passerby x the center for fiction

We’ve collaborated with the Center for Fiction to compile the reads below, which have been curated for you from the recommendations in our features and carefully selected by the passerby team.

We’re also excited to be co-presenting Hafizah Augustus Geter’s conversation with J Wortham about The Black Period: On Personhood, Race & Origin on September 21st. You can access more information and register for your in-person or online attendance here.

about the center for fiction

The Center for Fiction is the only nonprofit literary organization in the U.S. exclusively dedicated to celebrating fiction, nurturing readers and writers every day through panels, lectures, conversations, reading groups, grants, workshops, and more. They also run an independent bookstore (including a café and bar space) in Brooklyn.

Want to join our passerby bookclub and read alongside our community? Become a passerby club member for bookclub access, goodie bags, discounts, exclusive interviews, and more.

about passerby

passerby is a magazine that celebrates the women who pass us by.

Since 2015, passersby from all over the world have welcomed us into their homes, offering honest looks into their lives — the unconventional paths, mistakes, and small victories — as well as their book, film, and music libraries. Conceived by Clémence Polès, passerby was born from her curiosity about the women she encountered all too briefly while people-watching. Wanting to hear from the people who sat beside her on the subway, from those who served her coffee or passed her on the sidewalk, she set out to broaden the scope of typical media portrayals, asking the women she saw to speak with her.

Hundreds of conversations later, passerby has become a venue for different perspectives, a driver of creative exchange, and a home for a truly global community. passerby pushes against traditional narratives of who is seen and what can be discussed, providing a rare space for reflection on an increasingly busy internet.