Person Place Thing… Strangers!

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I’ve got a couple of events coming up this week. Hope you can join us!

Person Place Thing / Orion

The first is tomorrow (Tues. 5/3) at 6:30 pm ET. I’ll be in conversation for a live virtual recording with Randy Cohen, the delightful host of the podcast Person Place Thing, an interview show based on the idea that people are particularly engaging when they speak not directly about themselves but about something they care about. I’m trying not to think about the fact that his prior guest was Ken Burns. The man definitely has more stories than me!

The event is co-hosted by Orion Magazine, and here’s the link to register: https://orionmagazine.org/event/person-place-thing-orion-live-podcast-recording/

 

Letter to a Stranger

The second event is on Wed (5/4) at 8:30 pm ET. A wonderful new book emerged into the world recently called Letter to a Stranger. It’s an anthology of short, searing letters written to people that haunt them for all sorts of reasons, stories of love and regret and wonder and mystery. I’ll be joining editor Colleen Kinder and fellow contributors, Lavinia Spalding (dear friend and sister-in-law!), Akemi Johnson, Faith Adiele, Emmanuel Iduma, and Anna Vodicka. You can just jump into Zoomlandia directly the night of the event at this link: https://www.bookpassage.com/lettertoastranger

Hope to see you!

On America: Writing & Reading the Environment

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From our home places, we convene. It is tonic. To get a chance to explore storytelling with these talented writers, all approaching their craft from different angles, was such a pleasure. Here’s the full post about the October 1 event, with an expansive suggested reading list. We were: a panel of writers, journalists, and climate change activists considering the formal, structural elements environmental writers can bring to storytelling, how to handle or tell stories that support political stances, and examine the stories out there that can foster a better understanding of our environmental crisis. But it was so much more. Exploring systems of reciprocity, how far writing can reach (will there ever be another Silent Spring?) and, and, and….

Have a look. And then pick up Kerri Arsenault’s rooted true tale Mill Town. And Bathsheba Demuth’s exquisite Floating Coast. Travel the world through John’s latest Freeman’s: Love. Seek out the deeply thought-through essays on climate and the hard questions they force upon us by Emily Raboteau and Meehan Crist.

Thanks to our hosts: Center for Fiction in collaboration with Orion Magazine and the National Book Critics Circle as part of the Brooklyn Book Festival’s Bookends series.

Art and Urgency: Journalism in the Post-Truth Era

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<<SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH A REPLAY>>
It was such a pleasure talking about writing with this incredible group of people. Jeff has long served as a mentor to me, since I studied under him at NYU, and Paul is one of the best editors I know. Getting a chance to step inside Alex and Alexis’s minds to see how they think about their incredible stories was equally inspiring. Have a listen with the link below…
~Meera
MacDowell Journalism Panel Examines the Fragility of Facts and Urgency of Art in a Post-Truth Era. Virginia Quarterly Review Editor Paul Reyes will moderate a discussion with prominent journalists Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, Meera Subramanian, Alexis Okeowo, and Jeff Sharlet.A virtual panel discussion among five award-winning journalists titled “Art and Urgency: Journalism in the Post-Truth Era” took place here on October 26, 2020 at 7 p.m. It examined the importance of solid news reporting and why making art is more important today than ever. The discussion, led by Virginia Quarterly Review Editor and MacDowell board member Paul Reyes, looked into the fragile position of news media at a time when a growing portion of the populace gets its news from suspect sources.“In a media landscape where facts are pliable, where the news has become a hall of mirrors,” said Reyes, “it’s important to appreciate how literary and narrative journalism—which are at the heart of what MacDowell supports—are able to cut through the noise in order to carve out the truth, offering a visceral clarity to the reading public.”Reyes was joined by The Fact of a Body author Alex Marzano-Lesnevich; journalist Meera Subramanian, whose book A River Runs Again: India’s Natural World in Crisis from the Barren Cliffs of Rajasthan to the Farmlands of Karnataka, was a finalist for the Orion Book Award; PEN Open Book Award-winner and writer for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine Alexis Okeowo; and bestseller and Virginia Quarterly Review Editor at Large Jeff Sharlet whose latest book This Brilliant Darkness: A Book of Strangers, is a deep, genre-bending immersion into the lives of everyday citizens.

This was an evening of incisive conversation with MacDowell Fellows who work in investigative and long-form narrative journalism. In this era of the 30-second soundbite and relative truth, in-depth reporting and groundbreaking nonfiction writing are more important than ever.

MacDowell has been supporting journalists for decades, and believes a new model of assistance is needed for journalists who dedicate their lives to telling complex stories that have the power to change our lives and make our society better. The Art of Journalism Initiative at MacDowell is one way we support groundbreaking voices in non-fiction—like those of James Baldwin, Shane Bauer, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Frances FitzGerald, Sheri Fink, William Finnegan, Adrian Nicole Leblanc, and others.

With The Art of Journalism initiative, we are investing $2 million in Fellowships for journalists and long-form non-fiction authors, as well as providing journalism project grants, while helping to link a new network of publishers, non-profit newsrooms, and other key players in the journalism community to MacDowell’s artist community. Get the scoop here .

Watch the video here: Art & Urgency Video

(Cancelled) New Imaginings: Storytelling, Science & Activism

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Imagery: Jules Bartl/BBC World Service

*Due to the coronavirus/COVID-19 crisis, this event has been cancelled*

During my time at Princeton University, I have the pleasure of organizing an event, and I decided to shape it around the powerful novel The Overstory. If you’re in the Princeton area on March 26, please join me. And thanks to Jules Bartl and the BBC for letting us use this exquisite image for the event (check out the short animated film!).

More event info here.

Award-winning environmental journalist Meera Subramanian will host the discussion “New Imaginings: Storytelling, Science and Activism” featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Powers, author of The Overstory; Robin Wall Kimmerer, SUNY professor of environmental biology and author of Braiding Sweetgrass; and forest activist Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology.

Subramanian, the 2019-20 PEI Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and the Humanities, will lead a conversation exploring how the work of scientists, artists and activists come together to inspire fundamental shifts in perspective. From the underground networks that feed forests to how human activity impacts the upper atmosphere, our understanding of how the world works shapes our minds, the stories we tell, and the way we act.

This event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase from Labyrinth Books.

Thu, Mar 26, 2020
4:30 PM – 7:00 PM
Princeton University, McCosh Hall, Room 10

 

Related show

  • Author: Meera Subramanian
  • Tour: Teaching/Workshops
  • Date: March 26, 2020
  • Time: 4:30pm
  • Venue: Princeton University: McCosh Hall
  • City: Princeton , NJ
  • Address: McCosh Hall, Room 10
  • Country: United States
  • Cancelled
  • More information
  • Notes: Award-winning environmental journalist Meera Subramanian will host the discussion “New Imaginings: Storytelling, Science and Activism” featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Powers, author of The Overstory; Robin Wall Kimmerer, SUNY professor of environmental biology and author of Braiding Sweetgrass; and forest activist Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology. Subramanian, the 2019-20 PEI Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and the Humanities, will lead a conversation exploring how the work of scientists, artists and activists come together to inspire fundamental shifts in perspective. From the underground networks that feed forests to how human activity impacts the upper atmosphere, our understanding of how the world works shapes our minds, the stories we tell, and the way we act.

Sewanee School of Letters reading & conversation

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It’s good to be back on the Mountain. Another round of teaching Creative Nonfiction at Sewanee School of Letters, up here on the Cumberland Plateau. If you find yourself nearby, I invite you to  join me for an event this week. I’ll be reading and then having a conversation with School of Letters Interim Director John Gatta. Here are the details:

June 12
4:30 pm
Gailor Auditorium
735 University Ave., Sewanee, TN
Reception following in Gailor Atrium.
Co-sponsored with the Friends of duPont Library

More info here.

Battling & Reporting on Climate Change event: Boston

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If you happen to be in Boston on Oct. 24th (6pm – 8 pm), join Tom Zeller, Jr, Editor in Chief of Undark magazine, MIT climate scientist Susan Solomon, and me as we discuss studying and covering climate change. It’s part of the Inside Media, Politics and Policy series of Northeastern University’s Myra Kraft Open Classroom. Here’s a link, and more:

You can watch the event here: