Under the Radar with Callie Crossley featuring Allison King, author of The Phoenix Pencil Company
When:
Thursday, Jul 24, 2025 7:00p -
8:00p
Thursday, Jul 24, 2025 7:00p -
8:00p
Where:
Porter Square Books
1815 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA 02140
Admission:
FREE
Hosted by:
Categories:
Lectures & Conferences
Event website:
https://portersquarebooks.com/event/2025-07-24/under-radar-callie-crossley-featuring-allison-king-author-phoenix-pencil-company
Porter Square Books is thrilled to partner with GBH to bring an in-person event featuring Under the Radar with Callie Crossley. The show's guest is Allison King, author of The Phoenix Pencil Company.
This event will take place at our CAMBRIDGE store. We offer validated parking in the lot on Roseland St. behind Lesley's University Hall. See parking details below.
RSVP to let us know you're coming and to receive event updates!*
*Please note that you will not receive a confirmation email. However, we will send a reminder email one day before the event. Please check your spam folder if you do not see the pre-event email reminder. Better yet, add [email protected] to your safe sender list to avoid PSB event emails going to spam!
ABOUT THE PHOENIX PENCIL COMPANY
In this dazzling debut novel, a hidden and nearly forgotten magic—of Reforging pencils, bringing the memories they contain back to life—holds the power to transform a young woman’s relationship with her grandmother, and to mend long-lost connections across time and space.
Monica Tsai spends most days on her computer, journaling the details of her ordinary life and coding for a program that seeks to connect strangers online. A self-proclaimed recluse, she's always struggled to make friends and, as a college freshman, finds herself escaping into a digital world, counting the days until she can return home to her beloved grandparents. They are now in their nineties, and Monica worries about them constantly—especially her grandmother, Yun, who survived two wars in China before coming to the States, and whose memory has begun to fade.
Though Yun rarely speaks of her past, Monica is determined to find the long-lost cousin she was separated from years ago. One day, the very program Monica is helping to build connects her to a young woman, whose gift of a single pencil holds a surprising clue. Monica’s discovery of a hidden family history is exquisitely braided with Yun’s own memories as she writes of her years in Shanghai, working at the Phoenix Pencil Company. As WWII rages outside their door, Yun and her cousin, Meng, learn of a special power the women in their family possess: the ability to Reforge a pencil’s words. But when the government uncovers their secret, they are forced into a life of espionage, betraying other people’s stories to survive.
Combining the cross-generational family saga and epistolary form of A Tale for the Time Being with the uplifting, emotional magic of The Midnight Library, Allison King’s stunning debut novel asks: who owns and inherits our stories? The answers and secrets that surface on the page may have the unerasable power to reconnect a family and restore a legacy.
PRAISE FOR THE PHOENIX PENCIL COMPANY
"I loved this wildly inventive novel and its exploration of how technology and humanity can intersect in deeply meaningful ways. Allison King is a talent to watch." — Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of The God of the Woods
“China, America, generations, and stories connect with literal magic in this suspenseful debut. Marvelous!” — Gish Jen, award-winning author of The Resisters
“The Phoenix Pencil Company is a masterful blending of history, fantasy, and romance that sank into my heart the way the magic of its pencils sinks into veins. King has written a stunning debut that pulses with love and loss, regret and forgiveness, and above all, the undeniable, painful, joyful pull of human connection. This book had me smiling through my tears.” — Fonda Lee, author of the Green Bone Saga
ABOUT UNDER THE RADAR WITH CALLIE CROSSLEY
Under the Radar with Callie Crossley looks to alternative presses and community news for stories that are often overlooked by big media outlets. In our roundtable conversation, we aim to examine the small stories before they become the big headlines with contributors in Boston and New England.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Allison King is an Asian American writer and software engineer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In technology, her work has ranged from semiconductors to platforms for community conversations to data privacy. Her short stories have appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Diabolical Plots, and LeVar Burton Reads, among others. She is a 2023 Reese’s Book Club LitUp fellow. The Phoenix Pencil Company is her first novel.
Callie Crossley hosts the radio show and podcast Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and shares radio essays Mondays on GBH’s Morning Edition. She is a co-host of GBH’s radio program, The Culture Show which focuses on local and national cultural trends and perspectives. She formerly hosted GBH’s Basic Black, and continues to offer cultural commentary on GBH’s midday talk show Boston Public Radio. Crossley has been a substitute host for the national podcast Our Body Politic and is a frequent commentator on local and national television and radio programs.
PARKING
Porter Square Books: Cambridge Edition offers validated parking in the lot on Roseland St. behind Lesley's University Hall. Roseland Street is accessible by Beacon Street and Mass Ave. When you arrive at the lot, use the screen on the kiosk to get a ticket.
When you're ready to leave, ask for a validation barcode at the cash register. (No purchase necessary.) Parking is free on weekends and weekday evenings from 6PM-7AM. From 7AM-6PM on weekdays the first 45 minutes are free.
Upon exiting the lot, scan your ticket and choose "validation." Then scan the barcode your received from us. If you have an additional charge, you will be prompted to pay after scanning your barcode.
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