The Booksmith is thrilled to be welcoming Kate Folk back to The Booksmith for the launch of SKY DADDY on April 9th at 7pm. She'll be in-conversation with fellow author and lovely human being Rita Bullwinkel. Please join us! RSVP is not required, but appreciated. Seats are limited and can be guaranteed with the purchase of a book.

See you at the shop!

About the book

Cross the jet bridge with Linda, a frequent flyer with an unusual obsession, in this “razor-sharp and tender-hearted” (Lily Brooks-Dalton) debut novel by the acclaimed author of Out There.

Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer. Weekdays, she earns $20 an hour moderating comments for a video-sharing platform, then rides the bus home to the windowless garage she rents on the outskirts of San Francisco. But on the last Friday of each month, she indulges her true passion, taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant, because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger—a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make Linda feel a way that no human ever could. . . .

Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes. Nor can she reveal her belief that it’s her destiny to “marry” one of her suitors by dying in a plane crash, a catastrophic event that would unite her with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of.

Both subversive and unexpectedly heartwarming, Sky Daddy hijacks the classic love story, exploring desire, fate, and the longing to be accepted for who we truly are.

About the authors

Kate Folk is the author of the short story collection Out There. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, and Zyzzyva. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she’s also received support from the Headlands Center for the Arts, MacDowell, and Willapa Bay AiR. She lives in San Francisco.

Rita Bullwinkel is the author of Headshot (2024) and Belly Up, which garnered a 2022 Whiting Award. Bullwinkel’s writing has been published in Tin House, the White Review, ZYZZYVA, Conjunctions, BOMB, Vice, NOON, and Guernica. She is a recipient of grants and fellowships from MacDowell, Brown University, Vanderbilt University, Hawthornden Castle and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. She is an Editor at Large for McSweeney’s, the Deputy Editor of The Believer, a Contributing Editor for NOON, and the creator of Oral Florist.

About the bookstore

The Booksmith is an independent bookstore located in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco since 1976.