September 12 & 13 – Festival Events

The fourth Succeed2gether's Montclair Literary Festival took place online on Saturday September 12 and Sunday September 13. This was a more condensed festival program than we had planned but we hope you found new books and enjoyed the discussions.

We are grateful to all our authors who appear for free at all our events. The best way to support them is by buying their book. Details of all participating authors are here.

Ticketed events that were to have taken place from Wednesday March 25 to Sunday March 29, 2020, were moved to online events in May, June, and July. Details here.

All Festival events are free and accessible to all.

FICTION Dark Matters: Outsider Female Narrators.  
Saturday September 12, 10:00-10:50 am

Mona Awad (Bunny, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl), Lauren Acampora (The Paper Wasp, The Wonder Garden) and Laura Sims (Looker), consider their female characters’ tendencies toward loneliness, obsession, delusion, and, ultimately, violence. Why are these characters and “outsider” female narrators increasingly popular, and does this mark a significant shift in representations of women in literature? Moderated by Laurie Lico Albanese. 

WATCH REPLAY

Image
Image

RACE/HISTORY America’s Journey.
Saturday September 12, 11:00-11:50 am

An exploration of the legacy of slavery in our country and its impact on racial segregation, African-American culture, and the preservation of African traditions and identity, with Steve Luxenberg, author of Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America's Journey from Slavery to Segregation and Melissa Cooper, author of Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race, and the American Imagination.  Moderated by Dionne Ford, editor of the book, Slavery's Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation.

WATCH REPLAY (previous registrants only)

SPORT In the Zone.  
Saturday September 12, 12:00-12:50 pm

The Hot Hand: The Mystery and Science of Streaks by Ben Cohen, Running to the Edge: A Band of Misfits and the Guru Who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed by Matthew Futterman, and Astroball: The New Way to Win it All, by Ben Reiter, are books that use sports to explore the world, in particular why we’re so fascinated with that magical feeling of beating the odds, becoming temporarily superhuman and transcending our internal limits. Some call it “the hot hand,” others call it “the runner’s high”, but it’s something we’ve all felt in one way or another. The authors explain why they wrote books about it and what they learned along the way from Olympic runners, Oscar-winning directors, Nobel-winning academics, and basketball phenom Stephen Cur. 

WATCH REPLAY

Image
Image

ADDICTION and the Family.  
Saturday September 12, 1:00-1:50 pm

Eilene Zimmerman’s powerful memoir, Smacked: A Story of White Collar Ambition, Addiction and Tragedy, examines the world of white-collar drug abuse as the author pieces together the mysteries surrounding her ex-husband’s descent into drug addiction, while Dr. Larry Westreich, an addiction expert and author of A Parent's Guide to Teen Addiction: Professional Advice on Signs, Symptoms, What to Say, and How to Help, talks about treatment options. Moderated by Gabrielle Glaser, author of Her Best-Kept Secret: Why Women Drink and How They Can Regain Control. 

WATCH REPLAY

THE FUTURE OF READING A Conversation with Maisy Card, Peter Coyl and Leah Price.
Saturday September 12, 1:00-1:50 pm

Montclair Library Director Peter Coyl talks with Newark Librarian Maisy Card about her electric family saga, These Ghosts are Family, and about how being a librarian impacted her as a writer. They are joined by Leah Price, founder and director of the Rutgers Initiative for the Book and author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Books, to consider the importance of reading and the role of libraries, how they create readers and writers, and our shared responsibility for the history and future of reading.
WATCH REPLAY

Image

GENDER POLITICS Breaking Boundaries.
Saturday September 12, 2:00-2:50 pm

MSU Professor and Chair of Sociology, Yasemin Besen-Cassino talks to the authors of three new books about women breaking cultural norms and how their experience reflects on the gender politics of today. Nancy Princenthal’s Unspeakable Acts: Women, Art and Sexual Violence in the 1970s is a groundbreaking exploration of how women artists of the 1970s combined art and protest to make sexual violence visible, creating a new kind of art in the process. Adrienne Miller’s In the Land of Men is a memoir about coming of age in the male-dominated literary world of the nineties, and becoming the first female literary editor of Esquire, while Victoria James’s memoir Wine Girl charts her career as America’s youngest sommelier and addresses repercussions, solutions and inclusion in the hospitality industry after #MeToo. 

POLITICS/RACE American Poison.
Saturday September 12, 3:00-3:50 pm

Veteran NY Times journalist Eduardo Porter’s book, American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise,  is a sweeping examination of how American racism has broken the country's social compact, eroded America's common goods, and damaged the lives of every American—and a heartfelt look at how these deep wounds might begin to heal. He discusses these issues with Jim Johnson, a NJ politician, attorney, and community activist, who was formerly an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and former NJ gubernatorial candidate.

WATCH REPLAY

Image

POLITICS 2020 and The Future of American Politics.  
Saturday September 12, 4:00-4:50 pm

From his anti-immigration campaign in 2016 through the Democratic wave of 2018 and impeachment, Donald Trump has been the most polarizing president in modern history. New York Times National Correspondent Kate Zernike leads a discussion about the 2020 presidential election and beyond. Will President Trump's base remain loyal enough to win him re-election, or will the "resistance" his election stirred up result in a landslide for Democrats?  What will be his legacy in the Republican Party, and how is the new generation elected in 2018 changing the Democratic Party?

Panellists: Time correspondent Charlotte Alter, author of The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, New York Times Washington editor and co-author of Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration, and political historian and commentator David Rothkopf, author of the new book Traitor: A History of American Betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump.

PITCHAPALOOZA Pitch Your Book Idea.
Saturday September 12, 5:00-6:00 pm

Pitchapalooza is American Idol for books (only kinder and gentler). Around 20 writers will be selected at random to pitch their book. Each writer gets one minute—and only one minute! Dozens of writers have gone from talented amateurs to professionally published authors as a result of participating in Pitchapalooza. Whether potential authors pitch themselves, or simply listen to trained professionals critique each presentation, Pitchapalooza is educational and entertaining for one and all.  At the end of Pitchapalooza, the judges will pick a winner. The winner receives an introduction to an agent or publisher appropriate for his/her book. Bestselling author David Henry Sterry and agent-to-the-stars Arielle Eckstut, who also work together as The Book Doctors, will host the party and provide feedback. No recording available for this event.

Image
Image

VIRTUAL BRUNCH WITH ADAM PLATT Adventures in Professional Gluttony.
Sunday September 13, 11:00-11:50 am

Food writer and journalist Marissa Rothkopf Bates talks with Adam Platt, New York Magazine food critic and the author of The Book of Eating: Adventures in Professional Gluttony. Don’t miss this wildly hilarious and irreverent memoir of a globe-trotting life lived meal-to-meal, by one of our most influential and respected food writers.
WATCH REPLAY

FICTION Christina Baker Kline The Exiles with J. Courtney Sullivan.
Sunday September 13, 4:00-5:30 pm

Presented by Montclair Public Library's Open Book Open Mind program and in conjunction with Succeed2gether's Montclair Literary Festival, bestselling novelist Christina Baker Kline will be discussing her new book, The Exiles, with author J. Courtney Sullivan. The Exiles is "a powerful, emotionally resonant novel that captures the hardship, oppression, opportunity and hope of four women’s lives—three English convicts and an orphaned Aboriginal girl—in nineteenth-century Australia." – William Morrow.

The festival supports Succeed2gether's programming and mission of spreading the love of reading.
Donate today.