My Friend Tracy
Come see us at Skylight Books
Dear Readers,
Next Friday, I’ll be in conversation at Skylight Books here in Los Angeles with my friend and former colleague Tracy Clark-Flory about her newly published memoir. My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past, which publishes today, details Tracy’s investigation into finding her long lost half-sister, Kathy. In the 1960s, prior to Tracy’s birth, her pregnant teenage mother was sent to a home for unwed mothers where Kathy was placed for adoption. Tracy finds this shuddered “home,” along with her sister, and many other pieces of family lore, braided with racism and sexism.
I got the opportunity to read an early draft of My Mother’s Daughter as Tracy was working and was deeply struck by the interrogation into not just her own family, but broader cultural themes of institutionalized gender shame. Fusing memoir and cultural criticism is not simple, but when executed well, it reads that way. Tracy has accomplished this.
This is not the first writing of Tracy’s that has been impactful for me. Before I knew her personally, when we were both in our 20s, I used to diligently read Tracy’s reporting on sex, “hook-up culture,” and sex work. (Much of this time in her career is recounted in her previous book, Want Me: A Sex Writer's Journey into the Heart of Desire.) Her writing on these topics was part of an online chorus that was deeply formative to my own feminist consciousness, particularly on topics that were often deemed much too contemporary (or taboo) for my elite women’s college education.
Tracy was also familiar with this environment. I learned, years later, that she was three years ahead of me at our private liberal arts women’s college in Oakland, California. I did not know her then, but it was such a small school; I like to think that we were often sitting at the same fountains at the same time, staring off at the same white-frosted building.
Ten years after I graduated, we would be formally introduced over email regarding a new job opening. I was working in New York City and she was based in California. I’d spend the next year talking to her on the phone or Slack or email about #MeToo, workplace conditions on adult film shoots, sexual coercion, and talking points for porn stars. When she filed these drafts from the West Coast, I was always eager to read her pieces, even if I was not the one editing them.
Years later, we’re meeting again in Los Angeles to discuss the intimate family story that has loomed in the background for most of her life. And you can join us.
Love, Koa
Friday, May 15, 2026 - 7:00pm
Skylight Books
1818 N Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027