Reginald Gibbons - "Sweetbitter" and Christine Sneed - "Direct Sunlight"

Reginald Gibbons will discuss Sweetbitter. He will be joined in conversation by Christine Sneed who will discuss Direct Sunlight.

This event will be held in person at The Seminary Co-op.

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About Sweetbitter: First published 30-years-ago, Sweetbitter was the winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. Sweetbitter takes place in east Texas in 1910 during the time of white rule-not by law but by lynch mob. Amid the suffocating racism and fear, half-Choctaw, half-white Reuben Sweetbitter and Martha Clarke, a white woman, fall in love. Forbidden to be seen together, they escape to the town of Harriet, where an influential friend of Martha helps them settle down and raise a family. Reuben and Martha's love is strong, but, dishearteningly, racism is stronger. Sweetbitter is an authentic, richly detailed novel with themes of sacrifice, fear, and the loss of one's identity.

About the author: Reginald Gibbons has published eleven books of poems, including Creatures of a Day (Finalist for National Book Award) and, most recently, Renditions. His novel Sweetbitter won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Center for Hellenic Studies. His prizes include the O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize from the Folger Shakespeare Library; Best Novel, Best Book of Poems; and Best Short Story from the Texas Institute of Letters, Chicagoan of the Year in Literature (Chicago Tribune), .and The Fuller Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.

About Direct Sunlight: The stories in Direct Sunlight, award-winning author Christine Sneed's latest, are inspired by the memorable strangeness of everyday life. The characters in these topically diverse tales experience events that bring the terms of their day-to-day lives and their relationships into focus in a way hitherto foreign to them. The stories in Direct Sunlight rely on humor but are balanced by Sneed's clear-eyed sobriety about the sorrows inherent in the human condition.

About the author: Christine Sneed is the author of six books, most recently, Please Be Advised, Direct Sunlight, and The Virginity of Famous Men. She is also the editor of the short fiction anthology Love in the Time of Time's Up. She has received the Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, Chicago Public Library Foundation's 21st Century Award, the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award, twice, and has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other honors. Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, New Stories from the Midwest, Ploughshares, and many other publications.