Advanced Elvis Course: An evening with CAConrad

Join us on December 5th at 7pm, for a heartfelt exploration of queer fandom with legendary poet, CAConrad. Who will be in conversation with Isabel Waidner about the lasting power and pull of Elvis in Advanced Elvis Course, as well as queer fandoms and they're lasting power.

When CAConrad’s reverence for the King puts them on a trip to Memphis, the result is this wild joyride of a book, a homage that is bursting with love and twisted sincerity. Drawing on sources as disparate as graffiti, talk-show interviews, phone messages, and poetry, Conrad assembles a collage that celebrates while laughing with the cult of Elvis.
Advanced Elvis Course is a psychedelic road trip – a transcendental portrait of a man who changed music and America forever, seen through the eyes of those for whom he still lives.

Author bio:

CAConrad has been working with the ancient technologies of poetry and ritual since 1975. They are the author of numerous poetry collections, and have received many grants and awards, including most recently the 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. They regularly teach at Columbia University in New York City and at the Sandberg Art Institute in Amsterdam.

Isabel Waidner is a writer based in London, with a specialism in interdisciplinary and innovative forms of creative writing at the intersections with cultural theory. They are the author of Corey Fah Does Social Mobility, Sterling Karat Gold, We Are Made of Diamond Stuff and Gaudy Bauble. As well, as the winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2021, and were shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2019, the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction in 2022 and the Republic of Consciousness Prize in 2018, 2020 and 2022. They are also a co-founder of the long-standing event series Queers Read This at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.