{"id":8624,"date":"2023-07-05T11:22:15","date_gmt":"2023-07-05T11:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/?p=8624"},"modified":"2023-07-05T11:22:15","modified_gmt":"2023-07-05T11:22:15","slug":"author-talk-with-javier-zamora-rescheduled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/author-talk-with-javier-zamora-rescheduled\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Talk with Javier Zamora Rescheduled!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Registration<\/a> is STILL open for our Author Talk Series, an event free and open to the public! Our guest, Javier Zamora<\/a>, will discuss his New York Times<\/em> best-selling book Solito<\/em> with moderator, Rutgers English department faculty member, Ben Purkert<\/a>. Zamora will share his immigration journey with us and explore how identity influences our idea of home and brings humanity and warmth to the figure of the “immigrant.”<\/p>\n

Register Today!<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a1EVENT RESCHEDULED!<\/h3>\n
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Fact<\/h4>\n

We are looking forward to the conversation next Wednesday, July 12 with Javier Zamora<\/a>. \u00a0Our excitement about the event has been the topic of many Zoom and phone calls and enthusiastically expressed by our blog and social media posts.<\/p>\n

Background<\/h4>\n

A unexpected discovery of this pearl, Solito: A memoir<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and a subsequent blog post entitled Superheroes Among Us<\/a> back in November, as Staff Picks.<\/p>\n

An invitation sent to Zamora by Rutgers Summer Session to be our next guest in the Author Talk series, following illustrious authors such as Joyce Carol Oates<\/a>, Carmen Maria Machado<\/a>, Natalie D\u00edaz<\/a>, and Julie Otsuka<\/a> – accepted!<\/p>\n

The quest for the perfect moderator, Zamora\u2019s partner in conversation, rather than someone asking random questions \u2013 found, in house, at Rutgers, in the person of creative writing professor and author Ben Purkert, <\/a> who interviewed him in April.<\/p>\n

Logistics sorted out, event planned, bureaucratic hurdles overcome, headache gone, event date getting closer, excitement growing.<\/p>\n

Pupusa recipes tested and retested. Can you eat pupusas for breakfast? – would be just as rhetorical a question to ask @jzsalvipoet as to ask an Italian poet the same thing about pasta (which I did). Ah, that look!<\/p>\n

Reality hits<\/h4>\n

Event cancelled \u2013 classic coping mechanisms kicking in. To each their own. Just like Solito<\/em>, a book that speaks to the reader at so many levels.<\/p>\n

For us \u2013 no problem, more time to spend with the book, more time to listen to previous interviews, talks, and podcasts with the author.<\/p>\n

A podcast<\/a> about finding the right therapist \u2013 it starts discussing other issues shared by most of us, immigrants, but somehow, with a twist, ends up in Zamora\u2019s deliberate self-disclosure.<\/p>\n

Writing as therapy, reflections on texts as they speak to you \u2013 reality check.<\/p>\n

Happy ending?<\/h4>\n

Event rescheduled \u2013 let\u2019s hope all those who registered can make it! Let\u2019s hope we\u2019ll reach new audiences! I, for one, won\u2019t shut up about the book, Zamora, and the experience, probably for another year.<\/p>\n

Books raffle on \u2013 books, plural, multiple copies of Javier Zamora\u2019s Solito and Ben Purkert\u2019s debut novel, The men can\u2019t be saved<\/i><\/a>, in the bookstores August 1 for event participants.<\/p>\n

Fingers crossed \u2013 no more cancellations, flights or events, just pure anticipation of an author talk, when you feel being part of something bigger than yourself, through reading, listening, reflecting, or writing.<\/p>\n

On your way to healing. Bibliotherapy, at its best, again.<\/span><\/p>\n

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