This program will be held in-person at the Newberry and livestreamed on Zoom. The online version of this event will be live captioned. Please register below.
Award-winning author, Jennifer Egan (A Visit From the Goon Squad, The Candy House) and Michael Zapata (MAKE Literary Magazine, The Lost Book of Adana Moreau) will discuss Egan’s career as an author with a focus on the craft of writing.
Writers on Writing is presented in partnership with StoryStudio Chicago. Perfect for readers and writers alike, these talks celebrate one author's work—a glimpse behind the creative curtain, a chance to ask questions, and an opportunity to celebrate the art of the written word.
Recent books by both authors will be available to purchase at the Newberry bookshop, and the authors will sign copies after the talk.
Writers on Writing is generously supported by Sue and Melvin Gray.
Speakers
Jennifer Egan is the author of several novels and a short story collection. Her 2017 novel, Manhattan Beach, a New York Times bestseller, was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was chosen as New York City’s One Book One New York read. Her previous novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was recently named one of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Her new novel, The Candy House, a companion to A Visit From the Goon Squad, was named one of the New York Times’s 10 Best Books of 2022. She has served as President of PEN America and twice as Artist-in-Residence in the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Her year-long reporting on street homelessness and supportive housing in New York City was published in The New Yorker in September of 2023.
Michael Zapata is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the novel The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others. He is a recipient of a Meier Foundation Artist Achievement Award, an Illinois Arts Council Award for Fiction and two City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Program Awards. He is on the faculty of StoryStudio Chicago and the MFA faculty of Northwestern University. As a public-school educator, he taught literature and writing in high schools servicing drop out students. He currently lives in Chicago with his family.
Cost and Registration
This program is free and open to all. Advance registration required.
Registration opens March 1.
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