in conversation with Sheila O'Connor
Monday, May 10
5:30 pm Central — FREE!
Crowdcast
Please join us for a special event with Chris Bohjalian, the New York Times bestselling author of Midwives (a selection of Oprah’s Book Club), Trans-Sister Radio (a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award), and The Flight Attendant (now a Golden Globe-winning HBO series), among many other smash hits. Bohjalian will be in conversation with Minnesota Book Award winner Sheila O’Connor about his new novel Hour of the Witch (Doubleday), a historical thriller set in 1662 that may also be the most timely novel Bohjalian has ever written. Come find out why! Here’s a hint from a starred review in Booklist:
Throughout Bohjalian’s prolific career, he has rewarded readers with indelibly drawn female protagonists, and the formidable yet vulnerable Mary Deerfield is a worthy addition to the canon. Conjuring up specters of #MeToo recriminations and social media shaming, there are twenty-first-century parallels to Bohjalian’s atmospheric Puritan milieu, and his trademark extensive research pays off in this authentic portrait of courage in the face of society’s worst impulses. Bohjalian is a perennial favorite, and this Salem Witch Hunt drama has a special magnetism.
Co-hosted by Rain Taxi and Literature Lovers Night Out, this virtual event is free to attend; simply register here:
Books can be purchased during the event, or in advance here, from Valley Booksellers in Stillwater, Minnesota:
About the Presenters
Chris Bohjalian is the author of 22 books, three of which (so far!) have become movies. His books have been chosen as Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and Salon. Bohjalian is a recipient of the Walter Cerf Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts, the ANCA Freedom Award for his work educating readers about the Armenian Genocide, and the Anahid Literary Award, among many others. He is a Fellow of the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sheila O’Connor is the author of six novels. Her most recent book, Evidence of V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts and Fictions, combines memoir and historical research to reconstruct the buried history of incarcerated girls, and it won the Minnesota Book Award. Her other books include Where No Gods Came, Tokens of Grace, and the novels for young readers Sparrow Road and Keeping Safe the Stars. O'Connor is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at Hamline University, where she serves as fiction editor for Water~Stone Review.
Tickets to this virtual event include a signed copy of Everybody: A Book About Freedom. Each registered attendee will also receive a special “Everybody” button with their book, and be entered into a raffle to win an 18K gold-plated sterling silver necklace which celebrates Laing’s brilliant new book. Winner announced during the event!
Olivia Laing is the author of three acclaimed works of nonfiction, To the River (2011), The Trip to Echo Spring (2013), and The Lonely City (2016), which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism and has been translated into seventeen languages. Her first novel, Crudo, was a New York Times Notable Book and won the 2019 James Tait Black Prize. She writes for the Guardian, New York Times, and frieze, among many other publications. Her collected writing on art, Funny Weather, was published in 2020. The recipient of the 2018 Windham-Campbell Prize in nonfiction, Laing lives in Suffolk, UK.
Kim Todd is an award-winning author of books about science and history, including Tinkering with Eden: A Natural History of Exotic Species in America and Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis. Her essays and articles have appeared in Smithsonian, Salon, Sierra Magazine, and Orion. Todd’s work has also appeared in Best American Science and Nature Writing 2015 and has been featured on NPR's Science Friday. She teaches on the MFA faculty at the University of Minnesota, and has given lectures at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Yale University, the Getty Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Denver Botanical Garden, among other places. A senior fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program, Todd lives in Minneapolis with her family.
Kathryn Nuernberger is an essayist and poet who writes about the history of science and ideas, renegade women, plant medicines, and witches. Her latest book is The Witch of Eye (Sarabande Books), which is about witches and witch trials. She is also the author of the poetry collections RUE, The End of Pink, and Rag & Bone, as well as a collection of lyric essays, Brief Interviews with the Romantic Past. Her awards include the James Laughlin Prize from the Academy of American Poets, an NEA fellowship, and notable essays in the Best American series. She teaches poetry and nonfiction for the MFA program at University of Minnesota.
Join Rain Taxi for a special lunchtime conversation on politics, prose, and pictures with graphic novel creation duo Ted Rall and Pablo Callejo. Their new book, The Stringer (NBM Publishing), is an ode to when fact-based journalism mattered, set at an important turning point a few years ago, as well as a globe-trotting, action-packed, timely statement about how a society without a vibrant independent culture of reporting can degenerate into chaos. Don’t miss this chance to hear these trans-continental collaborators talk about their work!
Karen Tei Yamashita is the author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning works of fiction, including Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Tropic of Orange, and I Hotel, all published by Coffee House Press. She received a US Artists Ford Foundation Fellowship and is Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her most recent book of fiction, Sansei and Sensibility: Stories, was published in 2020.