Gellar Studies
with and introduction by Addie Tsai
Erik Fuhrer
ISBN 978-1-959556-35-0 108 pages $16.00
April 30, 2023
6-7:30 p.m EDT
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Gellar Studies by Erik Fuhrer Book Launch
Book Launch for Gellar Studies by Erik Fuhrer.
Hosted by Taylor Swift as Books.
Guest readings by Charlotte Donlon, Addie Tsai, Charles Jensen, Ali Raz, and Amy Lorraine Long.
Erik is a wordsmith of the highest caliber: their passion and erudition radiate from every phrase, each a carefully constructed blade fearlessly peeling back layers of the anatomy of trauma.
Stephen Susco,
screenwriter of The Grudge and The Grudge 2
Erik Fuhrer invents a new discipline in Gellar Studies: part stan culture, part parasocial BFF-dom, and a whole lot of deep introspection about the intersection of lived experience and celluloid. Each poem here honors either Sarah Michelle Gellar herself or an iconic role from her filmography, weaving her story together with the speaker’s. In doing so, these poems celebrate “the blood we chose,” as Fuhrer writes, “not the blood we were given.” Gellar—a reluctant scream queen whose oeuvre skews toward horror—and the traumas of her characters echo in the abuse, violence, and shame of the speaker’s childhood and adolescence. Queer readers will innately understand this alchemy of fandom and pain, the way in which we come to understand “what is this world but bruises.” The way we find our solace in she who overcomes. Fuhrer’s spare language crackles with beauty, grace, and love cast in arresting imagery, even in the shadow of a speaker whose life withheld these same essential resources.”
Charles Jensen,
author of Instructions between Takeoff and Landing
Erik Fuhrer is the author of the play The Ocean and it's Movers (Free Lines Press) and six previous collections of poetry: Eye, Apocalypse, in which I take myself hostage (Spuyten Duyvil), At Root, every time I die (Alien Buddha), VOS (Yavanika), and not human enough for the census (Vegetarian Alcoholic). Their memoir, My Buffed Up Life, which engages with Buffy the Vampire Slayer to unfold an otherwise unspeakable tale of personal trauma, is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil Press in 2024. They hold a PhD from The University of Glasgow and currently live and teach in Los Angeles.