Authors David Sedaris, left, and Chaya Milchtein will appear in Dallas separately to talk humor, books and fixing cars. Both will speak on Thursday with Sedaris at Arts and Letters Live and Milchtein in Carrollton at a mechanic shop. (Sedaris photo by Anne Fishbein, Milchten photo via website)

This week is a big queer literary week for Dallas. One famed author will speak to his audience at McFarlin Auditorium. The other will meet and greet her fans at…Kwik Kar Lube and Auto Repair.

Hey, different strokes.

Over at SMU, the Dallas Museum of Art and KERA present David Sedaris as part of its Arts and Letters Live Series. If you’ve seen him before, Sedaris does not disappoint. He delivers a night of hilarious and poignant stories, reads from new or unpublished materials and talks frankly with the audience. He often will stick around to sign books as well.

From DMA’s site:

Sedaris is beloved for his personal essays, which regularly appear in the New Yorker. He is the author of numerous books, including Calypso, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year; A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003–2020); and his latest collection, Happy-Go-Lucky, an Audie Award Winner. There are over 10 million copies of his books in print.

David Sedaris has been nominated for five Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. In 2020 the New York Public Library voted Me Talk Pretty One Day one of the 125 most important books of the last 125 years.

For those unfamiliar, Sedaris has written some classic collections of personal essays. Along with Me Talk Pretty One Day, some of his more notable works include Naked and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. He can often be heard on NPR’s This American Life. 

Trust Sedaris too, if he mentions a book he’s enjoyed. At his appearance in Odessa, TX, he recommended Family Life by Akhil Sharma and personally, it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.

For tickets, click here.

Over in Carrollton ON THE SAME DAY, TikTok sensation and automotive educator Chaya Milchtein will stop by to visit the Kwik Kar Lube and Auto Repair shop touting her own book. The queer founder of Mechanic Shop Femme will be celebrating the launch of her new book Mechanic Shop Femme’s Guide to Car Ownership.

Milchtein has made it her life’s mission to educate women and queer people about their cars. She’s dedicated her career to educating the average car owner, not automotive enthusiasts, about their cars – a career she found and built after aging out of the foster care system. She’s taught her car classes at libraries, universities, non-profits, and businesses, including John Jay Criminal College, BMO Bank, and Vanderbilt University. She has worked with national and international automotive brands like CarMax and iFixit and has been featured in AARP, NPR’s Lifekit, Oprah Magazine, Car Talk, and more.

This book covers everything your mechanic tried to explain, but in a way that you can actually understand, and it answers questions you probably didn’t even think to ask.

But Milchtein’s intention is more than just stopping to talk about her book. She is touring the country to visit with women, queer and POC-owned mechanic shops asserting the inclusive audience she and her book is intended for.  As for the shop…

…Corrine Hudson and her beloved German Shepard, Zeus, immigrated to the US from Madagascar when she was 14 years old. Fed up with her corporate mechanical engineering job and terrified of mechanic shops, Corrine quit her job, and you’ll never believe it, but she invested her retirement savings into buying a mechanic shop. Located just outside of Dallas, Texas, Kwik Kar Marsh is a full service repair shop that’s designed to be intentionally inclusive and whose values prioritize integrity and respect. Corrine knows what it’s like to work for a thankless corporation, and she vowed that her shop would be different. The shop’s 582 Google reviews with a 4.5-star average certainly back that up.

Ticket sales will fund the Jill Trotta Scholarship the begins this fall. The scholarship will provide financial assistance for tools, tuition fees, and other necessary requirements for women and queer individuals who are entering this field. For tickets, click here.

—Rich Lopez