WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.890 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.890 --> 00:00:05.130 align:middle line:84% Beth Alvarado who'll read first will be introduced 00:00:05.130 --> 00:00:07.860 align:middle line:90% by Aisha Sabatini Sloan. 00:00:07.860 --> 00:00:10.110 align:middle line:84% Aisha graduated from the University of Arizona, MFA 00:00:10.110 --> 00:00:12.570 align:middle line:90% program in Nonfiction in 2008. 00:00:12.570 --> 00:00:15.720 align:middle line:84% Her thesis advisor at the time was Beth. 00:00:15.720 --> 00:00:17.310 align:middle line:84% Throughout the last three years, Beth 00:00:17.310 --> 00:00:19.380 align:middle line:84% has continued to act as a mentor and reader 00:00:19.380 --> 00:00:23.520 align:middle line:84% to Aisha, and due in large part to her continued support, 00:00:23.520 --> 00:00:25.650 align:middle line:84% Aisha was able to complete her first book, 00:00:25.650 --> 00:00:29.220 align:middle line:84% Resolution and Bearing Essays on Race, Place, and Art, 00:00:29.220 --> 00:00:31.860 align:middle line:84% which will be published by University of Iowa Press 00:00:31.860 --> 00:00:32.610 align:middle line:90% next fall. 00:00:32.610 --> 00:00:35.928 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:35.928 --> 00:00:36.880 align:middle line:90% That's so cool. 00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:37.955 align:middle line:90% Please welcome, Aisha. 00:00:37.955 --> 00:00:43.900 align:middle line:90% 00:00:43.900 --> 00:00:46.480 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:00:46.480 --> 00:00:51.790 align:middle line:84% So Beth, so much gratitude for this person. 00:00:51.790 --> 00:00:54.940 align:middle line:84% When I was 21, I spent a semester in London. 00:00:54.940 --> 00:00:57.520 align:middle line:84% We lived at a place called the Avalon Hotel. 00:00:57.520 --> 00:01:00.100 align:middle line:90% 00:01:00.100 --> 00:01:02.590 align:middle line:84% It was one of my first homes away from home. 00:01:02.590 --> 00:01:04.840 align:middle line:90% The carpet was pink and peeling. 00:01:04.840 --> 00:01:08.230 align:middle line:84% We ate beans for breakfast, and I loved every square foot 00:01:08.230 --> 00:01:09.940 align:middle line:90% and second of it. 00:01:09.940 --> 00:01:12.670 align:middle line:84% When I asked Beth if she would be my thesis advisor, 00:01:12.670 --> 00:01:13.900 align:middle line:90% she said sure. 00:01:13.900 --> 00:01:15.760 align:middle line:84% She sent me an excerpt of what she 00:01:15.760 --> 00:01:19.300 align:middle line:84% was working on at the time and the experience of reading what 00:01:19.300 --> 00:01:21.520 align:middle line:84% would eventually become anthropologies 00:01:21.520 --> 00:01:23.710 align:middle line:90% left me stunned and relieved. 00:01:23.710 --> 00:01:26.320 align:middle line:84% Not the way you feel when you heart 00:01:26.320 --> 00:01:29.350 align:middle line:84% racing embark upon a new adventure 00:01:29.350 --> 00:01:33.220 align:middle line:84% but when finally you start to recognize the road signs 00:01:33.220 --> 00:01:35.980 align:middle line:84% and realize that you are on your way back home. 00:01:35.980 --> 00:01:39.190 align:middle line:84% This synchronistic feeling that I'd found someone I knew 00:01:39.190 --> 00:01:41.740 align:middle line:84% all along became stronger when I found out 00:01:41.740 --> 00:01:44.590 align:middle line:84% that Beth too spent time studying abroad in London when 00:01:44.590 --> 00:01:46.420 align:middle line:90% she was around the same age. 00:01:46.420 --> 00:01:49.420 align:middle line:84% At the same point in our lives, though decades apart, we 00:01:49.420 --> 00:01:53.500 align:middle line:84% both stumbled up the stairs late one night at the Avalon Hotel 00:01:53.500 --> 00:01:57.700 align:middle line:84% at a moment of profound life transition. 00:01:57.700 --> 00:02:01.390 align:middle line:84% In How I Quit Heroin and Other Toxic Substances, 00:02:01.390 --> 00:02:03.280 align:middle line:84% Beth writes of the period of time 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:06.160 align:middle line:84% when she lived with her husband Fernando's family 00:02:06.160 --> 00:02:09.220 align:middle line:84% and something about her worldview began to shift. 00:02:09.220 --> 00:02:13.330 align:middle line:84% She writes, "I began to believe that dreams did mean something. 00:02:13.330 --> 00:02:15.550 align:middle line:84% They could tell the future for instance. 00:02:15.550 --> 00:02:19.390 align:middle line:84% Not only that, but two yolks meant twins. 00:02:19.390 --> 00:02:23.020 align:middle line:84% A fork dropped on the floor meant company was coming soon. 00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:26.350 align:middle line:84% You should make the sign of the cross when you salted the food. 00:02:26.350 --> 00:02:28.390 align:middle line:84% This was when I began to see that there was 00:02:28.390 --> 00:02:30.100 align:middle line:90% another world beneath this one. 00:02:30.100 --> 00:02:31.630 align:middle line:90% A world of spirits. 00:02:31.630 --> 00:02:35.380 align:middle line:84% A world where you made sense of the disparate pieces of reality 00:02:35.380 --> 00:02:39.160 align:middle line:84% by weaving them together into a story, where you paid attention 00:02:39.160 --> 00:02:42.700 align:middle line:84% to vague feelings that things weren't right, and by doing so, 00:02:42.700 --> 00:02:45.940 align:middle line:90% saved yourself untold grief." 00:02:45.940 --> 00:02:50.410 align:middle line:84% The fact that Beth is analytical-- 00:02:50.410 --> 00:02:51.340 align:middle line:90% that's not right. 00:02:51.340 --> 00:02:54.150 align:middle line:84% Beth is analytical in the best kind of way, 00:02:54.150 --> 00:02:58.030 align:middle line:84% always open to reseeing life, noticing mystery, questioning 00:02:58.030 --> 00:02:59.320 align:middle line:90% what lurks beneath. 00:02:59.320 --> 00:03:01.930 align:middle line:84% This gives her writing a lush vitality 00:03:01.930 --> 00:03:03.790 align:middle line:90% that I think keeps her nurtured. 00:03:03.790 --> 00:03:05.770 align:middle line:84% I've been astonished by the way that she 00:03:05.770 --> 00:03:07.690 align:middle line:84% keeps happening upon new projects, 00:03:07.690 --> 00:03:10.210 align:middle line:84% regardless of how many papers she has to grade, 00:03:10.210 --> 00:03:14.440 align:middle line:84% even if as she continues to work without any sign of fatigue 00:03:14.440 --> 00:03:17.080 align:middle line:84% on other projects that aren't quite finished. 00:03:17.080 --> 00:03:19.600 align:middle line:84% Maybe the word I'm looking for is gratitude. 00:03:19.600 --> 00:03:20.680 align:middle line:90% You can feel it. 00:03:20.680 --> 00:03:23.290 align:middle line:84% She is grateful and writes of the word --world-- 00:03:23.290 --> 00:03:26.680 align:middle line:84% with a sense of reverence for its strange inner workings, 00:03:26.680 --> 00:03:28.300 align:middle line:90% its accidental grace. 00:03:28.300 --> 00:03:32.030 align:middle line:84% She gives time to people, to her students, to her family, 00:03:32.030 --> 00:03:33.170 align:middle line:90% to her friends. 00:03:33.170 --> 00:03:36.040 align:middle line:84% She seems to care about you beyond the page, 00:03:36.040 --> 00:03:38.830 align:middle line:84% and this compassion orients her storytelling 00:03:38.830 --> 00:03:41.710 align:middle line:84% in such a way that leaves the reader feeling renewed, 00:03:41.710 --> 00:03:43.630 align:middle line:84% as if they've been seen somewhere 00:03:43.630 --> 00:03:46.240 align:middle line:84% by this author at some other time 00:03:46.240 --> 00:03:49.360 align:middle line:90% in a dream or a dirty hotel. 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:52.540 align:middle line:84% As far as our own writing and especially our lives, 00:03:52.540 --> 00:03:54.650 align:middle line:90% we should all be so good. 00:03:54.650 --> 00:03:55.150 align:middle line:90% Beth? 00:03:55.150 --> 00:03:58.500 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:58.500 --> 00:04:03.264 align:middle line:90%