Fine Lines of Influence: Lisa Brown and Daniel Handler Discuss Edward Gorey’s The Very Fine Clock

Bestselling authors and illustrators Lisa Brown and Daniel Handler discuss the publication of The Very Fine Clock, a rediscovered children’s classic illustrated by Edward Gorey and written by Muriel Spark. Brown and Handler will discuss Gorey’s influences on their own work over the course of their careers. Publishers Adam Levy and Ashley Nelson Levy will moderate the discussion and share behind-the-scenes details about bringing this Gorey-Spark collaboration back to life.

Lisa Brown is a New York Times bestselling illustrator, writer, and cartoonist whose picture books include The Airport Book, The Hospital Book, Mummy Cat by Marcus Ewert, and Goldfish Ghost by Lemony Snicket. Her comics include The Phantom Twin, a graphic novel, and Long Story Short, a collection of comic strips. She teaches at the California College of the Arts and is on the board of 826 Valencia in San Francisco. Her latest picture book, The Moving Book, will be published in July 2025.

Daniel Handler is the author of seven novels, including Why We Broke Up, All The Dirty Parts and Bottle Grove, and most recently a memoir, And Then? And Then? What Else? As Lemony Snicket, he is the author of far too many books for children, including Poison for Breakfast, the four-volume All The Wrong Questions and the thirteen-volume A Series of Unfortunate Events, which has been adapted for screen and television. He lives in San Francisco with the illustrator Lisa Brown, to whom he is married.

Transit Books is an independent publisher of international and American literature, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Founded in 2015, Transit Books publishes a carefully curated list of award-winning literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, essay, and literature for children. Transit authors have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, a National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN Translation Prize, and have been finalists for the National Book Award, the International Booker Prize, the National Translation Award, and more.

Adam Levy and Ashley Nelson Levy founded Transit Books in 2015, and serve as co-publishers. Adam is also a translator from the Hungarian, and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to translate Gábor Schein’s The Book of Mordechai (Seagull, 2017). Ashley is the author of the novel, Immediate Family (FSG, 2021), and her nonfiction is forthcoming in Notes to New Mothers (Norton, 2026).