LIVE! From City Lights

City Lights presents Lakiesha Carr in conversation with Dawnie Walton. Lakiesha Carr discusses her new book “An Autobiography of Skin: A Novel”, published by Pantheon Books. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of “An Autobiography of Skin” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/autobio-of-skin/ Lakiesha Carr graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and received her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was awarded a Maytag Fellowship for Excellence in Fiction and a Jeff and Vicki Edwards Post-graduate Fellowship in Fiction. A journalist and writer from East Texas, she has held various editorial and production positions with CNN, The New York Times, and other media. Her writing has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the DC Commission on Arts & Humanities for nonfiction writing, and the Kimbilio Fellowship for fiction writing. Dawnie Walton is the author of “The Final Revival of Opal & Nev”, winner of the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize, the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and the Audie Award for Fiction. Her debut novel was also longlisted for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction, and was named one of the best books of 2021 by “The Washington Post”, “NPR”, “Esquire”, and former U.S. President Barack Obama. She is the cofounder and editorial director of Ursa, an audio production company celebrating short fiction from underrepresented voices, and is the cohost of its accompanying podcast. Formerly an editor at “Essence” and “Entertainment Weekly”, she has received fellowships from MacDowell and Tin House, and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (where she has taught a fiction seminar). Born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Ayize Jama-Everett in conversation with Tân Khánh Cao. Ayize Jama-Everett discusses his new book “Heroes of an Unknown World”, published by Small Beer Press. This in-person event was hosted by Peter Maravelis and co-sponsored by Medicine for Nightmares. You can purchase copies of “Heroes of an Unknown World” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/sci-fi-fantasy/heroes-of-an-unknown-world/ Ayize Jama-Everett calls the Bay Area his home despite being born in New York City. He holds a Masters degrees in Divinity, Clinical Psychology, in Fine Arts, Creative Writing. He has worked as a bartender, a translator, a drug and alcohol counselor, a stand-up comedian, a script doctor, a ghostwriter, a high school dean, a college professor, and for a brief time, a distiller of spirits. Jama-Everett’s Liminal series began with “The Liminal People” and continued with “The Liminal War” and “The Entropy of Bones”. He has also written a graphic novel, “Box of Bones” with two-time Eisner Award winner John Jennings and has written for “The Believer” and the “LA Review of Books”, among others. Tân Khánh Cao is an artist who works in a variety of media. She is co-owner of Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore and Gallery. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Belén Gopegui in conversation with Mark Schafer, moderated by Katherine Silver. Belén Gopegui discusses her new book “Stay This Day and Night with Me”, published by City Lights Books and translated by Mark Schafer. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of “Stay This Day and Night with Me” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/stay-this-day-night-with-me/ Belén Gopegui burst onto the Spanish literary scene in 1993, bowling over critics with her debut, “La escala de los mapas” [“The Scale of Maps,” City Lights, 2011], which was hailed as a masterpiece. She has since published six more novels, stories, young people’s fiction, and screenplays, and several of her books have been adapted for cinema. Gopegui was born, and lives in, Madrid, Spain. Mark Schafer has translated poetry, fiction, and essays by authors from across the Spanish-speaking world into English, with a focus on contemporary Mexican poetry and fiction. He has led and co-led workshops on literary translation and has spoken on panels, locally, nationally, and internationally, about literary translation and in honor of various Latin American authors. His awards include a translation grant from the Spanish Ministry of Culture (2009, through City Lights Publishers,) two translation fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1993, 2005,) a translation grant from the Fund for Culture Mexico-USA (1993,) and the Robert Fitzgerald Prize for Translation (1995.) Katherine Silver’s most recent and forthcoming translations include works by María Sonia Cristoff, César Aira, Julio Cortázar, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Julio Ramón Ribeyro (winner of the Premio Valle-Inclán 2020). She is the former director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre (BILTC), and the author of “Echo Under Story.” She does volunteer interpreting for asylum seekers. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights in conjunction with Naropa University and Nightboat Books present Anne Waldman with Emma Gomis, joined by Alan Gilbert, Cedar Sigo, and Eleni Sikelianos, celebrating the publication of "New Weathers: Poetics from the Naropa Archive," edited by Anne Waldman with Emma Gomis and published by Nightboat Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "New Weathers: Poetics from the Naropa Archive" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/story-anthologies/new-weathers-poetics-from-the-naropa-a/ Anne Waldman is a poet, performer, professor, literary curator, cultural activist, has been a prolific and active poet and performer many years, creating radical hybrid forms for the long poem, both serial and narrative, as with "Marriage: A Sentence," "Structure of the World Compared to a Bubble," "Manatee/Humanity," and "Gossamurmur," all published by Penguin Poets. She is also the author of the magnum opus "The Lovis Trilogy: Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment" (Coffee House Press 2011), a feminist “cultural intervention” taking on war and patriarchy which won the PEN Center 2012 Award for Poetry. Recent books include: "Voice’s Daughter of a Heart Yet To Born" (Coffee House 2016) and "Trickster Feminism" (Penguin, 2018). She has been deemed a “counter-cultural giant” by Publishers Weekly for her ethos as a poetic investigator and cultural activist, and was awarded the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for Lifetime Achievement in 2015. She has also been a recipient of numerous honors for her work including The Shelley Award for Poetry (from the Poetry Society of America), a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Elizabeth Kray Award from Poets House, NYC in 2019. She was one of the founders of the Poetry Project at St Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery, and its Director a number of years and then went on to found The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University with Allen Ginsberg and Diana di Prima in1974 and went on to create its celebrated MFA Program. She has continued to work with the Kerouac School as a Distinguished Professor of Poetics and Artistic Director of its Summer Writing Program. During the global pandemic she and co-curator Jeffrey Pethybridge have created the online “Carrier Waves” iteration of the famed Summer Writing Program. She is the editor of "The Beat Book" and co-editor of "Civil Disobediences: Poetics and Politics in Action," and "Beats at Naropa" and most recently, "Cross Worlds: Transcultural Poetics." She is a Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets. Emma Gomis is a Catalan American poet, essayist, editor and researcher. She is the cofounder of Manifold Press. Her texts have been published in Denver Quarterly, The Berkeley Poetry Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Entropy, and Asymptote among others and her chapbook "Canxona" is forthcoming from b l u s h lit. She was selected by Patricia Spears Jones as The Poetry Project’s 2020 Brannan Poetry Prize winner. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Poetics from Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, where she was also the Anne Waldman fellowship recipient, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in criticism and culture at the University of Cambridge. To learn more about the other participants, visit: https://citylights.com/events/on-new-weathers-poetics-from-the-naropa-archive/ This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Peter Turchi in conversation with Austin Kleon. Peter Turchi discusses his new book “(Don’t) Stop Me if You’ve Heard This Before (and Other Essays on Writing Fiction)”, published by Trinity University Press. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of “(Don’t) Stop Me if You’ve Heard This Before (and Other Essays on Writing Fiction)” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/dont-stop-me-if-youve-heard-this-befor/ Peter Turchi has written and coedited several books on writing fiction, including “Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer”, “A Muse and a Maze: Writing as Puzzle, Mystery, and Magic”, “A Kite in the Wind: Fiction Writers on Their Craft”, and “(Don’t) Stop Me if You’ve Heard This Before (and Other Essays on Writing Fiction)”. His stories have appeared in “Ploughshares”, “Story”, the “Alaska Quarterly Review”, “Puerto del Sol”, and the “Colorado Review”, among other journals. He has received numerous accolades, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Houston. Austin Kleon is a New York Times bestselling author. His books include “Steal Like an Artist”; “Show Your Work!”; “Keep Going”; “Steal Like An Artist Journal”; and “Newspaper Blackout”. His works focus on creativity in today’s world. He has spoken at organizations such as Pixar, Google, and TEDx, and at conferences such as The Economist’s Human Potential Summit and SXSW. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Eileen Myles, joined by Fanny Howe, Maggie Nelson, Camille Roy, Laurie Weeks, Simone White, Frank Wilderson, and Jillian Weise, celebrating the publication of "Pathetic Literature," edited by Eileen Myles and published by Grove Atlantic. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Pathetic Literature" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/pathetic-lit/ “Literature is pathetic.” So claims Eileen Myles in their bold and bracing introduction to "Pathetic Literature," an exuberant collection of pieces ranging from poetry to drama to prose to something in between, all of which explore those so-called “pathetic” or sensitive feelings around which lives are built and revolutions are incited. From confrontations with suffering, embarrassment, and disquiet, to the comforts and consolations of finding one’s familiar double in a poem, "Pathetic Literature" is a swarming taxonomy of ways to think differently and live pathetically on a polarized and fearful planet. To learn more about Eileen Myles and the other participants, visit: https://citylights.com/events/eileen-myles/ This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Sam Woolley in conversation with Jeff Horwitz. Sam Woolley celebrates the publication of his new book “Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity”, published by Yale University Press. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Manufacturing Consensus" directly from City Lights here: citylights.com/manufacturing-consensus-propaganda-in/ Samuel Woolley is assistant professor of journalism and media, program director of the Propaganda Research Lab, and Knight Faculty Fellow at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of “The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth”. Jeff Horwitz is an award-winning technology reporter for The Wall Street Journal based in San Francisco. His reporting has won repeated recognition, including a Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing award and a Gerald Loeb Awards finalist citation for articles he produced with two colleagues about Facebook’s struggle to police hate in India. Previously he was a financial and enterprise reporter for the Associated Press in Washington, D.C., where his work earned him the Christopher J. Welles Memorial Prize from the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Thomas Crow in conversation with Carrie Lambert-Beatty celebrating the launch of “The Artist in the Counterculture: Bruce Conner to Mike Kelley and Other Tales from the Edge” by Thomas Crow, published by Princeton University Press. This virtual event took place over Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "The Artist in the Counterculture: Bruce Conner to Mike Kelley and Other Tales from the Edge” directly from City Lights here: citylights.com/art-hardcover/artist-in-the-counterculture/ Thomas Crow is the Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. His many books include “The Long March of Pop: Art, Music, and Design, 1930–1995” and “The Hidden Mod in Modern Art: London, 1957–1969”. Carrie Lambert-Beatty is an art historian with a focus on contemporary art and interests in spectatorship, art and knowledge, and performance in an expanded sense. She teaches at Harvard University. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Curtis White in conversation with Cheston Knapp celebrating the launch of “Transcendent: Art and Dharma in a Time of Collapse” by Curtis White, published by Melville House. This virtual event took place over Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Transcendent: Art and Dharma in a Time of Collapse” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/general/trancendent/ Curtis White is a novelist and social critic whose works include “Memories of My Father Watching TV”, “The Middle Mind”, and, more recently, “The Science Delusion”, “We Robots”, and “Lacking Character”. His essays have appeared in Harpers and Tricycle. He taught English at Illinois State University. He is the founder (with Ronald Sukenick) of FC2, a publisher of innovative fiction run collectively by its authors. He lives in Port Townsend, WA. Cheston Knapp is a writer, editor, and photographer. He is the author of “Up Up, Down Down,” a collection of essays. He was the managing editor of Tin House magazine and the executive director of The Tin House Summer Workshop. Exhibits of his photography have appeared at Blue Moon Camera & Machine and Blue Sky Gallery in Portland OR. He makes his home with his wife and son in Portland, OR. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Aidan Levy in conversation with Ammiel Alcalay celebrating the publication of “SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins” by Aiden Levy, published by Hachette Books. This virtual event took place over Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/saxophone-colossus-sonny-rollins/ Aidan Levy is the author of “Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed” and editor of “Patti Smith on Patti Smith: Interviews and Encounters”. A former Leon Levy Center for Biography Fellow, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, JazzTimes, The Nation and other publications. He has served as co-convener of the African American Studies Colloquium and works with the Center for Jazz Studies at at Columbia University. For ten years, he was the baritone saxophonist in the Stan Rubin Orchestra. Ammiel Alcalay is a poet, novelist, translator, critic, and scholar. His books include “a little history”, “from the warring factions”, “Memories of Our Future”, and “After Jews and Arabs”. “Ghost Talk”, A Bibliography for “After Jews & Arabs” and “A Dove in Flight”, by Syrian poet and former political prisoner Faraj Bayrakdar, co-edited with Shareah Taleghani, all came out in 2021. "Follow the Person: Archival Encounters, and Controlled Demolition", a poem in four books, are due out in 2023. Alcalay is the founder and general editor of Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative (http://centerforthehumanities.org/lost-and-found), for which he was recognized in 2017 with a Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation