Join us for the first in a series exploring authors who choose to bring personal narrative into their critical writing. Writers sharing their work include Michelle Orange, author of This Is Run­ning For Your Life, Jacob Silverman, freelance journalist and book critic (and three-time Jeopardy champion!), Porochista Khakpour, author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects, and Michael Robbins, author of Alien vs. Predator.

Join us to celebrate two highly anticipated books, Matt Bell’s novel In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods, a story about the desire for a child, a crumbling marriage, and the strange world the couple builds and cannot escape from; and Norman Lock’s adventurous collection Love Among the Particles, in which Lock delves into the mysterious lives of classic characters like Tom Sawyer, Mata Hari, Jules Verne, and spins new fantastical tales about them.

What happens when a women compromises her dreams and ambitions for a life she never expected or desired? In her fifth book, The Woman Upstairs, award-winning novelist Claire Messud explores the pain and anger of elementary school teacher Nora Eldridge, a good neighbor and friend who keeps finding herself on the fringe of others’ accomplishments as she fervently searches for a sense of self. In conversation with Michael Ravitch, editor of The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs to Know. This event is free to CBE members/$10 suggested donation from the public. RSVP by going to http://congregationbethelohim.org/brooklynbythebook

Celebrate the release of writer and editor Peter Wortsman’s translation of Selected Tales of the Brothers Grimm, with stunning illustrations by contemporary Haitian artists. Wortsman will explore fairy tales and their relevance to contemporary life in conversation with New Yorker staff writer Joan Acocella.

In the tradition of Susan Sontag and Virginia Woolf, writer and scholar Katherine Angel challenges cliché, convention, and secrecy as she intimately explores sex and desire and their role in her life. Angel will discuss her new book Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell, with Kate Zambreno, author of Heroines, a book that uncovers the minor roles to which women have been relegated in literary culture and criticism.

From the dizzyingly precise landscape of combat to the more familiar and no less uncertain terrain of intimate relationships, conflict, and how to navigate it, is a crucial element of effective storytelling. Masha Hamilton, in town briefly from Kabul for this event, discusses craft and the influences behind What Changes Everything, her new novel of Afghanistan and Brooklyn, with Maud Newton, who brings her own experience writing about family, culture and politics to the conversation. Wine and refreshments will be provided by Unbridled Books.

A Night with PEN American Center
Featuring:
EDWIDGE DANTICAT (Brother, I’m Dying, The Dew Breaker)
MATT BELL (In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods)
AMY BRILL (The Movement of Stars)
MATTHEW AARON GOODMAN (Hold Love Strong)