Interviews
"That’s what I think our project is: to find ways of agreeing upon what is real and what isn’t, to search for a series of facts we can share even if we have different opinions about those facts."
“I think so often something unexpected happens that we feel like is unrelated to whatever it is that we’re dealing with, and it ends up being the thing that brings clarity.”
“I’m interested in the self, but also in the way the self helps us understand the world outside. Complicating that sense of self felt particularly rich and important within a memoir, but I think within a book like this too, that’s coming out of those really basic philosophical questions like who am I? What does it mean to be a person, et cetera.”
“As essayists, we do our strongest work when we can see ourselves almost like objects, like characters. Motherhood has allowed me some of that insight, perhaps because it has also created a sort of doubling of life: I see myself in my mom, but I also see my younger self in my kids.
Events
2024
Jan 26, Unisen, Tampa
Talk and reading
Feb 8-10, AWP Kansas City
Two panels, one on the publishing process and the other on writing about your spouse
Feb 29, Arizona State University
ASU Book Club
March 9 and 10, Tucson Book Festival
Two panels
March 22, Brigham Young University
Visiting Writer reading and discussion
April 4, Western Carolina Book Festival
Reading with Kerry Howley
July 26, Patsy Sims Lecture
Goucher College Low Residency MFA program
October 20, Pride on the Page Literary Festival
Panel with Curtis Chin, Cheryl E. Klein, and Stephanie Theobald
2023
June 13, Chicago Book Launch! w/ Lina Ferreira
At Seminary Coop in Chicago. 6-7 p.m. Register here. More info on the event here. We’ll be giving away some small truth-and-deception book launch goodies.
June 21, Boston area reading w/ Jill Lepore
At Harvard Book Store in Cambridge. 7 p.m. More information here.
Sept 7, Iowa City reading w/ Lyz Lenz
Sponsored by the Krause Series in Contemporary Nonfiction, the University of Iowa Nonfiction Program and Prairie Lights, this reading will be at the new Iowa Nonfiction Writing House and I’m told will also include a shadow puppet show!
Sept 21, Phoenix area reading w/ David Gorin
Changing Hand’s in Phoenix will host this reading with my colleague Safiya Sinclair, whose memoir is out in October. More information here.
Oct 26, Texas Tech Creative Writing Series
More information here.
Nov 16, Writer’s League of Texas (virtual event)
I’ll be talking about the topic “Breaking the Mold: Experimenting with Structure,” including ways that we are writers can “push the boundaries, subvert, bypass, or break traditional forms, creating new possibilities in the process.”