The Hot and Sweaty Book Launch for James Frey

and

Jun 22, 2025

Last Tuesday we hosted the book launch for James Frey’s new book Next To Heaven published by

Authors Equity

at Harper’s Gallery in NYC. I’ve been feeling sad recently so it was nice to read some new poems aloud, be around friends, hear some good stories and throw James a big book launch.

Gina Gershon, Carole Radziwill, Matt Starr (your trusted narrator), Lili Anolik, Annie Hamilton, Sarah Hoover, and Laura Desiree read before James came on at the end and closed the show. I’ll detail what each person read below.

The theme was love and sex.

200 people ranging from 18 years old to 85 years old showed up. The gallery felt like 100 degrees. I opened the show and half way through reading my poems, I felt like I was going to pass out from the heat. I stupidly thought wearing a leather jacket was a good idea. I started seeing black and white flashes, pictured myself dropping to the floor and knew if I kept going and read the rest of the poems, I was going down. So I ended early, introduced Lili Anolik, took off the jacket and the night commenced.

The New York Post’s Page Six covered the event and said:

“There was something of a rock-show atmosphere as Frey, 55, took the stage at Harper’s Gallery in Chelsea and flipped off the crowd with both fingers, while young female fans quite literally squealed from the standing room in the back.” Not bad for a book launch.”

I don’t say this enough but this event was a nice reminder. One of the reasons Zack and I started Dream Baby was to throw fun literary events and make them accessible to everyone. That is still my goal. FUN. EXCITING. ACCESSIBLE. If you’ve been to a Dream Baby Press event, I hope you’ve felt this. If you haven’t, I hope you can make it to the next one.

Thank you James, thank you to all the readers, thank you Harper’s Gallery and thank you to Author’s Equity for the special night.

-Matt Starr

UPCOMING EVENTS

We’re going to resume our Burger King writing club in July so stay tuned.

If we hosted an open mic, would you come and read something?

Post in the comments if so.

THE JAMES FREY BOOK LAUNCH

“What’s up New York? It feels great to fucking be here. My career started a couple of neighborhoods away. I moved here after I had written ‘A Million Little Pieces’ and before it had come out. I moved here to fucking burn the world down and it’s felt great to fucking do it.” This is how James greeted the crowd.

Photos by Sam Keeler

THE READINGS

Gina Gershon, actor, singer, songwriter, musician and author read an S&M “contract.”

Matt Starr (yours truly), read new erotic poems and some from our first Dream Baby book MOUTHFUL.

Lili Anolik, contributing editor at Vanity Fair, creator of the podcast Once Upon a Time… at Bennington College and author of Didion & Babitz, read from Straight Life: The Autobiography of Art Pepper, a white alto sax player from the post-Charlie Parker era. Art was a dope fiend but also a sex fiend, and he got into a mutual masturbation situation with a hotel maid.

Annie Hamilton, iconic New York City writer and performer read personal stories about her acting class and when she first learned to masturbate.

Carole Radziwill, Emmy award winning producer and reality show star on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New York City read a personal story she wrote about finding love at NASCAR.

Sarah Hoover, author of the book, The Motherload: Episodes From the Brink of Motherhood, read an erotic Victorian story from the book The Pearl (a collection of Victorian erotica that circulated in an underground magazine from July 1879 to December 1880).