LIVE! From City Lights

City Lights LIVE and Duke University Press celebrate the publication of “The Williamsburg Avant-Garde: Experimental Music and Sound on the Brooklyn Waterfront” by Cisco Bradley, published by Duke University Press.

In “The Williamsburg Avant-Garde” Cisco Bradley documents the rise and fall of the underground music and art scene in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn between the late 1980s and the early 2010s. Drawing on interviews, archival collections, musical recordings, videos, photos, and other ephemera, Bradley explores the scene’s social, cultural, and economic dynamics. Bradley not only documents some of the most vital music of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries; he helps readers better understand the formation, vibrancy, and life span of experimental music and art scenes everywhere.

Cisco Bradley is Associate Professor of History at the Pratt Institute and author of “Universal Tonality: The Life and Music of William Parker,” also published by Duke University Press.

Lee Ranaldo is a Grammy nominated musician, composer, visual artist, writer, and producer. He is a founding member of Sonic Youth and continues to work on numerous solo projects. His artwork and videos have been on view in galleries and museums across the globe. He is the author of the books “Some Writings on Music and Musicians,” “Against Refusing,” and “How Not To Get Played On The Radio." He makes his home in New York State.

You can purchase copies of “The Williamsburg Avant-Garde: Experimental Music and Sound on the Brooklyn Waterfront” at https://citylights.com/williamsburg-avant-garde-experimental/

This event is made possible with the support of the City Lights Foundation. To learn more visit: https://citylights.com/foundation/

City Lights LIVE presents Brandon Shimoda and Emily Luan reading from their books,“Hydra Medusa” and “In 回 / Return,” published by Nightboat Books.

“Hydra Medusa” by Brandon Simoda takes us through the poet's day-to-day life as he works five jobs and raises his child. His collection of poems and essays touches on the realities of living on the US-Mexico border. Shimoda documents the realities and oftentimes horrors of living in the desert as he encounters his own past and ancestry as a Japanese American individual. Brandon Shimoda is a poet and author of eight books of poetry and prose. He teaches at Colorado College.

“In 回 / Return” by Emily Luan is rooted in the classical tradition of the Chinese “reversible” poem. "In 回 / Return” is engaged in the act of looking back—toward an imagined homeland and a childhood of suburban longing, through migratory passages, departures, and etymologies, and into the various holes and voids that appear in the telling and retelling of history. Emily Luan is a former Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

You can purchase copies of "Hydra Medusa” and “In 回 / Return” at https://citylights.com/.

City Lights LIVE celebrates the publication of Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems by Joyce Mansour (Translator: Emilie Moorhouse), published by City Lights Books.

Join us as we dive into the works of iconic Surrealist poet, Joyce Mansour, who emerged from Paris in the 1950s. Mansour is best known for her unfiltered poetry and her participation in the post World War II circle of Surrealist poets.

“Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems” by Joyce Mansour is a bilingual anthology of her striking works. In this episode, Emilie Moorhouse, translator and author of the book's introduction, discusses Mansour's unwavering voice with Garrett Caples, American poet and City Lights editor. Mansour, through her work, expresses her frustration with a patriarchal society that views women as objects rather than multidimensional individuals. Mansour's poetry is as necessary as ever.

You can purchase copies of "Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/emerald-wounds-sel-poems/.

City Lights, in conjunction with Heyday Books, presents Jane Smiley in conversation with Steve Wasserman to celebrate the publication of "The Questions that Matter Most: Reading, Writing, and the Exercise of Freedom" by Jane Smiley, published by Heyday Books.

Smiley’s new book offers essays on some of the aesthetic and cultural issues that mark any serious engagement with reading and writing. She dives into the complexities of character and history and how she is inspired by literature of all kinds in her own writing. She shares her analysis and research on the works of classic authors such as Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, and many others. Smiley shares her personal journey as a writer moving from Iowa to California and reflects on her findings within the diverse literature of the state, which often highlights issues of race, class, and sex.

Jane Smiley is a novelist and essayist. She has won various awards for her work, including the Pulitzer Prize for her novel "A Thousand Acres." She has written for numerous magazines and newspapers such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, and the Nation. Her most recent novel, "A Dangerous Business," was published in 2022.

Steve Wasserman is the publisher of Heyday Books. He is a former editor-at-large for Yale University Press, editorial director of Times Books/Random House and publisher of Hill & Wang and The Noonday Press at Farrar, Straus & Giroux. He has written for numerous publications, including The Village Voice, Threepenny Review, The Progressive, and many others.

You can purchase copies of "The Questions that Matter Most: Reading, Writing, and the Exercise of Freedom" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/questions-that-matter-most-reading-wr/.

This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.

City Lights LIVE presents Kirsten R. Ghodsee discussing her new book "Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life," published by Simon and Schuster.

"Everyday Utopia" is an exploration throughout the world and history where varying communities challenge the conventional ways in which we live our lives, raise our families, and interact with those around us. Ghodsee introduces readers to these communities who reimagine life as we know it. From Danish cohousing communities that nourish neighborly bonds to Colombian ecovillages who grow their own food, Ghodsee takes readers through the worlds of those who live in their own utopia. "Everyday Utopia" offers radical hope for what our future could look like if community and connectedness is prioritized.

Kristen R. Ghodsee is a Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the critically acclaimed author of "Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence." Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Jacobin, among other publications. She lives outside of Philadelphia.

You can purchase copies of "Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/everyday-utopia/.

This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.

LIVE! From City Lights celebrates author Mircea Cărtărescu and his latest publication, “Solenoid.”

Grounded in the reality of late 1970s/early 1980s Communist Romania, Solenoid ruminates on the exchange possible between the alternate dimensions of life and art, as various, monstrous dimensions erupt within the Communist present.

Mircea Cărtărescu is a Romanian novelist, poet, short-story writer, literary critic, and essayist. He has published more than twenty-five books. His work has received the Formentor Prize (2018), the Thomas Mann Prize (2018), the Austrian State Prize for Literature (2015), and the Vilenica Prize (2011), among many others. His work has been translated in twenty-three languages. His novels include “Blinding” (published by Archipelago Books,) “Nostalgia” (published by New Directions) and “Solenoid” (published by Deep Vellum.)

You can purchase copies of “Solenoid” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/solenoid-tr-sean-cotter/

This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis, in conjunction with Deep Vellum and the Romanian Cultural Institute, and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.

LIVE! From City Lights celebrates author Yxta Maya Murray’s publication of “God Went Like That: A Novel.”

“God Went Like That” follows the EPA report of federal agent Reyna Rodriguez who examines the ramifications of nuclear reactor meltdowns that occurred across three years. Drawing on an actual 2011 Department of Energy dossier that details the catastrophes and their ensuing public health fallout, Murray examines the human cost of governmental wrongdoing and environmental racism.

Yxta Maya Murray is a novelist, art critic, playwright, social practice artist, and law professor. The author of nine books, her most recent are the story collection, “The World Doesn’t Work That Way, but It Could” (University of Nevada Press, 2020), and the novel, “Art Is Everything” (TriQuarterly Press, 2021). Her next work of nonfiction, “Artivism and the Law,” is in progress and will be published by Cornell University Press. She has won a Whiting Award, an Art Writer’s Grant, a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation/Money For Women, and was a 2021 New York City Arts Corps Grants co-grantee. She’s also been named a fellow at the Huntington Library for her work on radionuclide contamination in Simi Valley, California.

You can purchase copies of “God Went Like That: A Novel” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/god-went-like-that/

This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.

LIVE! From City Lights celebrates author adrienne marie brown on her latest novel “Maroons: A Grievers Novel.”

The second installment of the Grievers trilogy, “Maroons” is a tale of survival that bears brown’s background as an activist in Detroit. Amidst the Syndrome H-8 pandemic, she learns the importance of community and connection through an abandoned urban landscape.

adrienne marie brown grows healing ideas in public through her multi-genre writing, her music and her podcasts. Informed by 25 years of movement facilitation, somatics, Octavia E Butler scholarship and her work as a doula, brown has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Transformative Justice as ideas and practices for transformation. She is the author/editor of seven published texts and the founder of the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, where she is now the writer-in-residence. Her published work includes “Fables and Spells Collected and New Short Fiction and Poetry,” “Octavia’s Brood,” “Emergent Strategy,” “Pleasure Activism,” and “We Will Not Cancel Us.” “Maroons” is her second novel. Her visionary fiction has appeared in The Funambulist, Harvard Design Review, and Dark Mountain.

You can purchase copies of “Maroons: A Grievers Novel” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/maroons/

This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.

LIVE! From City Lights celebrates author David Mas Masumoto and his new publication, “SECRET HARVESTS: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm.” This event was hosted in conjunction with Red Hen Press and Wasabi Press.

With linoleum block and letterpress artist Patirica Miye Wakida, Masumoto unravels the mysteries surrounding the reappearance of his “lost” aunt Shizuko. In his new memoir, Masumoto is haunted by family lore and driven to explore his own identity and the meaning of family, uncovering stories that bind him to a sense of history buried in the earth that he works and a sense of place that defines his community.

David Mas Masumoto is an organic farmer, author, and activist. His book EPITAPH FOR A PEACH won the Julia Child Cookbook award and was a finalist for a James Beard award. His writing has been awarded a Commonwealth Club of California silver medal and the Independent Publisher Books bronze medal. He has been honored by Rodale Institute as an “Organic Pioneer.” He has served on the boards of the James Irvine Foundation, Public Policy Institute of California, Cal Humanities, and the National Council on the Arts with nomination by President Obama. He farms with his wife Marcy and two adult children, Nikiko and Koro. They reside in a hundred-year-old farmhouse surrounded by their eighty-acre organic peach, nectarine, apricot, and raisin farm outside of Fresno, California.

You can purchase copies of “SECRET HARVESTS: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/secret-harvests/

This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.

LIVE! From City Lights celebrates author Robert Greenfield and his latest publication “True West: Sam Shepard’s Life, Work, and Times.”

Much like Greenfield’s previous biographies, “True West” delves deeply into the life of world-famous playwright and actor Sam Shepard, whose work was matched by his equally dramatic life and relationships. Greenfield interviewed dozens of people who knew Shepard well, and makes the case for Shepard as not just a great American writer but a unique figure who first brought the sensibility of rock ‘n’ roll to theater.

Robert Greenfield is an award-winning novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and the author of “Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out.” He lives in California.

You can purchase copies of “True West: Sam Shepard’s Life, Work, and Times” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/true-west-sam-shepards-life-work/

This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis, in conjunction with Crown Books, and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.