Marguerite (Maggie) Sheffer is a writer who lives in New Orleans. She is a Professor of Practice at Tulane University, where she teaches courses in design thinking and speculative fiction as tools for social change. Formerly, she taught English at the East Oakland School of the Arts, Castlemont High School, Life Academy, and GW Carver
A discussion on film criticism and writing, featuring accomplished film writers Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader) and Marya E. Gates (RogerEbert.com) moderated by Ariana Martinez of Little Village.
Elizabeth Willis is the author of Liontaming in America (New Directions, 2024), a hybrid work engaged with American belief and relationship structures, theatre, activism, and film. The collection is on the 2024 Longlist for the National Book Award for Poetry. Her other books of poetry include Alive (New York Review Books, 2015), a finalist for the Pulitzer
Sometimes in life, you find yourself lost in an utterly dark place. When poet and author Jarod K. Anderson found himself trapped by a deep and lonely depression, he turned to the woods, literally. In his new book, Something in the Woods Loves You, Anderson explores the inherent ways nature can help fight mental illness, saying, in nature, “We are being offered a lesson, if we are wise enough to accept it."
Born and raised in Reno, Nevada, Willy Vlautin is the author of six novels and is the founder of the bands Richmond Fontaine and The Delines. Vlautin started writing stories and songs at the age of eleven after receiving his first guitar. Inspired by songwriters and novelists Paul Kelly, Willie Nelson, Tom Waits, William Kennedy,
In this panel, writers will discuss how the current political landscape affects their work and the role politics plays in their writing. Featuring: Hatice Açıkgöz (International Writing Program), Ari Berman, Natalie Goldberg, Amanda Jones, and Nina Lohman
A novel-poem taking us to the Pulitzer-prize winning poet Forrest Gander's birthplace in the Mojave Desert and his current northern California home, where tumultuous memories coalesce with the present. Mojave Ghost initiates an unusually tender bond with the reader as it chronicles an intimate relationship with arresting honesty and vividness. Moving through grief and loss
Join author James Fitzmaurice for a conversation about his new young adult novel, Hobgoblin Gennel. In this off-beat tale of adventure, teenagers Irie and Fred are fast friends. Irie, of Afro-Caribbean heritage, was born in Sheffield where they both live. Fred is an expat American transplanted from Yuma, Arizona with a keen interest in Sheffield’s
Ari Berman is the national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones and a reporting fellow at Type Media Center. He will read from Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It,. He is also the author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (finalist,
With his signature crackling prose, literary master Chris Offutt has staked out his own territory in crime fiction, a place of familial allegiances, old wounds, and revenge—the code of the hills. His new book, a sharp, twisty southern noir with echoes of James Sallis and Daniel Woodrell, will force Mick to face up to the
Poets Perry Janes, Anna Morrison and Hannah Bonner will read from and discuss their work, in partnership with Refocus Film Festival.
In this panel, writers will discuss some of their favorite writing by others, sharing the things they like to read and important books they would like to recommend. Featuring: Nicolás Medina Mora, Chris Tse (International Writing Program), Sharon Wahl, Nicolas Wong (International Writing Program), Peter Závada (International Writing Program)
