Songwriter Kimya Dawson’s compositions have always straddled the worlds of music and literature, with her singsongy melodies supporting torrents of lyrics that are rich with writerly detail. (Her signature trick: Cracking you up until she empathetically stabs you in the heart.) Tonight, Night School at the Sorrento presents Dawson, in an appropriately music-and-lit-straddling setting where she’ll perform songs from her brand-new release Thunder Thighs, and writer Dream Hampton for a dialogue about the new album’s “major and minor themes: oceans, cancer, transgendered heroes, feeling safe in your own skin, saving public libraries.” (Sorrento Hotel, 900 Madison St, www.nightnightnight.org, 8 pm, $15, all ages)