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Monday 6/12: Dani Shapiro will present her new memoir, Hourglass. Magers & Quinn, 7 p.m., free.
Tuesday 6/13: Check out the June Books & Bars! It’s a live performance and discussion centering around a monthly book, plus beer, and this month’s book is Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler.
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Thursday 5/11: The Writers in the Schools program at Grant High School hosts a student reading to share their semester of work. Broadway Books, 7 p.m., free.
Jeff VanderMeer, author of Southern Reach Trilogy, reads from his new book, Borne, a story about two humans and two creatures.
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Monday 5/1: Reyna Biddy presents and signs I Love My Love. 7 p.m. at Book Soup.
Tuesday 5/2: Gina Sorrell launches her new novel, Mothers & Other Strangers. 7 p.m. at Chevalier’s Books.
Scott Westerfeld discusses and signs Spill Zone.
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Saturday 4/15: Protest in support of releasing Donald Trump’s tax returns. Bryant Park, 1 p.m., free.
Thom Donovan and Marissa Perel join the Segue Series. Zinc Bar, 4:30 p.m., $5.
Sunday 4/16: Tongo Eisen-Martin, Mahogany Browne, and Jive Poetic read poetry.
...moreThings in my own life that make me want to write about them are often things that are unresolved. And I use writing to figure them out.
Memoirists Meredith Maran, Dani Shapiro, Ayelet Waldman, Kate Christensen, and Nick Flynn speak in a YouTube video about why they write about their own lives, and the best/worst things that happened to them as a result of writing a memoir.
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The writing advice I give is this:
1) Sit down
2) Write
These wise and talented writers have more to say.
...moreSaturday 10/17: Happy 6th Birthday, Greenlight Bookstore.
John Reid Currie, Roberto Montes, Claire Van Winkle, and Emily Wallis Hughes join the Oh, Bernice! reading series. Astoria Bookshop, 7 p.m., free.
Benn Tripp and Boni Joi join the Segue Series.
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Saturday 5/9: Lewis Freedman and Alli Warren join the Segue Series. Zinc Bar, 4:30 p.m., $5.
Sunday 5/10: Anne Enright launches The Green Road. McNally Jackson, 7 p.m., free.
Morgan Parker, Ryan Britt, Britt Gambino, Emily Yoon, Karolina Manko, and Nicole Testa join the Dead Rabbits.
...moreIn an era when people live tweet every aspect of their lives, the memoir might seem an antiquated notion. Dani Shapiro disagrees. Status updates are immediate, instant acts of narcissism. Writing a memoir requires introspection and distance. Shapiro explains over at The New Yorker:
...moreIt is only with distance that we are able to turn our powers of observation on ourselves, thus fashioning stories in which we are characters.
Saturday 3/8: Ben Marcus talks about his new story collection, Leaving the Sea (January 2014), Rob Spillman, editor of Tin House. Brooklyn Public Library, 4 p.m., free.
Craig Morgan Teicher, Wendy Lotterman, Nicole Steinberg, Sarah V. Schweig, Ted Dodson, Krystal Languell, Joanna C.
...moreSaturday 2/15: Luna Miguel, Jacob Steinberg, and Gabby Bess read poetry. Mellow Pages, 7 p.m., free.
Sunday 2/16: Stephen Elliott and Julia Fierro join Gina Frangello as she reads from her novel A Life in Men (February 2014). Fierro’s forthcoming Cutting Teeth (May 2014) examines thirty-somethings attempting to enjoy a beach house with their children.
...moreAt Salon, Dani Shapiro writes an open response to a reader who felt that Shapiro’s memoir Slow Motion wasn’t fully honest because it didn’t include all the details of her life.
In it, she explains what memoir is and isn’t, and what honesty means for the form:
...moreWhen I write fiction, I make things up.
Monday 10/21: Novelist Jonathan Grimwood hosts Charlotte Druckman, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, and Matt Gross for an evening of storytelling focused on obsessions. Grimwood’s novel, The Last Banquet (October 2013), set in Enlightenment era Versailles, will inspire refreshments served by chef Emily Casey.
...moreThere are those writers that relinquish their private lives to the world, choosing to share the honesty of experience, which is often difficult for those family members and friends who were part of this experience.
Changed names and confrontation come up all the time for the memoirist, but what about protecting those family members that don’t exist yet?
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