Miranda Mellis & Sarah Labrie discuss & sign Crocosmia and No One Gets To Fall Apart

A revelatory novel (or parable) of art, adventure, and a radical politics, set in a world on the precipice.

A philosophical fable, Crocosmia centers on Maya as she recollects the "great turning"--a moment of radical social and ecological change effected by her mother, Jane's, art. As Maya recalls her upbringing--from a commune run by anarchist nuns to a time of rural isolation before her mother's disappearance--Mellis's prose gorgeously conjures a life defined by revolutionary thought and action and the interplay and tension between family life and political commitment. At once a fantasy, a handbook to political thought, and a work of eco-fiction, this lush novel meditates on how, in a world on the precipice, dreams of communal care can bloom.

Miranda Mellis is the author of the novel Crocosmia (Nightboat Books); three novellas, The Revisionist, The Spokes, and The Quarry; and a short-story collection, None of This Is Real. Her poetry and nonfiction books and chapbooks include The Revolutionary, Demystifications, Unconsciousness Raising, and Materialisms. She is the co-author of two book-length dialogues: The Instead with Emily Abendroth and Passing Through with Rick Moody (forthcoming, Solid Objects 2026). With Tisa Bryant and Kate Schatz, she was a founding co-editor at The Encyclopedia Project. She grew up in San Francisco and now lives in the woods of the Pacific Northwest where she is a professor at The Evergreen State College. Read her intermittencies at: https://youareinlovewiththeimpossible.substack.com/