This Wednesday, May 25 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., join us for May’s edition of the The Conversation, Who Owns the Environment?, a literary and cultural series at Chicago’s Women & Children First Bookstore and Las Manos Gallery.
This month, Jennifer Haigh, Antonio López, Eiren Caffall, and Zoe Zolbrod will have a timely conversation about who owns the environment.
In the words of The Conversation co-founder Rebecca Makkai:
This month, we’re beyond thrilled to have literary superstar Jennifer Haigh join us from out of town. In her fifth novel, HEAT AND LIGHT, Haigh returns to Bakerton, Pennsylvania, a dying coal town that’s offered a second chance when the natural gas industry comes to town. Yes, it’s a novel about fracking, and it’s a wonderful one. It has been named a Best Book of 2016 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and NPR.
Jennifer will be joined by Antonio Lopez, writer and recent executive director of Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. Antonio has written extensively on anti-poverty and anti-racist social movements in Chicago. He has also contributed to human rights, environmental justice, and economic justice struggles in Chicago and on the U.S./Mexico border.
Our third panelist will be Eiren Cafall, who we’re happy to see again in our series. Eiren is a musician and writer living and working in Chicago. She writes songs, personal essays, and meditations on life during global climate change, the tricks of memory that help us survive, and the wisdom that comes whether we like it or not. Eiren is currently at work on her first novel, set in post-climate apocalypse New York and New England.
The event will be moderated by our own lovely Zoe Zolbrod, and we’re looking forward to a vibrant conversation about how we deal with environmental issues on a local and global scale. Please join us afterwards for a drink and a bite at Las Manos Gallery.
Our series continues on June 11 at 3pm as part of the Printer’s Row Lit Fest and we’ll talk about “Writing Resistance.”
The Conversation is a free, no-ticket event, open to all, but donations will be collected at the afterparty to fund a local nonprofit. Click here for more event details.
The series is curated by Kim Brooks, Rebecca Makkai, Zoe Zolbrod, Jana-Maria Hartmann, and Aleksandar Hemon, with Sarah Hollenbeck of Women & Children First. (Photo of Jennifer Haigh by Sharona Jacobs Photography).
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