Shagun knows he will never be the kind of son his father demands. After the sudden deaths of his beloved twin sisters, Shagun flees his own guilt, his mother's grief, and his father's violent disapproval by enrolling at an all-boys boarding school. But he doesn't find true belonging until he encounters a traveling theater troupe performing the Hindu myths of his childhood.

Welcomed by the other storytellers, Shagun thrives, easily embodying mortals and gods, men and women, and living on the road, where his father can't catch him. When Shagun meets Marc, a charming photographer, he seems to have found the love he always longed for, too. But not even Marc can save him from his lingering shame, nor his father's ever-present threat to send him to a conversion center. As Shagun's past begins to engulf him once again, he must decide if he is strong enough to face what he fears most, and to boldly claim his own happiness.

Utterly immersive and spellbinding, The Sea Elephants is both dark and beautiful, harrowing and triumphant. An ode to the redemptive joys of art, Shastri Akella's debut novel is a celebration of hard-won love--of others and for ourselves.

Shastri Akella's writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories, Fairy Tale Review, Guernica, LitHub, The Masters Review, Electric Literature, and CRAFT, among others. The Sea Elephants is his debut. He's a professor of creative writing at Michigan State University.

Akella will be in conversation with Jeffrey Dale Lofton. Lofton hails from Warm Springs, Georgia, best known as the home of Roosevelt’s Little White House. He calls the nation’s capital home now and has for over three decades. He is a senior advisor at the Library of Congress where he is surrounded by books and people who love books—in short, paradise. Red Clay Suzie is his first novel, a fictionalized memoir written through his personal lens as an outsider—gay and living with a disability in a conservative family and community in the Deep South. It was Longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2023 First Novel Prize and was awarded the Seven Hills Literary Prize for Fiction.

This event is free with first come, first served seating.