Event Recording
Members Only
November 20, 2023
Where will you present your book to the world? From bookstores and libraries to reading series and festivals, there are many venues for book events and different approaches an author can take to connect with various audiences. Panelists will discuss what to expect and how to make your launch events memorable. Among other topics, the panel will address:
Speaking from a variety of backgrounds and experience, the panelists will seek to illuminate the many different ways that events can help bring your book to a wider audience.
J. Mae Barizo is a poet, essayist and multidisciplinary artist and the author of two books of poetry, Tender Machines (Tupelo Press, 2023) and The Cumulus Effect. A finalist for the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize and the 2023 Megaphone Prize, her work has been anthologized in books published by W.W. Norton, Atelier Editions and Harvard University Press. An advocate of cross-disciplinary work, she has collaborated with artists such as Salman Rushdie, Mark Morris and the American String Quartet. As a librettist, she is the inaugural recipient of Opera America’s IDEA residency, given to artists who have the potential to shape the future of opera. She is also the recipient of fellowships and awards from Bennington College, Mellon Foundation, Critical Minded, Jerome Foundation and Poets House. She is on the MFA faculty of The New School and lives in New York City.
Michelle Malonzo is Chief Operating Officer at The Word, A Storytelling Sanctuary, a literary arts nonprofit. Previously she was a book buyer and bookseller for five years after nearly a decade in publishing. Michelle served on the boards of the American Booksellers Association (ABA), Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association and ABA Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee. Additionally she was a judge for the 2023 inaugural Republic of Consciousness U.S. Prize, a 2022 National Book Award Judge for Fiction, recipient of the 2021 BIPOC Bookseller Award for Leadership, a 2020 Bookselling Without Borders Fellow and a 2019 Kirkus Judge for Fiction.
Lily Philpott is an indigenous transracial adoptee, born in Santiago, Chile, and raised in New England. She has worked for close to a decade in the arts and culture nonprofit sector in New York City at PEN America, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. She is a member of the Starlings Collective, a group supporting BIPOC adoptee writers; the International Literature Committee at the Brooklyn Book Festival; the curatorial committee of the 2024 PEN America World Voices Festival; and she volunteers as the Director of Programs at the nonprofit organization Singapore Unbound. Currently, she is completing her MFA in Fiction at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). She lives in Brooklyn, and wants to know what you’re reading.
Randy Winston (moderator), born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, is a 2016 graduate of the MFA in Creative Writing at The New School, editor, writer, and the Director of Writing Programs at The Center for Fiction. He sits on Orion Magazine’s Board as a trustee, and served as Fiction Editor at Slice Literary Magazine for six years. Winston is currently working on his first manuscript of fiction. He holds a Bachelors in English & Professional Communication from Southern Polytechnic State University, now Kennesaw State University, where he was the first student ever to deliver a commencement address.
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