And I feel like, the, back in the fall when I was sort of prepping for this interview, it was right around the time that London Review of Books piece came out by Patricia Lockwood. When I was just casually surveying people, friends and fans about your work, one of the first things that they mentioned are your excellent sex scenes. Heidi Julavits: Let’s start with sex then. Sally Rooney: Is it even a different question? I’m happy to start with sex and then we can move from there into selfhood if you want. I dunno, you have a choice: selfhood or sex? Or selfhood through sex. Heidi Julavits: So yeah, so I was originally gonna start off with a sex question, but I don’t know.

Malfunctioning Sex Robot: Updike Redux by Patricia Lockwood.

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney.

She is a professor of creative writing at Columbia University.

She is the co-editor, with Sheila Heti and Leanne Shapton, of the New York Times bestseller Women in Clothes, and her fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, McSweeney’s, Zoetrope All-Story and elsewhere. Heidi Julavits is the founding editor of Believer magazine, and the author of four novels, including The Vanishers and The Uses of Enchantment. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta and The London Review of Books and she is the editor of the Irish literary journal The Stinging Fly. She is a nationally ranked debater and lifelong Marxist. Born in Ireland, Rooney earned a Master’s degree in American Literature at Trinity College Dublin.

Her novels Conversations with Friends and Normal People, are nuanced portraits of people in their twenties, exploring their relationships to one another and the structures of class, abuse, and intimacy. Sally Rooney “writes about tricky commonplace things (text messages, sex) with a familiarity no one else has” ( The Paris Review). If you would prefer to exchange your ticket(s) for another City Arts & Lectures event, receive a refund, or donate your tickets back as a tax-deductible contribution, please call City Box Office at 41 or email All refunds or exchanges must be made by Monday, December 2. Simply hold onto your ticket(s) and we’ll see you on January 10.

If you had ticket(s) to the original event on November 8, your ticket(s) are still valid for the new date, January 10, and seat assignments remain the same. Please support our institution and these productions by making a tax-deductible contribution. We've made a recording of this event free to all.

Two stories sally rooney