Hot Girls with Balls Launch + DEFENSE Performance

Publishers Weekly 2025 Writer to Watch Benedict Nguyễn presents a new short dance work, DEFENSE, a duet between Nguyễn and dancer/musician Sugar Vendil. Following this performance, Benedict is joined by special guests Vendil, Leah Abrams, Hannah Bae, Jasmine Gibson, and Jeanne Thornton to launch her debut novel Hot Girls with Balls. This event is co-sponsored by Catapult, Yu and Me Books, Chinatown Basketball Club, Lunar, and Poets & Writers.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In this outrageous and deeply serious satire, two star indoor volleyball players juggle unspoken jealousies in their off-court romance ahead of their rival teams’ first rematch in a year

Six is 6′7″, scheming to rejoin the starting lineup, and barely checks her phone. Green is 6′1″, always building her brand, and secretly jealous of her more famous girlfriend. Together, they’re going where no Asian American trans woman has gone before: the men’s pro indoor volleyball league. Our hot girls with balls just thought playing with the boys would spare them some controversy … haha.

In between their rival teams’ away games across the globe, Six and Green stay connected on SpaceTime and selflessly broadcast their romance to fans on their weekly Instagraph live show. After a long season, they’ll finally reunite for the championship tournament, the first to accommodate in-person fans since the COVIS pandemic struck the world a year ago. Just as they enter an airtight bro bubble of the world’s best, they’re faced with a crisis that demands an indisputably humiliating task: make a public statement online.

Can Green stock up enough clout for her post-ball future? Can Six girlboss her team’s seniority politics? Can they both take a time-out to just grieve? Their rabid fans and horny haters await their next move. We’re all just desperate for a whiff of the sweaty feminine energy that makes that ball thwack with such spectacular force.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Benedict Nguyễn is a dancer, gym buff, and renowned party host. Between pistol squats and muscle-ups, she works as a creative producer in live performance. She’s written for The Baffler, BOMB, Los Angeles Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The Brooklyn Rail, The Margins, and other publications. In 2022, she published nasty notes, a redacted email zine on freelance labor. Hot Girls with Balls is her first novel.

WITH SPECIAL HOT GUESTS

Sugar Vendil is a composer, choreographer, pianist, and interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. Stay updated on performances, new blog posts, and musings by subscribing to her e-letter: http://sugarvendil.com/eletter.

Leah Abrams is a Brooklyn-based writer originally from North Carolina. She is the co-host of the Limousine podcast and reading series.

Hannah Bae is a Korean American freelance journalist, nonfiction writer and illustrator who is at work on a memoir about family estrangement. Follow her on Instagram at @hannahbae.

Jasmine Gibson is a multi-hyphenated cultural worker. She is the author of A Beauty Has Come (Nightboat, 2023) and many other titles and publications.

Jeanne Thornton is the author of the novels A/S/L and Summer Fun (winner of the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction), as well as other books. She is the current senior editor of Feminist Press, the copublisher of Instar Books, and the cohost of Brooklyn’s World Transsexual Forum open mic. Her writing has appeared in n+1, Harper’s Bazaar, WIRED, Evergreen Review, and other places. She lives in Brooklyn and more information is available at jeannethornton.com.

This event is co-presented with Chinatown Basketball Club and sponsored by Lunar.
This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.