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Writer and activist Ilyasah Shabazz, author of “Betty Before X,” and poet Mahogany L. Browne, author of “Black Girl Magic,” discuss their work with Princess Weekes of The Mary Sue. This conversation is presented in partnership with the Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group and the Reading Without Walls Challenge.
About Reading Without Walls: Former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Gene Luen Yang calls us all to READ WITHOUT WALLS, exploring books about characters who look or live differently than you, topics you haven’t discovered, or formats that you haven’t tried. READING WITHOUT WALLS promotes diversity and opens readers’ eyes to new ideas and experiences. In this divided time in our nation’s history, READING WITHOUT WALLS is an inclusive way to spread appreciation and understanding for others — and to learn new and exciting things.
Reading Without Walls is happening now, and anyone can participate — teachers, librarians, book-sellers, and readers. Just find something new and different to read — and let books open up the world around you.
Join us as these writers share their work and discuss the importance of reading a diverse selection of stories. 
In Fascism: A Warning, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright draws on her experiences as a child in war-torn Europe and her distinguished career as a diplomat to provide a personal and urgent examination of Fascism in the twentieth century and how its legacy shapes today’s world. A Fascist, observes Madeleine Albright, “is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have.”
Fascism, as she shows, not only endured through the twentieth century but now presents a more virulent threat to peace and justice than at any time since the end of World War II. The momentum toward democracy that swept the world when the Berlin Wall fell has gone into reverse. In many countries, economic, technological, and cultural factors are weakening the political center and empowering the extremes of right and left. Contemporary leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un are employing many of the tactics used by Fascists in the 1920s and 30s.
Fascism: A Warning is a book for our times that is relevant to all times. Written by someone who has not only studied history but helped to shape it, this call to arms teaches us the lessons we must understand and the questions we must answer if we are to save ourselves from repeating the tragic errors of the past. Cultural critic and New York Times best-selling author of Bad Feminist and Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, Roxane Gay, shares a new anthology.
Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture collects original and previously published essays from established and up-and-coming writers, performers (including actors Ally Sheedy and Gabrielle Union), and critics that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence, and aggression they face, and where they are routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, gaslit, insulted, and bullied for speaking out. Searing and heartbreakingly candid, this provocative collection both reflects the world we live in and offers a call to arms insisting that not that bad must no longer be good enough. Poets Terrance Hayes and Mary Karr celebrate the launch of Terrance Hayes' newest collection, “American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin.”
Terrance Hayes is the author of Lighthead, winner of the 2010 National Book Award and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other books are “Wind In a Box,” “Hip Logic,” and “Muscular Music.” His honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 2014 MacArthur Fellowship. “How To Be Drawn,” his most recent collection of poems, was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award and received the 2016 NAACP Image Award for Poetry.
Mary Karr is a poet, essayist and memoirist. She rose to fame with the publication of her bestselling memoir "The Liars' Club." She is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University. Her latest book is "Tropic of Squalor: Poems," out in May from Harper. 
Author and journalist Nomi Prins shines a light on the dark conspiracies and unsavory connections within the halls of power along with journalist Rich Benjamin.
The 2008 financial crisis started a chain reaction that boosted the influence of central bankers and caused a massive shift in the world order. Central banks and institutions are overstepping the boundaries of their mandates and directing the flow of money without any restrictions. Meanwhile, the cozy relationship between private and central banking ensures boundless manipulation with government support.
Nomi Prins is a journalist, speaker, respected TV and radio commentator, and former Wall Street executive. The author of six books, including All the Presidents' Bankers, Other People's Money, and It Takes a Pillage, her writing has been featured in the New York Times, Fortune, Mother Jones, Guardian, and Nation, among others. She was a member of Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) Federal Reserve Reform Advisory Council, and is on the advisory board of the whistle-blowing organization ExposeFacts.
Rich Benjamin is an American cultural critic, anthropologist, and author, best known for the non-fiction book Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America. 
With Nadxieli Nieto, Hannah Lillith Assadi, Victor LaValle, Nicole Sealey, & Hari Kunzru
As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie so eloquently puts it, “when we realize there is never a single story about a place, we regain a kind of paradise." PEN Literary Awards finalists Hari Kunzru, Victor LaValle, Nicole Sealey, and Hannah Lillith Assadi read from their work, and bring a glimpse of paradise to the Strand Book Store. Through a wide range of genres and themes, we celebrate the multiplicity of American stories which define the American literary canon as we know it, showcasing the masterful breadth of work being published and celebrated today.
Hannah Lillith Assadi holds an MFA in fiction from the Columbia University School of the Arts. She was raised in Arizona and lives in Brooklyn. Her novel Sonora (Soho 2017) received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/ Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction.
Hari Kunzuru is the author of five novels, most recently White Tears. His work has been translated into twenty-one languages, and his short stories and journalism have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and The New Yorker. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The New York Public Library, and the American Academy in Berlin. He lives in Brooklyn.
Born in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. and raised in Apopka, Florida, Nicole Sealey is the author of Ordinary Beast, finalist for the 2018 PEN Open Book Award, and The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named, winner of the 2015 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming to Best American Poetry 2018,The New Yorker,The New York Times and elsewhere. Nicole holds an MLA in Africana studies from the University of South Florida and an MFA in creative writing from New York University. She is the executive director at Cave Canem Foundation and the 2018-2019 Doris Lippman Visiting Poet at The City College of New York.
Victor LaValle is the author of seven works of fiction and one comic book. His most recent novel, The Changeling, was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2017 by Time Magazine, USA Today, and the New York Public Library. His comic book, Victor LaValle's Destroyer, is a continuation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein taking place in the modern day and tackling contemporary political issues. He teaches writing at Columbia University. 
Author Weike Wang introduces her new novel “Chemistry” in conversation with writer and critic Maris Kreizman.
Facing a demanding academic curriculum, overbearing parental expectations, and a marriage proposal from her devoted partner, the unnamed narrator of “Chemistry” is facing pressure and scrutiny from all sides. But this overwhelming amount of pressure will launch our flawed and insightful chemist heroine into a path of self discovery and realization. Leaving the familiar plan for the future behind, she tries to find the balance of self sacrifice, true desire, and love in a two year journey that is sure to captivate modern readers.
Weike Wang is a graduate of Harvard University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry and her doctorate in public health. She received her MFA from Boston University. Her fiction has been published in or is forthcoming from Alaska Quarterly Review, Glimmer Train, The Journal, Ploughshares, Redivider, and SmokeLong Quarterly. She is a 2017 “5 Under 35” honoree of the National Book Foundation.
Maris Kreizman is the creator of Slaughterhouse 90210, a blog and book (Flatiron Books, 2015) that celebrates the intersection of literature and pop culture. She's a writer and critic, as well as a former book editor and, most recently, she was the editorial director of Book of the Month.
