Posts From Author: Month: October 2019

Seriously Questioning…Maggie Paxson

Maggie Paxson is a writer, anthropologist, and performer. Fluent in Russian and French, she has worked in rural communities in northern Russia, the Caucasus, and upland France. She is the author of Solovyovo: The Story of Memory in a Russian Village, and her essays have appeared in the Washington Post Magazine, Wilson Quarterly, and Aeon. Her newest book is The Plateau. On November 12th, she will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, For Good Measure alongside Nina Burleigh, James Geary, and Monique Truong.   What is your earliest memory involving reading or writing? In second grade, we made little books with rough gray construction-paper covers. Mine was about Rosa Parks. I remember getting inside the story at some point, writing quickly, with exclamation points! No!, said Rosa Parks when they tried to get her to leave her seat! That is my first memory of getting swept away—trying to convey something big. I also remember that I drew Martin Luther King in profile. What is your favorite line from your current work? The last line of THE PLATEAU, for sure. But I can’t share that here, because it’s the whole book in a mustard seed. Another line I love, though, comes like a […]
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Seriously Questioning…Nina Burleigh

Nina Burleigh is an award-winning journalist, and the author of six books, including the New York Times bestseller The Fatal Gift of Beauty and, most recently, Golden Handcuffs: The Secret History of Trump’s Women. On November 12th, she will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, For Good Measure alongside James Geary, Maggie Paxson, and Monique Truong.   What is your earliest memory involving reading or writing? My mom or dad reading poetry to me from the My Book House books. My dad scribbling in his little notebook (he was a poet) and quoting grave things at me like “Cast a cold eye on life, on death, horseman pass by!” That’s Yeats, Under Ben Bulben.  I was writing poems in second grade. What is your favorite line from your current work? Hard to pick a favorite. Opening to a random page I find this amusing. “Marla eventually found inner peace in a Dixieland gumbo of every late 20th Century pop-spirituality, from Hollywood Kabbalah to color therapy and yoga, but during her years in hiding, she got spiritual succor from Emmanuel’s Book, in which author Pat Rodegast, channeling an occult philosopher named Emmanuel opines on “the limitless power of love.” What is your favorite first line of […]
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Seriously Questioning…James Geary

James Geary is the author of four previous books, including the New York Times bestseller The World in a Phrase, and is the deputy curator at Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism. A sought-after speaker and avid juggler, he lives near Boston, Massachusetts. On November 12th, he will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, For Good Measure alongside Nina Burleigh, Maggie Paxson, and Monique Truong.   What is your earliest memory involving reading or writing? Of reading, discovering the Quotable Quotes page in Reader’s Digest when I was 8 and reading my very first aphorism: “The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.” This sparked a lifelong obsession with aphorisms—and two books about them. Of writing, after watching a sci-fi film on television with my eldest brother, also when I was about 8, and thinking, ‘I could write a story like that.’ I immediately went upstairs to my room to do so, writing a story about a desert planet, about which the only thing I remember is that poisonous snakes looked like dry sticks until you reached down to pick them up, when they would unleash themselves and bite you. What is your favorite line from your current […]
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Seriously Questioning…Monique Truong

Monique Truong is the author of three novels—The Book of Salt; Bitter in the Mouth; and now, The Sweetest Fruits, and her work has been published in fifteen countries. Her awards and honors include the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, the Asian American Literary Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award. On November 12th, she will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, For Good Measure alongside Nina Burleigh, James Geary, and Maggie Paxson.   What is your earliest memory involving reading or writing? I remember reading thin paperbacks of Vietnamese legends and stories when I was growing up in S. Vietnam—so I would have been six or younger. I remember speeding through them, begging my mother to buy me more each week. What is your favorite line from your current work? First line of The Sweetest Fruits: “Patricio Lafcadio Hearn was born hungry.” It was also the first line that I wrote of this novel. To me, it’s the key to understanding Hearn and how he behaved and interacted with the women, who in the TSF, narrate his life and theirs. What is your favorite first line of […]
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Seriously Questioning…Kwanza Osajyefo

Kwanza Osajyefo is the author and creator of BLACK, a comic that asks: what if only black people had superpowers. Kwanza has been a part of the comics for nearly 20 years. Beginning his career as an online producer at Marvel before moving into other media roles. He later returned to comics and launched DC Comics’ digital publishing initiatives. In addition to creating his own properties, Kwanza is also a creative architect of H1 Comics line from the premiere French publisher, Humanoids – co-writing their flagship title, Ignited with comics legend, Mark Waid. On October 22nd, he will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, Into the Silence alongside Roxana Robinson, Caleb Scharf, and Nadine Strossen.   What is your earliest memory involving reading or writing? I started to read very early, to the disbelief of some relatives. The first comics I remember reading were Charles Schultz’s Peanuts, Walt Kelly’s Pogo and Power Pack. Novels and books that I gravitated towards as a child were Where the Wild Things Are, Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh and books about Greek mythology. I think I read D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths a hundred times. I wrote my first comic when I was around […]
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