Local author Michael Klein will discuss his new essay collection, “Happiness Ruined Everything,” during an evening event at the Jamestown Arts Center on Tuesday, May 12.
The talk, presented by Newport’s Charter Books in collaboration with the arts center, will run from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at 18 Valley St. RSVPs are encouraged for the pay-what-you-can event, and walk-ins are welcome.
Klein will open the evening with remarks on the genesis of the book and its journey to publication, followed by a selection of readings and reflections on his writing process, including the moments that shaped the essays but did not make it onto the page. A Q&A session with the audience will close the program. Charter Books will sell copies of the book on site, and Klein will sign copies after the talk.
Published by Galileo Books, “Happiness Ruined Everything” is a collection of devotional essays in which Klein turns toward joy as an act of resistance and self-preservation during a time of political cruelty. The essays draw on cherished writers, mentors, lovers past and present, beloved animals, musicians and a life spent by the sea.
Klein, a five-time finalist and two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award for poetry, is also the author of two books of autobiography. His work has appeared in Poetry, the Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Tin House and Bennington Review, among other publications. He has taught writing at Sarah Lawrence, Binghamton University, Hunter College and the Fine Arts Work Center summer program, where he held a fellowship in poetry in 1990. For more than 20 years, he served on the MFA faculty at Goddard College. He now works as a consultant, editor and occasional ghostwriter for writers developing memoirs and poetry manuscripts.
Once the young poet to whom Jean Valentine dedicated a poem, and the teenager who learned to read poetry in the living room of Adrienne Rich, Klein writes from the perspective of what he describes as a queer elder shaped by those mentors and the transformative power of art.
Charter Books, founded in 2020 at 8 Broadway in Newport, is an independent bookstore that regularly partners with community organizations to host author events. The Jamestown Arts Center is an artist-founded, community-driven organization focused on arts education and creative expression.
