Locascio Cortez
For LoCascio, though, the connection to the flashy girl from Flushing is even deeper. 'My mom grew up in Flushing,' the Queens-born and raised designer says, on a call this summer. 'Drescher's an icon. But from a fashion standpoint, I mean, she's always been beyond.' Her outerwear on 'The Nanny' is a frequent source of inspiration for LoCascio. Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and was endorsed by the group. Her platform includes abolishing ICE, an 'assault weapons' ban, universal guaranteed employment. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: I’m ‘Unapologetic About What I Believe’ The Bronx native spoke about her campaign’s mission a day after she shook up the Democratic Party with her defeat of Representative.
2 pm SUNDAY, AUGUST 12
Author Lisa Locascio will discuss her new novel, Open Me, a political and erotically-charged debut that follows a young American woman’s transformative journey during one pivotal summer abroad, hailed by Viet Thanh Nguyen as “unflinching in its portrayal of sex, desire, racism, and the excitement and confusion of youth.”
About the Book
Roxana Olsen has always dreamed of going to Paris, and after high school graduation finally plans to travel there on a study abroad program—a welcome reprieve from the bruising fallout of her parents’ divorce. But a logistical mix-up brings Roxana to Copenhagen instead, where she’s picked up at the airport by Søren, a twenty-eight year old guide who is meant to be her steward. Instantly drawn to one another, Roxana and Søren’s relationship turns romantic, and when he asks Roxana to accompany him to a small town in the north of Denmark for the rest of the summer, she doesn’t hesitate to accept. There, Roxana’s world narrows and opens as she experiences fantasy, ritual, and the pleasures of her body, a thrilling realm of erotic and domestic bliss. But as their relationship deepens, Søren’s temperament darkens, and Roxana finds herself increasingly drawn to a mysterious local outsider whom she learns is a refugee from the Balkan War.
An erotic coming-of-age like no other, from a magnetic new voice in fiction, Open Me is a daringly original and darkly compelling portrait of a young woman discovering her power, her sex, and her voice; and an incisive examination of xenophobia, migration, and what it means to belong.
Praise for the Book
'A plunge into the murky, unexplored depths of sexuality and xenophobia, Open Me is the most beautifully written new novel I’ve read in years. Gripped from the start by its spare, rich, exacting prose, I was pulled through the pages in the thrall of eighteen year old Roxana’s discovery of her own body, its burning, complex urges, its capacity for ecstasy and erasure, for knowledge and dream. Locascio’s unflinching frankness about female desire is not just refreshing, it is vital for our time.” —Michaela Carter, author of Further Out Than You Thought
'Imbued with sex and politics, Locascio's debut novel casts the traditional bildungsroman into a darker, more feminine light... Locascio centers the female body exquisitely. A debut exploring how we open up to others―and, more importantly, ourselves.'―Kirkus Review
'Locascio practically invents a new language, conjuring pure feelings and colors [...]This provocative, intimate, and metamorphosing character study vividly captures a young woman’s life-earned education.' ―Booklist
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About the Author
Lisa Locascio was born in Chicago and raised in River Forest, Illinois. Her debut novel, Open Me, will be published by Grove Atlantic in August 2018. She is the editor of the anthology Golden State 2017: The Best New Writing from California (Outpost19), co-publisher of the regional fiction magazine Joyland, and editor of the ekphrastic collaboration magazine 7x7. Locascio is the first Anglophone writer to be granted an interview with Roberto Bolaño's widow Carolina López. Her writing about Bolaño has appeared in The Believer, Salon, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, and has received mention in The New Yorker and The Los Angeles Times. Visit the author's website »
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Tech entrepreneur Rob LoCascio on his belief that “no matter how successful you become, you’ve got to give back”
As we have experienced firsthand during this pandemic, New Yorkers have the ability to turn something bad into something good for their community. There is a heartwarming example of this in FeedingNYC, which was launched while the city was going through a different time of devastation, the tragedy of 9/11.
Back then, with the Thanksgiving holiday on the horizon, Rob LoCascio simply wanted to deliver some turkeys to those who needed them. But what started as a small endeavor for the tech entrepreneur — who invented the live-chat customer support function and whose company LivePerson is now publicly traded and worth billions — to give to those less fortunate, turned into an organization that has fed 80,000 families in the five boroughs since its inception.
That first year, after employees and friends asked to join him in this worthwhile mission, LoCascio, a Midtown East resident, partnered with Women in Need, the city’s largest provider of family shelters, and delivered 70 turkeys to 70 families at the Jennie Clark shelter in Harlem.
Due to COVID-19, their usual group of 500 that gathers at Chelsea Piers the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to pack the turkeys and fixings was scaled down to 20 this year. However, the nonprofit still managed to raise over $200,000 dollars to nourish those most vulnerable. Next November, FeedingNYC will celebrate its 20th anniversary with an even loftier goal of providing meals for 20,000 families.
You were once fired by fax and that led you to start your own company.
I started my first company about a year out of college because I was fired from this first company. And then I was building interactive kiosks for college campuses from ’91 to ’95. In ’95, that company went under. I moved to New York. I was pretty in the dumps at the time when I lost my first company. I was sleeping on the couch in a small, 200-square-foot or so sublet of a guy who made t-shirts. He subleased a little place in his loft down in Tribeca. I didn’t have a shower, there was just a bathroom that I shared, so I got a health club membership at New York Sports Club, so I could shower. I was getting help at the time, really reworking my thinking and my life, and the guy I was working with said, “You know, even though you’re sleeping on a couch, kind of in the dumps and broke, I think it would be really great if you went out and helped others.”
Then you started volunteering by sleeping with the homeless at St. Bart’s.
They have a shelter where people come in for the night. Volunteers feed the people in the shelter and sleep over and make sure they get up in the morning, have some coffee and go. I did that and it really made me realize that no matter what situation I was in, there are always people less fortunate. That set me straight on no matter how successful you become, you’ve got to give back.
After 9/11, you founded Feeding NYC. Tell us what that first Thanksgiving was like.
After 9/11, I was in the city and it was impactful to all of us, and so I really wanted to give back. I decided to go and deliver turkeys. I was just going to get five or 10 and just find people or families in need. At that time, there were about 20 people in my company in New York, and they heard about it and said, “We’d love to do this too.” So people in the company and a few friends came out. And we found Women in Need, which is a wonderful group that runs shelters in New York City and focuses on families and women who have been battered in tough relationships and end up in these shelters with their families.
What was an unforgettable moment from that first year?
We bought the turkeys from a company and the saleswoman who sold them to us said, “Do you mind if I come with you?” My last turkey delivery was like an act of God. I knock on the door and this kid, he was probably six or seven years old, African American, opened the door, looked up at me and said, “Are you a good person or a bad person?” So I said, “No, I’m a good person.” I knelt down and showed him the turkey and all the trimmings, candied yams, a pie, and he was just like, “Wow.”
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And then his sister came out, she was a little bit older. The mother was in the bathroom and when she opened the door and saw this grown man with her children, she came running towards me, screaming, “Get away from my children!” She was running to hit me and knock me over. I said, “No ma’am, I’m here to deliver your turkey dinner,” and I showed her. And she stopped, looked down, looked at me and started to cry and said, “I thought people had forgotten about me.” She hugged me and we talked a little bit more, and she said, “For the rest of my life, when I get out of this shelter, I’m going to feed somebody.” For $35 in product, two people’s lives were changed — my life and her life. I wish I could find this family. Funny enough, when I walked out, the woman who sold us the turkey said, “What happened?” She could see I was visibly changed. She said, “I used to live in this shelter. You don’t know the impact you’re having on people’s lives.”
Who have been some memorable volunteers over the years?
I’ll tell you the most interesting one I’ve had. So I’ll go out in the truck and do the deliveries and remember this couple from the UK was on my truck with their kid. And I was like, “How did you find us?” They said, “We’re on vacation in New York and we just wanted to give back.” We took them around the whole day seeing the city for this vantage point. At the end, we usually go and have a quick meal together. We were up in Harlem and went to Amy Ruth’s and had fried chicken and all of the trimmings. And they said, “This is the most special day we’ve had in our life.” AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] came down three years ago — when she got elected, before she went to Washington — and did the delivery. This year, there was Kimberly Vallejo, from Governor Cuomo’s administration, who is the director at the New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets.
To learn more, please visit www.feedingnyc.org