Live at Politics and Prose

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Eileen Myles: Live at Politics and Prose Oct 20, 2017

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One of today’s most innovative writers, Myles is the award-winning author of more than twenty books, including the novel Chelsea Girls and I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975-2014. Combining memoir, fantasy, and an extraordinary empathy that leaps species boundaries, Myles’s latest book is a bittersweet memoir of Rosie, a pit bull that shared Myles’s life for sixteen years. As Myles looks back on the literature the two created together, the walks they took, and channels Rosie’s own perspective through an interview with a puppet, they celebrate a complex, dynamic relationship, explore the special bond between people and pets, and offer a deeply insightful meditation on grief.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Kate Harding: Live at Politics and Prose Oct 14, 2017

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The results of last year’s election turned what should have been a groundbreaking moment for women into a time of anger and resurgent intolerance and misogyny. Women themselves are deeply divided: 53% of white women voted for Trump while 94% of black women voted for Hillary. Yet women must bridge these differences and work together in order to move ahead and enact permanent change. This collection of essays by writers including Cheryl Strayed, Rebecca Solnit, Jessica Valenti, and Katha Pollitt, offers ideas about how to do that. Join contributors Nicole Chung, managing web editor of Catapult, and Mary Kathryn Nagle, a playwright and partner at Pipestem Law, along with the anthology’s editors, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, author of Outdated and Editorial Director of the Identities vertical at Mic, and Kate Harding, author of Asking for It and co-author of The Book of Jezebel, for a look at where we go from here.

David Litt: Live at Politics and Prose Oct 06, 2017

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Litt worked at the White House from 2011 to 2016, leaving as a special assistant to President Obama and senior presidential speechwriter—the youngest in history. He supplied remarks on the major issues of the day, but his focus was humor and his job might more accurately be termed “comic muse to the president.” Now the head writer/producer for Funny or Die’s D.C. office, LItt contributed jokes to Obama’s speeches as early as 2009 and was the lead writer on four White House Correspondents’ Dinner presentations. Along with the laughs and the sparkling behind-the-scenes anecdotes about daily life at the White House, Litt’s political-coming-of-age story is a serious contribution to the project of representing the legacy and future of the Obama movement in the age of Trump.

Claire Messud: Live at Politics and Prose Sep 29, 2017

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Messud’s sixth novel, The Burning Goal, is the story of Cassie and Julia, best friends from nursery school until seventh grade. For Julia, who narrates their experiences, the two are as close as sisters, though their families fail to mesh and the differences between them grow more apparent over time. Without Julia to set limits and question plans, Cassie veers into potentially dangerous emotional territory, especially when she decides to track down her father, and Julia begins to see how her notions of “home” and “love” were never Cassie’s. Writing with the elegant, meticulous prose that made the characters of The Woman Upstairs and The Emperor’s Children so vivid, Messud explores the intricate psychology of adolescence and the limits of friendship.

http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780393635027

Danielle Allen: Live at Politics and Prose Sep 22, 2017

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Michael Alexander Allen was arrested at age fifteen, served eleven years of a thirteen-year sentence for attempted carjacking, and was found shot to death three years after his release. He was Danielle Allen’s cousin, and she grew up with him, supported him, and encouraged him to pursue his dreams of becoming a writer and a firefighter. His death was a shock, and in her powerful memoir Allen, the James Conant Bryant University Professor at Harvard and author of the award-winning Our Declaration, seeks to understand what happened to him, and to the legions of other young black men who spend most of their lives in prison.

Zoë Quinn: Live at Politics and Prose Sep 15, 2017

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Quinn, featured in Forbes 30 under 30 and one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, is among the most prominent indie developers in the gaming industry. When she released Depression Quest in 2013, the game was met with acclaim as well as hate mail. The online abuse intensified, and by August 2014, Quinn and several other women video game creators were the targets of relentless harassment, including rape and death threats. Quinn, who has testified at the United Nations about online abuse, fought back with the Crash Override Network, an advocacy and online-abuse crisis resource that helps victims secure their systems and know their rights. Her book, told from the dual perspective of target and activist, is a chilling memoir, a powerful look at the internet’s virulent culture of hatred, and an urgent call-to-action.

Mark Bowden: Live at Politics and Prose Sep 08, 2017

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Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam, was the country’s third-largest city in 1968 when it became the center of the Tet Offensive. The North Vietnamese stormed Hue from hidden outposts, surprising and then overwhelming American and South Vietnamese forces. The fight lasted twenty-four days and the 10,000 killed there made it the bloodiest battle of the war. It also definitively turned the tide against the U.S. Bowden’s comprehensive account vividly captures each stage of the action from multiple viewpoints, and he combines meticulous reporting, including a look at the role of the media in revealing what was happening, with profiles, stories, and cinematic set pieces. The author of books including Black Hawk Down, Killing Pablo, and, most recently, The Three Battles of Wanat, Bowden is a feature writer for the Atlantic and Vanity Fair.

Bowden is in conversation with Bob Woodward, Washington Post associate editor.

Haroon Moghul: Live at Politics and Prose Sep 01, 2017

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Moghul became a public presence in the wake of 9/11, speaking out as an undergraduate leader at NYU’s Islamic Center. He was only just beginning to work out his personal relationship to Islam, and his memoir traces his struggle to come to terms with a faith he had long felt ambivalent about. Growing up, Moghul, a second-generation immigrant, wanted a typical American childhood. But his was complicated by encounters with anti-Muslim bias, bouts of depression, and his own reservations about many aspects of his Islamic heritage. Now a senior fellow and director of development at the Center for Global Policy, as well as the Fellow in Jewish-Muslim Relations at the Shalom Hartman Institute, Moghul writes honestly about identity as a work in progress.

Moghul is in conversation with Wajahat Ali, author of the play Domestic Crusaders and lead author of the investigative report Fear, Inc.

Ibram X. Kendi: Live at Politics and Prose Aug 25, 2017

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Kendi’s National Book Award-winning study argues that racism in America has grown from deliberate policies rather than from emotional responses like fear or hatred. Starting with the Puritans, Kendi traces the development of racist ideas and their effect on racist practices through the lives of five thinkers, discussing Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Angela Davis. Within these profiles Kendi, professor of history and international studies at American University, identifies three strains of thought about race: segregation, antiracism, and assimilation; outlines their differences, and points to how each can be discredited in order to free the nation for the post-racial era it has long yearned for.

Kendi is in conversation with Wesley Lowery, a national correspondent for The Washington Post and author of They Can't Kill Us All.

Tom Perrotta: Live at Politics and Prose Aug 18, 2017

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Perrotta’s seventh novel tells the dual coming-of-age stories of Eve Fletcher and her son. Eve, executive director of a senior center, adjusts to her empty nest and tests the limits of her new freedom by taking a course on gender. But she’s more interested in porn websites and may even have attracted a cyberstalker. Meanwhile her son Brendan, a freshman, is jolted by the reality of a college life that’s less indulgent of his privileged attitudes than he had anticipated. As the two struggle with the unexpected consequences of their behavior, Perrotta, author of Election, Little Children, and The Leftovers, the basis for the HBO series of the same name, paints a sharp, insightful, and very funny picture of life in the digital era.

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