H&H is thrilled to welcome Jacob Budenz, a Baltimore-based queer author, multi-disciplinary performer, witch, and author of the debut collection of short stories, Tea Leaves, published through Amble, an imprint of the small legacy queer-owned press Bywater Books. Jacob will be joined in conversation for a reading and signing of the book by Philly’s own Camellia-Berry Grass, author of Hall of Waters. 

Tea Leaves broadly explores the intersection between contemporary queer life and the unseen world--the queer "other" and the otherworldly--through a selection of modern fables across the speculative/magic realist spectrum. Shirley Jackson award-winning editor dave ring calls the collection, "a charm against the banal and a come-hither to the hidden forces of the universe," and editor-in-chief of the iconic Taco Bell Quarterly, M.M. Carrigan, writes, "This is a beautiful collection. Budenz writes with an aesthetic and energy that jump off the page. It's funny, it's queer, and it's full-of-life." Join us! 

Author Bios

Jacob Budenz is a queer writer, multi-disciplinary performer, educator, and witch with an MFA from University of New Orleans and a BA from Johns Hopkins University whose work explores the intersections between otherness and the otherworldly. A 2020 winner of the Baker Innovative Projects Grant for Simaetha: a Dreambaby Cabaret, Jake has work in journals including Slipstream, Taco Bell Quarterly, Baffling, Wussy Magazine, and more as well as anthologies by Mason Jar Press and Lycan Valley publications. You can find Jake on Instagram and Twitter (@dreambabyjake) or on www.jakebeearts.com.

Camellia-Berry Grass

Camellia-Berry Grass is trying to live. Presently in Philadelphia, she is the author of the lyric nonfiction collection, Hall of Waters (2019, The Operating System). A 2019 nominee for the Krause Essay Prize, her essays and poems have been widely published in places such as DIAGRAM, The Texas Review, Barrelhouse, and Waxwing, among others. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Alabama, and has taught most recently at University of the Arts, and in the MFA program for creative writing at Rosemont College.