Inauguration of Jacqueline Woodson as the Ambassador for Young People's Lit

The Library of Congress in collaboration with the Children's Book Council and Every Child a Reader inaugurated Jacqueline Woodson as the new National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.

Speaker Biography: Carla Hayden is the 14th Librarian of Congress.

Speaker Biography: Gene Yang was the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature from 2016 to 2017.

Speaker Biography: Carl Lennertz is the executive director of the Children's Book Council.

Speaker Biography: Jacqueline Woodson is the new National Ambassador for Young People's Literature from 2018 to 2019.

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Appel Salon | Jay Baruchel
"We're only as good as our rivals." —Jay Baruchel

Jay Baruchel appeared at the Toronto Reference Library to discuss his memoir Born Into It with Dan Robson.
Michael Arceneaux | I Can't Date Jesus
Join us as Michael Arceneaux sits down with Doreen St. Felix from The New Yorker to share his story.

It’s no question that equality for LGBTQ people has come a long way, but voices of persons of color within the community continue to remain stifled to this day. With distinctive wit and candor, I Can’t Date Jesus is Michael Arceneaux’s impassioned look at minority life in today’s America, challenging every bigoted and ignorant argument along his journey into self-acceptance, in a world that seeks to reject him.

Michael writes with an engaging tone about coming out to his mother; growing up in Houston, Texas; being approached for the priesthood; his obstacles in embracing close and intimate encounters; and the persistent challenges of young people who feel marginalized and denied the chance to pursue their dreams.

I Can’t Date Jesus is a timely collection of essays that tell—without apologies—what it’s like to be outspoken and brave in a divisive world.
Reading Lu Xun Through Carl Jung
Carolyn Brown discussed her just-published book "Reading Lu Xun Through Carl Jung," which offers a unique approach to the short stories of the most famous modern Chinese writer, Lu Xun (1881-1936). Brown uses foundational elements of the psychology of Carl Jung (1875-1961), who with Freud was the founder of modern Western psychology, to illuminate key structures in the works of this great writer. Approaching these works from a unique direction, Brown's lecture will shed new light on the psychological patterns within Lu Xun???s most famous story, "The True Story of Ah Q."

Speaker Biography: Carolyn Brown is a scholar of Chinese literature and the former director of the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress.
Paul Auster & Luc Sante | The New York Trilogy Manuscript Edition
The inimitable Paul Auster launches the limited edition manuscript of his New York Trilogy with fellow author Luc Sante at the Strand’s Rare Book Room. Paul will undoubtedly share never before seen or heard thoughts of The New York Trilogy's journey from infancy to publication.

Some words about the limited edition manuscript:

Specialized in the reproduction of major manuscripts, SP Books are happy to present three drafts from Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy. In 2014 the publisher went to the New York Public Library to explore the papers of one of our greatest contemporary writers, Paul Auster. This colossal archive bears witness to the evolution of a novel, the generation of a publication through all its intermediary stages, from beginning to end.

After summarily sketching out the plot, he writes his first versions in notebooks which represent weeks, months, or years of his life. There are usually around ten handwritten and as many as three typewritten drafts of a single text, the latter containing numerous corrections in pen. The document he hands his publisher is the final version of a text that has gone through many incarnations.

A veritable time capsule, the book contains hand- and typewritten manuscripts of The New York Trilogy, carefully selected in cooperation with Paul Auster to shed light on this major work’s architecture. The first, a handwritten sketch of City of Glass, entitled New York Confidential, is followed by a nearly definitive typewritten version of Ghosts, initially called Black Outs, and a quite advanced manuscript of The Locked Room, whose first title was Ghosts. Like Mr. Auster’s enigmatic New York, this is “an inexhaustible space, a labyrinth of endless steps”.

Paul Auster is the bestselling author of “Winter Journal,” “Sunset Park,” “Invisible,” “The Book of Illusions,” and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. He has been awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, the Prix Médicis étranger, an Independent Spirit Award, and the Premio Napoli. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Luc Sante's books include “Low Life,” “Evidence,” “The Factory of Facts,” “Kill All Your Darlings,” and “The Other Paris.” He teaches at Bard.
Minneapolis – Be The Facts You Wish To Read: A Press Freedom Discussion
With an overflow in the amount of information that is readily available to us as readers due to the advancement of technology, it may be difficult to understand the facts that are presented to us as consumers of the news. The Target Performance Hall located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the host location for an in-depth discussion about censorship, news literacy, and the importance of fact-checking with locally based writers and authors.

Panel members for this conversation included Sheila Regan and Sun Yung Shin along with PEN America Members Shannon Gibney, Caroline Casey, and Marya Hornbacher. This panel was moderated by Joanna R. Demkiewicz (The Riveter). When it comes to fraudulent news, you have an active role to play. After this evening, participants were able to take the steps necessary to understand how they can speak up for press freedom and learn to engage in productive dialogue.
Alan Hollinghurst: "The Sparsholt Affair" | Talks at Google
Alan Hollinghurst is the award-winning author of "The Swimming Pool Library", "The Folding Star", and 2004 Man Booker Prize winner "The Line of Beauty".

In this talk, he reads from his first novel in six years, "The Sparsholt Affair", a multi-generational exploration of the legacy of a family scandal and the shifting attitudes towards England's gay community from World War II to the present day.
Lawrence P. Jackson: 2018 National Book Festival
Lawrence P. Jackson discusses "Chester B. Himes: A Biography" at the 2018 Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

Speaker Biography: Lawrence P. Jackson is the award-winning author of "Chester B. Himes: A Biography" (Norton), a finalist for the NAACP Image Award and the Edgar Award for Biography. A native of Baltimore, Jackson is a prominent historian known for his scholarship on African-American culture and literature. In addition to his highly praised biography of Himes, Jackson has written numerous books that explore African-American narratives: "My Father's Name: A Black Virginia Family after the Civil War," "The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics" and "Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius, 1913-1952." Jackson's forthcoming book is a collection of essays, "Christmas in Baltimore." He is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of English and History at John Hopkins University.
Jonathan Weisman, "(((Semitism)))"
Book TV visited the National Press Club's annual Book Fair & Author's Night. There we interviewed Jonathan Weisman about his book "(((Semitism)))."
Appel Salon | Susan Orlean | November 22, 2018
"I began the book in what felt like a very different era and the change in the culture made the book feel really urgent in a way I hadn't anticipated: Not only was it about the respect and love for books, it was also about the belief that there can be shared space that is inclusive and that celebrates the idea of a community working together with open doors." —Susan Orlean
April Ryan, "Under Fire"
Book TV visited the National Press Club's annual Book Fair & Author's Night. There we interviewed April Ryan about her book "Under Fire."
Joshua Hunt: "University of Nike" | Talks at Google
In the mid-1990s, facing severe cuts to its public funding, the University of Oregon—like so many colleges across the country—was desperate for cash. Luckily, the Oregon Ducks’ 1995 Rose Bowl berth caught the attention of the school’s wealthiest alumnus: Nike founder Phil Knight, who was seeking new marketing angles at the collegiate level. And so the University of Nike was born: Knight has so far donated more than half a billion dollars to the school in exchange for high-visibility branding opportunities.

But as journalist Joshua Hunt shows in University of Nike, Oregon has paid dearly for the veneer of financial prosperity and athletic success that has come with this brand partnering.
The Pushcart Prize XLIII - Best of the Small Presses 2019
The Writers Studio, in partnership with The Strand Bookstore, is pleased to present The Pushcart Prize XLIII - Best of the Small Presses 2019. Published every year since 1976, The Pushcart Prize is the most honored literary project in America, featuring hundreds of presses and writers of short stories, poetry, and essays in its annual collections.

Come together and connect with our writers' community, with readings by:

Cortney Lamar Charleston

Rick Moody

Thylias Moss

Oliver de la Paz

Marisa Silver

Introduction by founder/editor Bill Henderson.

Cortney Lamar Charleston is the author of Telepathologies, selected by D.A. Powell for the 2016 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. He was awarded a 2017 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and he has also received fellowships from Cave Canem, The Conversation Literary Festival and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. His poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, New England Review, AGNI, TriQuarterly and elsewhere. He serves as a poetry editor at The Rumpus.

Rick Moody is the author of The Ice Storm, Demonology, Hotels of North America, and many other books. He writes about music at The Rumpus and has an advice column at LitHub.

Thylias Moss, prize-winning multiracial maker, has won a number of awards beginning in 1983 with her poem, “Coming of Age in Sandusky,” for which she received $25.00 from the Cleveland, Ohio Public Library. Since then, she has authored a total of 15 books, most of which have won awards, notably, a MacArthur Genius Fellowship, and two finalist awards from the National Book Critics Circle Award. She will be featuring her novel in verse, Slave Moth written by a literate slave girl, “Varl,” a collection she needed to make after a visit to her son’s middle school, a trip that necessitated her making the dress on the cover, by hand in the dark.

Oliver de la Paz is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Requiem for the Orchard, winner of the Akron Prize for Poetry. His honors include a 2005 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award and a 2009 GAP Grant from Artist Trust. His work has appeared in literary journals and magazines including Virginia Quarterly Review, North American Review, Tin House, Chattahoochee Review, and in anthologies such as Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation.

Marisa Silver is the author of four novels, including Little Nothing and Mary Coin, and two collections of short stories. In 2017, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has received the Ohioana Book Prize, the Southern California Independent Bookseller Award, and the O. Henry Award. Her short fiction has been published in the New Yorker, as well as other journals, and has been included in The Best American Short Stories and other anthologies. She is a 2018-19 New York Public Library Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow during which time she’ll be working on a new novel, The Mysteries.

Founded in 1987 by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Philip Schultz, The Writers Studio is an independent creative writing program, offering six and eight-week workshops specializing in topics from the necessity of political fiction to writers beginning in their fifties. The classes, which meet in New York City, San Francisco, Tucson, the Hudson Valley and Online utilize an original teaching method which combines technique-based instruction with personal weekly feedback. Since its inception in 1990, The Writers Studio Reading Series has featured numerous writers and poets, including Lydia Davis, Junot Diaz, Andre Dubus III, Jennifer Egan, Mary Gaitskill, Julia Glass, Edward Hirsch, A.M. Homes, Etgar Keret, Marie Ponsot, Robert Pinsky, Gary Shteyngart, Colson Whitehead, and Yehuda Amichai. www.writerstudio.com
Martha C. Nussbaum: The Monarchy of Fear
Acclaimed scholar and humanist Martha C. Nussbaum turns her attention to the current political climate crisis of party polarization, divisive rhetoric, and the increasing inability of two halves of the country to communicate with one another in her most recent work, The Monarchy of Fear. At the heart of the problem, Nussbaum sees a simple truth: The political is always emotional, and the psychological constant of fear of the other will always be at-the-ready to fuel the fires of anger, disgust, envy, and blame. Drawing on a mix of historical and contemporary examples, from classical Athens to the musical Hamilton, Nussbaum will discuss the emotions behind our political culture, and suggest a roadmap for where we might go next.
New Poets of Native Nations: 2018 National Book Festival
Heid E. Erdrich, Natalie Diaz and Jennifer Elise Foerster present "New Poets of Native Nations" at the 2018 Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

Speaker Biography: Natalie Diaz is an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community and was born in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California. Her poetry collection "When My Brother Was an Aztec" was praised by The New York Times as a "beautiful book." She is a contributor to the anthology "New Poets of Native Nations" (Graywolf). Diaz has played professional basketball and received a full athletic scholarship to Old Dominion University, where she earned a B.A. and an M.F.A. Among her honors is the Louis Untermeyer Scholarship in Poetry from the Bread Loaf Foundation.

Speaker Biography: Natalie Diaz is an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian community and was born in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California. Her poetry collection "When My Brother Was an Aztec" was praised by The New York Times as a "beautiful book." She is a contributor to the anthology "New Poets of Native Nations" (Graywolf). Diaz has played professional basketball and received a full athletic scholarship to Old Dominion University, where she earned a B.A. and an M.F.A. Among her honors is the Louis Untermeyer Scholarship in Poetry from the Bread Loaf Foundation.

Speaker Biography: Poet Jennifer Elise Foerster is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma and one of the contributors to the anthology "New Poets of Native Nations" (Graywolf). She has a B.F.A. from the Institute of American Indian Arts, an M.F.A. from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver. Her poetry collections are "Leaving Tulsa" and "Bright Raft in the Afterweather." She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Bread Loaf.
Jill Lepore: These Truths
The American experiment rests on three ideas—“these truths,” Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. But according to renowned historian and best-selling author Jill Lepore, it rests, too, on “a dedication to inquiry, fearless and unflinching.” Witty, endlessly curious, and astonishingly lucid, Lepore returns to CHF with “the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades." American cultural historian Eric Slauter joins Lepore for a conversation focused on her groundbreaking investigation of an American past that claims to have placed truth itself at the center of the nation’s history—and asks whether the actual course of events has supported this claim or, in fact, belied it.

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Inauguration of Jacqueline Woodson as the Ambassador for Young People's Lit

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