AHS LIVE: Poppy State
with Myriam Gurba, author
Thursday, April 9, 2026 from 7-8 p.m. ET
Virtual
$15 AHS members/$20 non-members
Poppy State: A Labyrinth of Plants and Beginnings is both a love letter to California and a literary tour de force that tells the story of resilience and reclamation through a relationship with plants, memory, myth, and indigenous knowledge. Author Myriam Gurba meditates on susto, a spiritual sickness specific to Latin America, and its culturally specific treatments such as herbalism, botanical spirits, and soil.
Myriam Gurba is a writer and activist. Her first book, the short story collection Dahlia Season, won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. O, the Oprah Magazine ranked her true-crime memoir Mean as one of the “Best LGBTQ Books of All Time.” Her recent essay collection Creep: Accusations and Confessions was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award for Criticism and won the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction. She has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Vox, and Paris Review. Her most recent book is Poppy State: A Labyrinth of Plants and a Story of Beginnings.