Ed Park presents ‘Three Tenses’

Third Place Books welcomes back Ed Park to the store, for a conversation about his new book, Three Tenses: A Transmission from the Nineties.

In 1998, Ed Park wrote a memoir and saved it to the vanishing technology of the floppy disk, losing it for more than twenty years. Until one day, emptying out an old, unmarked box in his family’s cramped New York City home, he came across a hefty manila folder. Out slid the only remaining copy of Three Tenses. The piece of writing that Park found was an assemblage of beguiling anecdotes, sly observations, and collected esoterica, produced within the confines of the shoebox apartment of his twenties and only now allowed to see the light of day.

This event is free and open to the public. For important updates, RSVP is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!

Having trouble registering? See Eventbrite’s troubleshooting FAQ here.

Tickets:

This event is free to attend. Registration is required in advance.

About Three Tenses. . .

An elegant, iridescent mosaic of autobiographical fragments, both real and invented, forming a portrait of a creative life, from the life of the Pulitzer Prize finalist for Same Bed Different Dreams

In 1998, Ed Park wrote a memoir and saved it to the vanishing technology of the floppy disk, losing it for more than twenty years. Until one day, emptying out an old, unmarked box in his family’s cramped New York City home, he came across a hefty manila folder. Out slid the only remaining copy of Three Tenses.

The piece of writing that Park found—“a voice lesson, a language experiment, an autobiography with lies, a document of sustained artistic bliss of a sort that I have never found again”—was an assemblage of beguiling anecdotes, sly observations, and collected esoterica, produced within the confines of the shoebox apartment of his twenties and only now allowed to see the light of day. Two Ed Parks emerge on the page: within the prose of the young, struggling writer arises the voice of the artist he would become.

Profound, wily, and beautifully wrought, Three Tenses is a meeting of memory and myth, confession and obfuscation, coalescing to offer a singular picture of creativity in action.

Ed Park is the author of the novels Same Bed Different Dreams, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Personal Days, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award; and An Oral History of Atlantis, his debut story collection. His fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Harper’s, The Atlantic, Bookforum, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. He is a founding editor of The Believer and the former literary editor of The Village Voice, and has worked in newspapers and book publishing. Born in Buffalo, Park lives in Manhattan with his family. He currently teaches writing at Princeton University.

About Third Place Books

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle’s Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events