Join us for an author presentation and signing with Clay McLeod Chapman! Discussing DEVIL INSIDE in conversation with Cate Cooke.

We are beyond excited to welcome Clay McLeod Chapman to our bookstore to discuss his newest title, DEVIL INSIDE! This presentation will be in conversation with Volunteer Coordinator and horror writer, Cate Cooke!

The $5 ticket is an RSVP to this event. You will receive the $5 back in the form of a coupon to use at the time of the event. The $18.99 ticket is an RSVP and you will receive a copy of DEVIL INSIDE!

THIS BOOK IS A ROMANCE READERS BOOK CLUB PICK! We love a dark romance.

Learn about the book: DEVIL INSIDE

A man who’s back from the dead meets a woman who’s from somewhere even worse in Clay McLeod Chapman’s new horrormance about love, possession, and just a little murder.

After a traumatic accident that almost cost Jordan his life, he’s finally starting to feel normal again. Well, maybe not normal. Everything tastes like ash, and when he looks at the people around him, their faces start to melt. At least he’s not dead, right? His friends are doing their best to get him back on his feet, maybe find someone to talk to, perhaps even find someone to take his mind off his last failed relationship.

Then he meets Lilith. The two share an instant connection but after a wild and passionate night together, she ghosts him. Jordan searches the city for Lilith, desperate to see her again. But when a woman claiming to be Lilith shows up, wearing a different face but knowing intimate details about Jordan, he worries he’s losing his grip on reality. As he grows closer to this mysterious woman, he discovers that happily ever afters sometimes come at a cost. How far will Lilith take him, and how much darkness will he embrace to find love?

About the author: Clay McLeod Chapman

Clay McLeod Chapman is the author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes, Kill Your Darling, Stay on the Line,What Kind of Mother, Ghost Eaters, Whisper Down the Lane,The Remaking, and miss corpus, story collections nothing untoward, commencement and rest area, as well as The Tribe middlegrade series: Homeroom Headhunters, Camp Cannibal and Academic Assassins.

About the mediator: Cate Cooke

Cate Cooke is a writer, musician, and a self-appointed village witch from Ocean County, NJ. Passionate about the weird and uncanny, she pens tales about sad ghosts and magical folks in her own “New Jersey Gothic” style. 

Cate graduated from Georgian Court University with bachelor's degrees in English and Digital Communications, and has taken her love for storytelling across various industries throughout her professional life. She has made her home in the literary world, proudly serving as Volunteer Coordinator at Asbury Book Cooperative since May 2025, and as a writing instructor with Project Write Now since February 2026.

When she’s not out haunting the shelves of her local library, Cate is at home curled up on the couch with a good ghost story and her dog, Athena. 

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Meet your club leaders Matt Yard & Michael Newton:

Matt Yard is an amazing big book nerd, english teacher, and all around fantastic human.

Michael Newton has been deeply involved in the operations of the Asbury Book Cooperative since February 2020, when he joined the steering committee that helped form ABC. Since then he helped shape ABC's culture, policies, and programs. He is especially proud of developing and managing the used book section. He's been the store's general manager since May 2023 and has now moved into a Directorial role since the store became a non-profit organization in 2025. Michael writes fiction and his work has appeared in BOMB, In The Mood, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. He is formerly an associate editor at Zone Books and editor at Ugly Duckling Press. He hosts ABC's long-running Crime Book Club and the Lunar Flowers Poetry Club. Michael is married and has two dogs.

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Jason Anderson is an award-winning solo artist based in Fredericton, New Brunswick. His music is characterized by raw, emotional lyrics and evocative, poetic storytelling - songs that celebrate the present tense, and concerts that shimmer with catharsis. Personal and passionate, Anderson's work crackles with life.

“Jason Anderson is the prototypical DIY legend. His shows are legendary experiences, his records are beautiful.” - The Psychic Garden

“A master of live performance.” - John Craigie 

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Blush Ellis is a poet, writer, artist and all around silly goose from Central Jersey, which is not made up and indeed a real area. You can find her work on Instagram (blushthepoet), or see her perform in person if you dare. Sometimes you can see her like a blur in your peripheral, rolling down the sidewalk like a tumbleweed in a dusty old country town, going wherever the wind takes her.  But you blink, and then she’s gone.

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Midcentury Lo-fi is derived from local Asbury Park band, Midcentury.

Maxine Snow is a Puerto Rican artist from Lajas living in Asbury Park. She is a musician, painter, and a deep lover of books! She specializes in watercolor bookmarks and believes that art truly brings a community together and strengthens the culture of a town.

Our programming offered in The TANJ Youth Arts Initiative is in partnership with Teen Arts New Jersey through generous grant funding provided by The New Jersey Economic Development Authority under the A.R.T Phase II Program.

About your coordinators 

Cate Cooke (she/they), also known under alias Cate Thorn, is a writer, musician, and a self-appointed village witch from Ocean County, NJ. Passionate about the weird and uncanny, she pens tales about sad ghosts and magical folks in her own “New Jersey Gothic” style. 

Cate graduated from Georgian Court University with bachelor's degrees in English and Digital Communications, and has taken her love for storytelling across various industries throughout her professional life. She has made her home in the literary world, proudly serving as Volunteer Coordinator at Asbury Book Cooperative since May 2025, and as a writing instructor with Project Write Now since February 2026.

When she’s not out haunting the shelves of her local library, Cate is at home curled up on the couch with a good ghost story and her dog, Athena.

Claire Pope (they/them) is a self-taught writer, photographer, and zine artist. Growing up in the greater Philadelphia area, Claire started as a music photographer and blogger, eventually working their way up through the DIY scene to photograph and interview everyone from local legends to internationally known artists like La Dispute and Pete Wentz. 

Inspired by their roots in the raw, unpolished, unfiltered, and unapologetic DIY community, Claire’s work is focused on the tiny moments that make up our most sacred memories, and the intricacies of connection, identity, and community through the lenses of humor and grief. Claire is based in Neptune, NJ, where they work as a grant writer and serve as a board member, volunteer, and (sometimes) teaching artist at the Asbury Book Cooperative.

Join us for a presentation and signing with co-authors Lindsay Goldwert and Gabirelle Moss!

The $5 ticket guarentees you a seat and you will recieve a $5 coupon to use at the time of the event. The $18.99 ticket guarentees you a seat and you will recieve a copy of THE MIDLIFE PLOT TWIST.

Learn about the book:

It’s not a midlife crisis—it’s a midlife plot twist!

Packed with honest, insightful, and deeply relatable advice for anyone who has reached that middle point of life, this humorous and practical guide rejects the outdated cliché of the midlife crisis, instead offering a fresh, empowering vision for any woman in her 40s or 50s looking for reinvention, courage, and clarity.Welcome to midlife—where your body is totally unpredictable, your career is ever-evolving, and your search history now includes, “Can I pull off bangs at 45?” This is not another menopause book; this is also not a book about how to “manifest,” “visualize,” or “self-actualize” your way into a better life. This book is for those of us who burst into our 20s with only a Cosmopolitan magazine education about how to be a grown-up and have now reached that middle stage of life and are wondering what’s next. The Midlife Plot Twist is for women who are truly ready to figure out what they want that second chapter of their life to look like.

This is a smart, funny guidebook for women trying to navigate every part of their life with humor, honesty, and heart. From forgotten passwords to rediscovering passions, it’s a laugh-out-loud reminder that the middle years aren’t something to survive—they’re something to celebrate. Using expert advice, exercises, and analysis to help readers figure out how they landed where they are now, authors and editors Lindsay Goldwert and Gabrielle Moss offer practical information and guidance about values and goals as it pertains to love and sex, money and career, and friends and family. Part pep talk, part permission slip, and 100 percent relatable, readers will laugh, nod, and feel seen. Because if midlife has taught us anything, it’s that the only way forward is with grace—and a great sense of humor.

Learn about the authors:

Lindsay Goldwert has worked as an editorial director, writer and podcaster, and is the author of Bow Down: Lessons from Dominatrixes on How to Be a Boss in Life, Love and Work, a Glamour Magazine Best Book. She’s written about everything from relationships to midlife adventures, personal finance to power dynamics, for publications like the New York Times, New York Magazine, Refinery29, Fast Company, Marketwatch, and many others. As part of her own mid-life plot twist, she will soon be certified as a sex educator and coach through the Sexual Health Alliance.

Gabrielle Moss is the author of Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, GQ, Slate, the Daily Beast, RogerEbert.com and Refinery29. She has appeared on NPR, the CBC, and Canadian national morning TV show The Social, and was a talking head in the 2023 documentary Judy Blume Forever.

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Learn about the book: Surviving the Long Wars: Creative Rebellion at the Ends of Empire

Surviving the Long Wars offers a groundbreaking exploration into the complex histories of US warfare and militarism, illuminating the pivotal role of art in cultivating justice, healing, and abolition. Inspired by Indigenous responses to the “American Indian Wars” and artists from the Greater Middle East and South Asia challenging the “Global War on Terror,” this volume examines the intersections between these legacies of creative rebellion and the experiences of contemporary Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) veterans. Informed by the emerging Veteran Art Movement and its ties to global struggles for demilitarization and abolition, the book advocates for solidarity and imaginative resistance against war and empire.

Featuring poetry, speeches, and artworks from the 2023 Veteran Art Triennial & Summit held in Chicago, the collection exemplifies the Triennial’s profound impact and critical legacy. With interdisciplinary insights spanning Native and Indigenous Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, and Museum and Exhibition Studies, Surviving the Long Wars celebrates Chicago’s legacy of resistance, while confronting erasures of Indigenous history. Renowned contributors such as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Laleh Khalili, Kyle T. Mays, and Junaid Rana offer fresh perspectives on the enduring impacts of US militarism and the potential for unexpected coalitions to emerge. At its core, Surviving the Long Wars is a clarion call for artists, organizers, and scholars to unite against US imperialism, envisioning a future of peace and justice through art and collective action.

Learn about the zine: Resistance: State Violence, Abolition, and GI Resistance

From within and outside the war machine there is a long history of GIs rebelling against US militarism. Through an abolitionist framework, this zine highlights the legacy and revolutionary power of GI resistance against the backdrop of military mobilizations to violently suppress people’s movements.

State Violence, Abolition, and GI Resistance could not be more timely and urgent.

The text, cowrote by Aaron Hughes & Arti Walker-Peddakotla is full of important insights and lessons from navigating the contradictions and tension inherent to organizing the people enmeshed in systems of state violence.

Learn about the editor: Aaron Hughes

Aaron Hughes is an artist, curator, and anti-war veteran. Working through an interdisciplinary practice rooted in drawing and printmaking, Hughes works collaboratively to create meaning out of personal and collective trauma, transform systems of oppression, and seek liberation. He develops projects that utilize popular research strategies, experiment with forms of direct democracy, and operate in solidarity with the people most impacted by structural violence.

His work has appeared in venues around the world including Museum of Modern Art in New York, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Maruki Gallery in Tokyo, and Ashkal Alwan in Beirut. He has received a number of awards, grants, residencies, and fellowships from a variety of institutions, including Center for Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago, Illinois Humanities, Ashkal Alwan, Blue Mountain Center, Lawrence Arts Center, Links Hall, The Kitchen, and Penland School of Craft. His recent publications including Surviving the Long Wars: Creative Rebellion at the Ends of Empire (Bridge Books, 2024), Invitation to Tea: A Tea Project Archive & Recipe Book (StepSister Press, 2022), and Remaking the Exceptional: Tea, Torture, and Reparations | Chicago to Guantánamo (DePaul Art Museum, 2022).

Hughes works with a range of art and activist groups including Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, About Face: Veterans Against the War, emerging Veteran Art Movement, and Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project.

Hughes lives and works in Chicago.

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Frontline Arts/The Printmaking Center of NJ presents this speaker series and follow-up workshops which are made possible by an A.R.T.–Phase II Grant from NJEDA in partnership with The Asbury Book Cooperative.

Learn about the book: MOON PAPERS

Our Culture‘s Most Anticipated Books of the Summer 2026!

A controversial arts collective is rolling out their most audacious project to date: a second moon, set to launch from the Mojave Desert and into the Earth’s atmosphere at the summer’s end. The problem? No one seems to understand how “Moon2” actually works, or how it may alter the mind of every creature on the planet.

The project is classified, but a malcontent member of the collective, Dean Konig, threatens their privacy with his secret long-distance relationship with an East Coast artist, Vesta Furio. Their constant video calls allow him to escape the confines of this isolated desert compound, while giving Vesta an escape from her failing marriage to an aging art gallerist who is spiraling down a rabbit hole of conspiracies surrounding Moon2.

The Moon Papers tracks an intricately linked collection of characters between the East Coast and the Mojave Desert in the deliriously hot summer months leading up to the divisive launch event. A raucous, psychedelic, and humorous meditation on artistic and mystical vision, surveillance, conspiracy, and what makes us human.

Learn about the author: Emmalea Russo

Emmalea Russo is a writer and teacher. She is the author of two novels: Vivienne (2024) and The Moon Papers (2026). Her books of poetry are G(2018), Wave Archive (2019), Confetti (2022), and Magenta (2023). Recent poems and essays have appeared in Artforum, BOMB, Spike Art Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Compact, Granta, Gulf Coast, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Bennington Review. She has been a writer in residence at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York and 18th Street Arts Center in Los Angeles and a visiting critic at Parsons School of Design and The Art Institute of Cincinnati. She has taught courses on poetry, philosophy, and art at various institutions including Saint Peter's University, Rendering Unconscious Center for Psychoanalysis, Northeastern University, The Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy, and GCAS. Her books have been reviewed in The Chicago Review, The Yale Review, Publishers Weekly, and elsewhere. She writes a popular substack newsletter, Cosmic Edges and teaches workshops on literature, art, psychoanalysis, and the occult. She lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and at the Jersey shore.

Learn about the mediator: Michael Newton, ABC Director

Michael Newton has been deeply involved in the operations of the Asbury Book Cooperative since February 2020, when he joined the steering committee that helped form ABC. Since then he helped shape ABC’s culture, policies, and programs. He is especially proud of developing and managing the used book section. He’s been the store’s general manager since May 2023. Michael writes fiction and his work has appeared in BOMB, In The Mood, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. He is formerly an associate editor at Zone Books and editor at Ugly Duckling Presse. He hosts ABC’s long-running Crime Book Club and the Lunar Flowers Poetry Club. Michael is married and has two dogs.

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About your coordinators 

Cate Cooke (she/they), also known under alias Cate Thorn, is a writer, musician, and a self-appointed village witch from Ocean County, NJ. Passionate about the weird and uncanny, she pens tales about sad ghosts and magical folks in her own “New Jersey Gothic” style. 

Cate graduated from Georgian Court University with bachelor's degrees in English and Digital Communications, and has taken her love for storytelling across various industries throughout her professional life. She has made her home in the literary world, proudly serving as Volunteer Coordinator at Asbury Book Cooperative since May 2025, and as a writing instructor with Project Write Now since February 2026.

When she’s not out haunting the shelves of her local library, Cate is at home curled up on the couch with a good ghost story and her dog, Athena.

Claire Pope (they/them) is a self-taught writer, photographer, and zine artist. Growing up in the greater Philadelphia area, Claire started as a music photographer and blogger, eventually working their way up through the DIY scene to photograph and interview everyone from local legends to internationally known artists like La Dispute and Pete Wentz. 

Inspired by their roots in the raw, unpolished, unfiltered, and unapologetic DIY community, Claire’s work is focused on the tiny moments that make up our most sacred memories, and the intricacies of connection, identity, and community through the lenses of humor and grief. Claire is based in Neptune, NJ, where they work as a grant writer and serve as a board member, volunteer, and (sometimes) teaching artist at the Asbury Book Cooperative.

A big used book sale is an Asbury Book Cooperative staple and we are so excited to be having the sale in The Carousel Art House this year!

For patrons all used books will be $5 OR you can purchase a $20 tote and fill the bag with as many books as you can fit!

For ABC Members all used books will be $1 OR you can purchase $10 tote and fill the bag with as many books as you can fit!

Curious about membership? Visit https://asburybookcoop.org/membership

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This used book sale will be accompanied by live original music ALL DAY! ABC will be inviting all of the musicians who have performed in the Nasbhbury Songwriters Rounds this past year back for a big reunion! Line up will be announced soon!

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Used books and live originial music in the carousel building.... so ASBURY PARK!

RSVP is FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Let us know you are coming. See you there!

Submission Rules

1) Teens enter for FREE. If you are 17 years old or younger do not purchase this ticket. Simply submit and mention how old you are in the body of the email.

2) Your Short Story can be a MAXIMUM of 1500 words.

3) No previously published work can be submitted. All work must be original.

4) The use of AI is against ABC's policies and mission statement. Any AI usage will result in disqaulification.

5) Work that is not submitted as a PDF risks disqualification. If you have difficulty downloading your story to the corect format, let us know so we can assist.

6) Submission DEADline is Sunday, October 18th at midnight.

7) Your story must give us nightmares.

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Submission Rules

1) Buy a ticket through eventbrite.

2) Include your ticket number when you email your submission.

3) Name & Bio

4) A PDF of your Short Story

5) Will you be available to present on October 31st at 5pm?

Email submission to Email jordan@asburybookcooperative.org

The submission fee is $15

If for some reason you can not afford this fee but still want to submit, please email jordan@asburybookcoop.org

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