Playing Doubles: The Center Line between Sports and Literature
Join us on the evening of November 12th to celebrate the sports fiction genre. In recent years, sports has increasingly found its place among the arts: the critical and commercial successes of films such as Challengers (dir. Luca Guadagnino) and The Iron Claw (dir. Sean Durkin), alongside new releases such as Kill the Jockey (dir. Luis Ortega) and F1 (dir. Joseph Kosinski), demonstrates a burgeoning appetite for stories about sports and the culture that surrounds them. Playing Doubles brings together writers Anelise Chen, Benedict Nguyễn, and E. Y. Zhao for a night of conversation about the sports fiction genre.
Anelise Chen is the author of SO MANY OLYMPIC EXERTIONS (Kaya Press), a novel about a former swimmer grappling with failure and why to keep going. Her new memoir, CLAM DOWN, about a woman who turns into a clam, was published in June 2025 (One World). It was a NYT Editor's Choice pick and included in Vulture's Best Books of the Year So Far.
Benedict Nguyễn is a freelance dancer, creative producer, and writer. In 2024, she appeared in the short film “Don’t F*ck with Bà” (dir. Sally Tran). This fall, she’s performing in Sugar Vendil’s Antonym at JACK and producing Will Rawls’ NYC premiere of [siccer]. Benedict is the author of the [redacted] freelance labor zine nasty notes (2022) and the debut novel Hot Girls with Balls (Catapult 2025), a USA Today national bestseller. @xbennyboo / benedict-nguyen.com
E.Y. Zhao is a writer and editor from St. Louis. Her debut novel, Underspin, about the rise and fall of a table tennis prodigy, came out with Astra House in September 2025. She was formerly ranked #3 in the US for Girls Under 13 and competed as a collegiate athlete for Harvard College and University of Michigan.
The event was curated by Publishing Fellow Annelie Hyatt and will be moderated by her.
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