mothers and daughters

A celebration of the fairy tale, featuring readings from authors included in My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (2010), an anthology of new fairy tales edited by Kate Bernheimer.

Tillie Olsen reads excerpts from Tell Me a Riddle (1961), her collection of short stories; Yonnondio: From the Thirties (1974), an unfinished novel; and the classic work of nonfiction, Silences (1978). Olsen's reading is interspersed with anecdotes and narrative summaries.

Benjamin Rybeck reads from his novel The Sadness (2016). This reading was originally given with Lawrence Lenhart and Natasha Stagg.

At the 2017 Thinking Its Presence Conference, members of the MT+NYC Collaborative (Ciara Rose Griffin, William F. Hubbard, Kendra Mylnechuk, Aja M. Sherrard, and Brooke Swaney) perform an early draft of The Buffalo Play, a play written by Ciara Rose Griffin and Kendra Mylnechuk. 

Layli Long Soldier reads poems from Whereas (2017). This reading was originally given with Timothy Yu as part of the Morgan Lucas Schuldt Memorial Reading Series.

Rachel Zucker reads from an early draft of The Poetics of Wrongness (2023), her collection of essay-lectures which consider confessional poetry, the ethics of writing about one's life and relationships, and the primacy of motherhood. This lecture was originally given with Timothy Donnelly and Srikanth Reddy as part of the 2018 Bagley Wright Lecture Series conference "You Are Who I Am Talking To: Poetry, Attention, and Audience."

Poetry Center Summer Resident July Westhale reads from her first full-length collection, Trailer Trash (2018), as well as from Via Negativa (2020), which would be published two years after her residency. This reading was originally given with Felicia Zamora.

Cherríe Moraga reads excerpts from her memoir Native Country of the Heart (2019).

Rosa Alcalá reads from her translations of Cecilia Vicuña's poetry presented in New and Selected Poems of Cecilia Vicuña (2018). She also reads uncollected poems of her own. This reading was given as part of the Hannelore Quander-Rattee Works-in-Translation Series.