Bestselling author Erika Swyler will discuss her new dystopian novel, We Lived on the Horizon, in conversation with author Adrienne Celt, in this installment of "Author Hour in Massachusetts."

About Erika: Erika Swyler is the bestselling author of the critically acclaimed novels Light from Other Stars and The Book of Speculation. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in Catapult, LitHub, The New York Times, and elsewhere. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, she lives on Long Island, New York, with her husband and a mischievous house rabbit.

About We Lived on the Horizon: The acclaimed author of the dazzling The Book of Speculation returns with an engrossing new novel about a bio-prosthetic surgeon and her personal AI as they are drawn into a revolution. The city of Bulwark is aptly named: a walled city built to protect and preserve the people who managed to survive a series of great cataclysms, Bulwark was founded on a system where sacrifice is rewarded by the AI that runs the city. Over generations, an elite class has evolved from the descendants of those who gave up the most to found mankind’s last stronghold, called the Sainted. Saint Enita Malovis, long accustomed to luxury, feels the end of her life and decades of work as a bio-prosthetist approaching. The lone practitioner of her art, Enita is determined to preserve her legacy and decides to create a physical being, called Nix, filled with her knowledge and experience. In the midst of her project, a fellow Sainted is brutally murdered and the city AI inexplicably erases the event from its data. Soon, Enita and Nix are drawn into the growing war that could change everything between Bulwark’s hidden underclass and the programs that impose and maintain order. A complex, imaginative, and unforgettable novel, We Lived on the Horizon grapples with concepts as varied as the human desire for utopia, body horror, and what the future holds for humanity and machine alike.

About Adrienne: Adrienne Celt is the author of three novels, including End of the World House; Invitation To A Bonfire, which was a 2018 June Indie Next Pick and Amazon Book of the Month; and The Daughters, which won the 2015 PEN Southwest Book Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2016 Crawford Award. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Florida Review, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Greensboro Review, TriQuarterly, and many other places.

About Author Hour: "Author Hour in Massachusetts" is a series of virtual author talks this winter featuring some of the publishing industry's top trending writers. These webinars -- held from 7pm (ET) to 8pm (ET), Monday through Friday -- are free and open to all. This series, which runs through March 20, 2025, is being promoted by more than 50 public libraries in Massachusetts.

If you need help registering or if the registration below has closed, please call 978-526-7711.