"Iran and the World, an Evening with Akbar Ganji"

Akbar Ganji is Iran's preeminent dissident intellectual and investigative journalist. His best-selling 2000 book Dungeon of Ghosts, which implicated senior Iranian officials in a string of political assassinations of writers and intellectuals, landed Ganji in prison. His 5 1/2 years behind bars included a hunger strike in the summer of 2005 that lasted nearly 70 days. Recently released, he is currently on a world speaking tour to heighten understanding of the situation in Iran today.

This event is co-sponsored by:
Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities, Department of Philosophy, Department of Political Science, Center for the Writing Arts, and OpenDemocracy.net

"Readings from Recent Fiction"

Landon Y. Jones

NU Writer in Residence, author of William and Clark and the Shaping of the West and Great Expectations, former Time-Life editorial executive and chief editor of People and Money magazines.

"Adrienne Rich: A Reading by the Celebrated Poet and Essayist"

Tickets are free and available at the door on a first come, first served basis. Seating is limited.

Book signing & reception to follow.

Since receiving the Yale Younger Poets Award in 1951, at the age of twenty-one, Adrienne Rich has written with strength, conviction, and distinction. Rich has said that her poetry seeks to create a dialectical relationship between "the personal, or lyric voice, and the so-called political—really, the voice of the individual speaking not just to herself, or to a beloved friend, but to and from a collective, a social realm." Her work is taught in literature, creative writing, gender and gay studies courses across the country and abroad.

The recipient of the 1999 Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, she has also been distinguished by an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the Common Wealth Award in Literature, the National Book Award, the 1996 Tanning Award for Mastery in the Art of Poetry, and the MacArthur Fellowship. She is the author of more than fifteen volumes of poetry and four books of non-fiction prose.

"Lawyer's Poker"

Steven Lubet

NU faculty member; Director of the Law School's Advocacy and Professionalsim Program; author of Nothing but the Truth, Murder in Tombstone, Judicial Conduct and Ethics, Evidence and Context and Expert Testimony.

In his latest work, Lawyer's Poker: 52 Lessons that Lawyers Can Learn from Card Players , Steven shows how the tactics of the poker table can be adapted to litigation, negotiation, and virtually every aspect of law practice.

"A Conversation with....Brigid Hughes"

Brigid Hughes

The editor of the new magazine A Public Space, Brigid Hughes, is a Northwestern alum and former editor of The Paris Review.

A Public Space is the new independent magazine of literature and culture, founded by Hughes. In an era that has relegated literature to the margins, she plans to make fiction and poetry the stars of a new conversation. The magazine believes that stories are how we make sense of our lives and how we learn about other lives.

"So You Want to Write...A Play?"

Rebecca Gilman

NU faculty member of radio/television/film department as of September 2006; winner of the Evening Star Award and American Theatre Critic's Association's Osborne Award and the Goodman Theatre McPherson Award; playwright of The Glory of Living, Spinning Into Butter, and Boy Gets Girl; She is one of Chicago's most acclaimed playwrights, ; Her play Spinning into Butter was recently adapted into a screenplay for a film starring Sarah Jessica Parker.

"Northwestern Author/Student Reading with Naeem Murr"

Naeem Murr

Naeem Murr's first novel, The Boy , was a New York Times Notable Book and was translated into six languages. He also wrote The Genius of the Sea , and his latest novel, The Perfect Man, is forthcoming from Random House in April 2007. A recipient of numerous awards and scholarships for his writing, he has published a number of prize-winning stories, novellas, and nonfiction pieces in literary journals.

Master of Arts in Creative Writing Program students readers will also share their work.

Cost: FREE
Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres will be served.
Open to the public

"Gary Snyder: A Reading and Discussion of His Poems"

Gary Snyder won the Pulitzer prize in poetry for his collection Turtle Island in 1975. He has published sixteen books of poetry and prose, including The Gary Snyder Reader (1952-1998); Mountains and Rivers Without End (1997); No Nature: New and Selected Poems (1993), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; The Practice of the Wild (1990); Left Out in the Rain, New Poems 1947-1985; Axe Handles (1983), for which he received an American Book Award; Regarding Wave (1970); and Myths & Texts (1960). Snyder has received an American Academy of Arts and Letters award, the Bollingen Prize, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Prize from Poetry, the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Times, and the Shelley Memorial Award. Snyder was elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 2003.

A reading from, "The Poems I'm Not Writing"

Mary Kinzie

NU faculty member, professor of English and director of the English major in writing. Mary Kinzie is an author of six poetry collections, including Summers of Viet Nam, Autumn Eros, Ghost Ship and Drift. Her critical handbook, A Poet's Guide to Poetry, appeared in 1999 from Chicago. Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry.

"Reporting on Tomorrow"

Margaret Talbot

Contributing Writer to the New Yorker; Whiting Writer's Award winner; former contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly and Salon; former editor at the New Republic and Lingua Franca.

"Celebrities in the Attic"

Landon Y. Jones

NU Writer in Residence, discusses reflections on writing about well-known individuals -- both in pop cultureand in American history -- by the former editor of PEOPLE magazine and author of 'William Clark and the Shaping of the West."

"Writing a Column: Personal Voice, Public Passion"

James McManus

Columnist for the New York Times and author of Physical: An American Checkup, Positively Fifth Street:Murderers, Cheetahs and Binion's World Series of Poker and Going to the Sun.