Tickets- $20
Full Pass - $40
Full pass includes the panel discussions and variety show
*Tickets do not ship. Will call pick up only.
Get ready to be shocked, amazed, informed, and amused! Coney Island USA and The Lady Aye are proud to present a day-long event celebrating the literary side of sideshow, burlesque, oddities, and New York City.
During the day, guests of all ages are invited to attend our panels and browse the best book-themed marketplace since the Scholastic Book Fair of your youth.
1:00pm- Writing in City: New York as Muse
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.
2:00pm- Writing the Creepy: Books That Go Bump in the Night
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.
3:00pm- Writing the Shimmy: The Politics of Pasties and Performance
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.
4:00pm- Writing the Bally: Sideshow as a Main Character
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.
See https://www.coneyislandbookfair.org/ for full details and schedule.
All ticket sales are non-refundable and WILL CALL only to be picked up night of performance, at our box office at 1208 Surf Avenue. TICKETS WILL NOT SHIP. There are no extra service fees for online purchase. Please check your junk or spam folder if you do not receive an email confirmation in your inbox.
Coney Island USA reserves the right to cancel a performance at any time. Advance ticket purchases will be refunded if such a situation arises.