Join us for our Summer Tales Author Talk with guest speaker Julie Otsuka as she discusses her award-winning novels and more with a moderator, Nick Allred. The event will be held on Wednesday, July 20, 2022 at 4pm EST. Sponsored by the Rutgers–New Brunswick Libraries and Rutgers–New Brunswick Summer Session.
Summer Tales 2021 featured Julie Otsuka’s Diem Perdidi , a compelling, heart-wrenching portrait of an elderly woman’s character and life story as she begins to lose her memory. Read the synopsis and discussion points, along with more about the author in the Summer Tales LibGuide.
Related posts: Julie Otsuka
Creative Contest: Book Talk on “Diem Perdidi” by Julie Otsuka
August 30, 2021 | By Harmony Birch | Summer Tales
Finding Humor for Emotional Strength
August 11, 2021 | By Rebecca Diamond | Cook Reads,Little Free Library,Summer Tales
Translating Stories to Make Sense
July 28, 2021 | By Judit Hajnal Ward | Bibliotherapy,Cook Reads,Summer Tales
Related posts: Author Talks series
Chatting with Carmen Maria Machado
Motherhood, genre, and form took center stage during the first session of Summer Tales when we examined the story “Eight Bites” by Carmen Maria Machado. Machado is the author of Her Body and Other Parties, in which the SummerTales story selection “Eight Bites” is published; and In the Dream House, a memoir on her experience … Read More
Carmen Maria Machado, Between Persons
A heads-up: This post, like Machado’s memoir, discusses intimate-partner abuse. There are two distinctive formal features of Carmen Maria Machado’s In The Dream House: A Memoir that are apparent from early on. The first is that this memoir is fractured into a series of short forays, usually just one or two pages, that approach the central … Read More
Confessions of a Part-Time Interviewer
Last week we had the pleasure of hosting poet Natalie Díaz for a Zoom reading and discussion, and a few weeks ago in late June we had author Carmen Maria Machado for a similar event. I had the particular pleasure of being the one to talk to both, asking them questions drawn from our preregistered … Read More
Why Read Banned Books
In a recent New York Times opinion article entitled Banning My Book Won’t Protect Your Child Carmen Maria Machado shared that parents in a school district demanded the removal of her book In the Dream House: A Memoir and several others from district reading lists for high school English class book clubs. Banned or challenged books … Read More
In the Dream House and the Importance of Naming
Please note: This post discusses abusive relationships. If you or someone you know needs support regarding domestic or dating violence, please go to The National Domestic Violence Hotline or Rutgers Counseling Services. Carmen Marie Machado (the first author being examined in our Summer Tales program) doesn’t pull punches when exposing the grotesque realities of humanity. … Read More
An Evening with Natalie Díaz
Natalie Díaz is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. She is also the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University. Díaz is also a well-decorated poet with a Pulitzer Prize for her most recent Postcolonial Love Poem, a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, and the … Read More
Natalie Díaz and the Mojave Language
While Natalie Díaz is known internationally for her poetry, she is also passionate about preserving the Mojave language. Díaz’s work with the Mojave language comes from both a desire to preserve and to better understand it. The Poetry Foundation’s biography of Díaz includes a quote from the poet explaining how language impacts her work. She … Read More
Joyce Carol Oates Perspective: A Powerful Teacher
Between my previous education experience and my current studies as a Masters of Information candidate I have spent the majority of my life in school. As a perpetual student I have learned the life-changing value of having incredible teachers and am quick to recognize them. I already knew that she had been professor at Princeton … Read More
Face to (Virtual) Face with Joyce Carol Oates
We were incredibly lucky to have author Joyce Carol Oates join us for a reading from her short story “Where Is Here?” and a discussion drawn from audience-submitted questions. What we didn’t know when we began planning the event was just how many people would be interested — it shouldn’t have come as a surprise … Read More
Joyce Carol Oates from both sides of the Iron Curtain
Have you ever noticed that once you start paying attention to something – or someone – you seem to bump into it/him/her everywhere? Some call it Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon; I prefer the term “frequency illusion.” In August 2019 we at Summer Tales. selected the fascinating story Where is Here? for our reading list allowing me to … Read More
Summer Tales with Joyce Carol Oates!
Come hear acclaimed writer Joyce Carol Oates read from and talk about her short story “Where Is Here?”! Oates is a National Book Award winner, a five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and one of the leading voices in American literature of our time. She has taught at Princeton for many years, and most recently led an undergraduate fiction … Read More