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Francisco Cantú (author of The Line Becomes a River) at the FYE® Conference 2018

Aleksandar Hemon and Stuart Dybek discuss Chicago

Aleksandar Hemon and Stuart Dybek, two acclaimed, award-winning Chicago writers, discuss the city and how it is reflected in their writing and their lives.

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William T. Vollmann | Carbon Ideologies
National Book Award winner William T. Vollmann introduces “Carbon Ideologies,” his new two-volume exploration of the causes and consequences global warming.

Over the years William T. Vollmann has earned critical acclaim by tackling some of the largest and thorniest issues of our times, including poverty, violence, and American imperialism. In “Carbon Ideologies,” Vollmann turns to one of the greatest crises we have ever faced: global warming.

“No Immediate Danger,” volume one of the series, examines the technological and cultural forces that created climate change—manufacturing, agriculture, fossil fuel extraction and the global demand for electric power—leading to a detailed case study of the brutal 2011 tsunami and nuclear reactor meltdowns in Fukushima, Japan. For seven years, at great personal risk, Vollmann traveled to the no-go zones and ghost towns of Fukushima to interview tsunami victims, nuclear evacuees, anti-nuclear organizers and pro-nuclear utility workers. With his signature wit and meticulous, wide-ranging research, “No Immediate Danger” builds a powerful picture of one of the greatest environmental disasters in recent history.

Volume two, “No Good Alternative,” coming in June 2018, focuses on human experiences related to coal mining and natural gas production.
Meredith Goldstein & Wesley Morris | Can't Help Myself
Meredith discusses her new memoir with New York Times Journalist Wesley Morris.

Meredith Goldstein, the mastermind behind the Boston Globe advice column Love Letters, is coming to the Strand for the release of her new memoir! In Can't Help Myself, Goldstein takes readers through the origins of the column, its wild online-to-print success, and reveals what was happening in her own life as Love Letters grew. Despite her calm and collected attitude in writing, Goldstein doesn’t have it all figured out for herself. She has her own questions about aging parents, office break-ups, dating-in-your-thirties, feminism, porn habits, and Tinder. In Can't Help Myself, we watch as Love Letters becomes Goldstein’s anchor, helping her through painful breakups and a family cancer diagnosis, just as she anchors her readers through their own setbacks and tragedies. With humor (the ex she calls “Draco Malfoy,” the millennial pals she calls “The Rachels”) and the collective empathy of a dedicated online community, Can't Help Myself is an extraordinary and touching portrait of a single woman navigating the difficulties of life and love for both herself and thousands of others.
Edwidge Danticat: The Art of Death
Writers are told to "write what you know," yet death is ultimately unknowable. We can witness the moment right before, but the next reality remains elusive and writers unavoidably focus on life. Two-time National Book Award finalist Edwidge Danticat comes to CHF to discuss her astute and intimate The Art of Death, a personal account of her mother's death from cancer and a deeply considered reckoning of how other writers, from Toni Morrison to C.S. Lewis, have approached death in their own work. Tracie Hall Director of Culture Program at the Joyce Foundation, joins Danticat for this profound and moving discussion.
My descent into America’s neo-Nazi movement — and how I got out
At 14, Christian Picciolini went from naïve teenager to white supremacist — and soon, the leader of the first neo-Nazi skinhead gang in the United States. How was he radicalized, and how did he ultimately get out of the movement? In this courageous talk, Picciolini shares the surprising and counterintuitive solution to hate in all forms.
Lesley Nneka Arimah interview at AWP 2018
Lesley Nneka Arimah is joining us to talk about her book, What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky: Stories. Lesley was selected as a National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 honoree last year.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

In “Who Will Greet You at Home,” a National Magazine Award finalist for The New Yorker, A woman desperate for a child weaves one out of hair, with unsettling results. In “Wild,” a disastrous night out shifts a teenager and her Nigerian cousin onto uneasy common ground. In "The Future Looks Good," three generations of women are haunted by the ghosts of war, while in "Light," a father struggles to protect and empower the daughter he loves. And in the title story, in a world ravaged by flood and riven by class, experts have discovered how to "fix the equation of a person" - with rippling, unforeseen repercussions.

Evocative, playful, subversive, and incredibly human, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky heralds the arrival of a prodigious talent with a remarkable career ahead of her.
Malcolm Gladwell Explains Where His Ideas Come From | The New Yorker
David Remnick speaks with Malcolm Gladwell about how he arrived at his particular approach to storytelling.
Cecile Richards introduces Make Trouble
Women's rights advocate and president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Cecile Richards, joins us for a discussion of her new book, Make Trouble.

Richards has been an activist since 7th grade, when she was taken to the principal's office for wearing an armband in protest of the Vietnam War. She had an extraordinary childhood in ultra-conservative Texas, where her civil rights attorney father and activist-turned-Texas governor mother taught their kids to be troublemakers. Now, after years of advocacy, resistance, and progressive leadership, she shares her story for the first time—from the joy and heartbreak of activism to the challenges of raising kids, having a life, and making change, all at the same time.
Sarah Schulman | After Delores
Writers convene to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Sarah Schulman’s cult classic novel “After Delores.”

Panelists, from left to right: Davey Davis, Kay Gabriel, Tina Horn, Sarah Schulman

Sarah Schulman's acclaimed 1988 novel is a noirish tale about a no-nonsense coffee-shop waitress in New York who is nursing a broken heart after her girlfriend Delores leaves her; her attempts to find love again are funny, sexy, and ultimately even violent. “After Delores” is a fast-paced, electrifying chronicle of the Lower East Side's lesbian subculture in the 1980s.

Davey Davis writes about culture, sexuality, technology, and genderqueer embodiment. Their first novel, “the earthquake room,” was released by TigerBee Press in late 2017. You can find them on Twitter at @k8bushofficial.

Kay Gabriel is the author of “Elegy Department Spring” (BOAAT Press, 2017), the finalist for the 2016 BOAAT chapbook prize selected by Richard Siken. She's one-fifth of Negative Press, a gay Marxist poetry collective, and an editor for Vetch. Find her provocations on Twitter @unit01barbie.

Tina Horn is a non-fiction NSFW writer, audio producer, queer punk, and true karaoke believer. She produces and hosts the kinky slut podcast “Why Are People Into That?!,” and is the author of two nonfiction books, “Love Not Given Lightly,” and “Sexting.” She is a Lambda Literary Fellow and the winner of two Feminist Porn Awards. TinaHorn.net / @TinaHornsAss

Sarah Schulman is the author of 19 books, most recently THE COSMOPOLITANS (chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the best American novels of 2016), CONFLICT IS NOT ABUSE (winner of The 2017 Publishing Triangle Nonfiction Prize) and MAGGIE TERRY, a novel of murder and discovery which will be published in September 2018. A playwright, screenwriter, and AIDS historian, Sarah is currently collaborating with the great Marianne Faithfull on a stage play, "The Snow Queen" featuring 24 of Marianne's songs from her long career.
Ishion Hutchinson interview at AWP 2018
We’re sitting down with Ishion Hutchinson, author of House of Lords and Commons: Poems. Hutchinson won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry in 2016 for House of Lords and Commons.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:

In House of Lords and Commons, the revelatory and vital new collection of poems from the winner of the 2013 Whiting Writers’ Award in poetry, Ishion Hutchinson returns to the difficult beauty of the Jamaican landscape with remarkable lyric precision. Here, the poet holds his world in full focus but at an astonishing angle: from the violence of the seventeenth-century English Civil War as refracted through a mythic sea wanderer, right down to the dark interior of love.

These poems arrange the contemporary continuum of home and abroad into a wonderment of cracked narrative sequences and tumultuous personae. With ears tuned to the vernacular, the collection vividly binds us to what is terrifying about happiness, loss, and the lure of the sea. House of Lords and Commons testifies to the particular courage it takes to wade unsettled, uncertain, and unfettered in the wake of our shared human experience.
Andrew Keen: "How to Fix the Future" | Talks at Google
Andrew Keen was among the earliest to write about the dangers of the Internet to our culture and society and he joins us to discuss his new book, How to Fix the Future.

After the huge changes of the Industrial Revolution, civilised societies remade 19th century capitalism into a more humane version of itself - and Andrew shows how we can do the same in the wake of the Digital Revolution.

He identifies five broad strategies to tackle the digital future and travels the world to find best (and worst!) practices in each area. In doing he so, he aims to provide hope that the economic inequality, unemployment, cultural decay, war on privacy and individual alienation caused by the digital upheaval may still be solvable so that we can look forward to the future.

Moderated by Peter Barron.
Hidden Figures: Discussing the Women of NASA with Margot Lee Shetterly
The Library of Congress commemorates Women’s History Month with a special interview about the women of NASA, their courage, leadership and super powers in the history of the American space program. Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden will lead a discussion with Margot Lee Shetterly, author of "Hidden Figures" and Donna Gigliotti, the producer of the film "Hidden Figures".
Francisco Cantú (author of The Line Becomes a River) at the FYE® Conference 2018
Francisco Cantú, author of THE LINE BECOMES A RIVER: DISPATCHES FROM THE BORDER (Riverhead Books), speaks about his book at the First-Year Experience® (FYE) Conference in San Antonio, TX.
Dydine Umunyana: "Embracing Survival" | Talks at Google
Embracing Survival, a memoir by Dydine Umunyana, tells the story of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against Tutsis at the hands of Hutu perpetrators through the eyes of the four-year-old-child that she was when the horror occurred. Separated from her family, she barely survived the conflict. While the physical killing eventually stopped, the mental and emotional torture continued, affecting her, her family, friends, and community until acceptance paved a way forward.

Now 27 years old and living in the United States, she writes that she has "learned that we cannot do for others what we cannot do for ourselves. By nourishing the light within ourselves, we find strength we never knew was there...one's own life experiences are not meant to be kept, but to be shared and learned from."
Franklin Foer (author of World Without Mind) at the FYE® Conference 2018
Franklin Foer, author of WORLD WITHOUT MIND: THE EXISTENTIAL THREAT OF BIG TECH (Penguin Books), speaks about his book at the First-Year Experience® (FYE) Conference in San Antonio, TX.
Things We Haven’t Said: Sexual Violence Survivors Speak Out
Contributors discuss “Things We Haven’t Said,” a powerful new anthology of writing by survivors of sexual violence.

Edited by YA writer and librarian Erin Moulton, “Things We Haven’t Said” collects poems, essays, letters, vignettes and interviews written written by a diverse group of adults who survived sexual violence as children and adolescents.

Erin E. Moulton is the author of FLUTTER, TRACING STARS, CHASING THE MILKY WAY, and KEEPERS OF THE LABYRINTH. Her books have been selected and nominated for national and state award lists, such as the Amelia Bloomer list, the Kentucky Bluegrass Master List and the Isinglass Teen Read Award List. She also works as teen librarian at the Derry Public Library where she maintains a collection of awesome YA books and leads teen programming.

Barbara McLean hid the injuries from a childhood sexual assault for many years and, as an adult, became involved in an abusive relationship. Eventually, Barbara enrolled in a master's program to study social policy with the desire to change how sexual assault survivors perceive themselves. Today, she works for a Violence Intervention and Treatment Program in Brooklyn, NY, and she volunteers on a sexual assault hotline as well as in a local emergency room.

G. Donald Cribbs has written and published poetry and short stories since high school. He is also a drug and alcohol counselor at the Discovery House in Harrisburg, PA, and holds a master's degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling (MA). He and his wife and four boys reside in central Pennsylvania where the author is hard at work on his next book, the sequel to his debut novel, THE PACKING HOUSE.

Maya Demri started her artistic life at age 4 when she found the magic of ballet and the freedom in painting. Over the years she studied visual arts, dance, acting and singing professionally. In college she discovered her soul's talent of writing and became an author as well. She believes that arts can truly heal and awaken humanity's consciousness.

Jane Cochrane is a poet and a journalist. Originally from North Carolina, she recently graduated from college in Los Angeles with a degree in creative writing. She now lives in New York City.

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Aleksandar Hemon and Stuart Dybek discuss Chicago

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