“A kaleidoscopic tour through the weird and wonderful diversity of animal sex. With juicy illustrations and thoughtful text, Perrin Ireland reminds us that humans occupy a narrow band of all possible experience. Multiplicities, not binaries, are the norm in nature. This book is a celebration of biological diversity and a call to challenge our prior assumptions: Relationships are at the center of all life, but they might not look how you’d expect.”
―Zoë Schlanger, New York Times bestselling author of The Light Eaters
Join author Perrin Ireland, Midcoast Villager Deputy Editor Alex Seitz-Wald, and Publisher Aaron Britt for a lively conversation about Ireland’s new book, Poking the Squid. They’ll dive into the fascinating, surprising, and often hilarious world of animal sex—and what it can teach us about the natural world.
Tickets are available through the registration link below. Admission is free for Villager Collective members, and tickets are $5 for non-members.
The evening will feature a reading from Poking the Squid, a conversation with Ireland, Seitz-Wald, and Britt, audience Q&A, and plenty of opportunities to explore the book’s wildest discoveries. Guests can also enjoy cocktails and wine available for purchase before the program begins.
Barnswallow Books will be selling copies of Poking the Squid, which Perrin will be signing after the event!
Fun fact: Perrin Ireland recently celebrated the launch of Poking the Squid at New York City’s Strand Book Store with actors Busy Philipps and Amber Tamblyn!
About the Book:
In delightful watercolor comics of pregnant seahorse dads, spider oral sex, and the four-headed echidna penis, Perrin Roosevelt Ireland takes us on a wild biodiversity ride through queerness, infidelity, consent, divorce, sex change, and even sexual cannibalism in the animal world. Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex illustrates the splendid diversity of nature’s eroticism. For too long, science has prudishly obscured the wildly creative kinkiness of animal sexual behavior—but Poking the Squid celebrates how assumptions about sex are shifting.
About the Author:
Perrin Roosevelt Ireland is an artist and environmentalist. For a decade, she worked at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), ultimately as deputy to the executive director. Her artwork has been published in Discover, Nature, Scientific American, and The Rumpus. She serves on the board of the Roosevelt Institute, was an inaugural Artist in Residence at the New York Aquarium and is a Banff Graphic Novel Resident. Perrin lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her cats (and muses) Ursula and Pudge.