oklahoma, Julia lives in Seattle with her Jack Russell Terrier, Molly Marlova Magdalena McConnell.