Events & Readings

UPCOMING:

• Author Talk: On Writing & Nuance: Wednesday, June 2, 8pm EST / 7pm CST / 6pm MST / 5pm PST

  As part of their Summer Author Series, I was invited by University of Omaha’s Schwalb Center for Israel and Jewish Studies and the Jewish Federation of Omaha to give an author talk. I’d love it if you joined me by registering to attend!

PAST:

• Conversation with Priyanka Champaneri, author of The City of Good Death, hosted by Old Town Books: Thursday, April 1, 7pm EST / 4pm PST
  Join Priyanka Champaneri, award-winning author of The City of Good Death, and I at Old Town Books to talk about her gorgeous debut novel! Sign up at the link above :).
  

• Study Hall Panel: Surviving the Culture Industry with Nathan Ma, Courtney Tenz, and Ilana Masad, moderated by Evan Kleekamp
  Friday, April 2, 4-5:15pm EST / 1-2:15 PST

  In this introductory conversation, panelists NATHAN MA, ILANA MASAD, and COURTNEY TENZ will share how they survive the unforgiving and exclusionary culture industry.
  

• Little Grassy Literary Festival:

  • Monday, April 5, 5-6:30pm CST (6pm EST / 3pm PST), Fiction + Poetry Kick-Off Event!
    Poet Matthew Wimberley and I will be reading from our work to kickstart the festival. Here’s the Facebook event page, or you can access the reading directly via this Zoom link.

  • Friday, April 9, 11am-12pm CST (12pm EST / 9am PST): Perspectives on Publishing Panel
    Join John McCarthy, Maria Romasco Moore, Joy Priest, and myself for a panel on the world of publishing and working one’s way through it! Access via the Facebook event page or directly via this Zoom link.

• A Literary Afternoon at the Adolph & Rose Levis Jewish Community Center: Tuesday, March 16, 3pm EST (2pm CST, 1pm MST, 12pm PST)
  The JCC in Boca Raton has kindly invited me to take part of their Literary Afternoon series, where I’ll be in conversation with Myrna Lippman. We had a lovely time!

• 2021 AWP Conference Panels, Saturday, March 6:
  Premiering 11:10am-12:10pm CST (12:10 EST, 10:10 MST, 9:10 PST), Conflicts of Interest in Literary Criticism

  Kamil Ahsan, Hope Wabuke, Anjali Enjeti, Jenny Bhatt, and I discuss how the literary world has become even smaller with the advent of social media, contemplate the complicated ethical issues we face when our colleagues or friends publish books, how editors have different standards for whether a critic’s relationship with an author affects whether they can fairly review a book. We ask, when should a critic abstain because of their relationship (whether in person or online) with an author? And how does representation come into these questions?

  Premiering 5:20pm-6:20pm CST (6:20 EST, 4:20 MST, 3:20 PST), Give It A Name: Mental Health and the Writing Life

  Bruce Owens Grimm, Sarah Fawn Montgomery, Katie Mullins, Paul Pedroza, and I discuss how the writing life is one of solitude and struggle, and for some writers who deal with mental illness it can seem insurmountable. We ask, how does identifying and naming our mental health concerns inform our work and open avenues to successfully navigating the challenging paths towards publication and participating in literary culture? From cultivating a consistent writing practice through marketing and publicity, we share experiences with coping while working.

• JCC-Vancouver Jewish Book Festival 2021: “On the Mothers and Daughters Spectrum,” Myla Goldberg and Ilana Masad, moderated by Marsha Lederman - Tuesday, February 23, 6:30-8pm PST (7:30 MST, 8:30 CST, 9:30 EST)
  Marsha Lederman spoke to Myla Goldberg and myself during this wonderful event.

• Lit Fest After-Hours at the Bookworm, featuring Lydia Kang, Ilana Masad, Lisa Fay Coutley, Kate Gaskin, David Philip Mullins & Theodore Wheeler - Saturday, November 21, 6:30pm CST (7:30 EST, 4:30 PST)
  Join Omaha Lit Fest and the Bookworm - an Omaha independent bookstore - for a celebration of six area authors who published new books in 2020! Lydia Kang, Ilana Masad, Lisa Fay Coutley, Kate Gaskin, David Philip Mullins & Theodore Wheeler will gather in the Bookworm after closing time to read from their new books while keeping a safe distance from host (and loud-talker) Todd Robinson. If you’re moved to, order signed copies of any of these authors’ books here!

• Brooklyn Book Festival Virtual Webinar: Transcending Grief, moderated by M.J. Franklin, featuring Sigrid Nunez, Joyce Carol Oats, and Ilana Masad - Sunday, October 4, 12pm EDT (9am PDT)
  Although these authors explore the tragedy of losing family members and friends, they also highlight the triumph of finding new life in the vacuums every loss leaves behind. Join debut novelist Ilana Masad (All My Mother’s Lovers), National Book Award–winning novelist Sigrid Nunez (What Are You Going Through), and National Humanities Medal recipient Joyce Carol Oates (Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.) as they discuss life after devastation. Moderated by M.J. Franklin, editor at the New York Times Book Review.

• Anja Kampmann presents High as the Waters Rise, in conversation with with Anne Posten and Ilana Masad - Tuesday, September 29, 6pm EDT (3pm PDT)

  Join me to celebrate German poet and novelist Anja Kampmann and English-language translator Anne Posten as we discuss Kampmann’s gorgeous debut novel High as the Waters Rise. Hosted by the Minneapolis, MN independent bookstore Magers & Quinn Booksellers, the virtual event will take place on Facebook Live and will also be streaming on YouTube.

• Come as You Are: A virtual discussion, moderated by Elizabeth Earley, between Carly Israel and Ilana Masad - Tuesday, September 8, 7pm EDT (4pm PDT)

  We celebrated the launch of Carly Israel’s memoir, Seconds and Inches, that deals with intergenerational trauma, inherited addiction, parenting, and much more. We were honored to have Elizabeth Earley, author of A Map of Everything and Like Wings, Your Hands, as our moderator.

• Literary Modiin’s Summer Author Event, featuring R. L. Maizes, Sara Lippmann, and Ilana Masad - Sunday, July 26, 1pm EDT (10am PDT)

  Author Julie Zuckerman’s Literary Modiin group hosted this virtual summer event featuring authors R. L. Maizes, Sara Lippmann, and myself:

• Virtual Author Conversation: Ilana Masad and Michael Zapata at Women & Children First - Friday, July 17, 7pm EDT (4pm PDT)

  You may have heard me interview Michael Zapata about his wonderful novel, The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, for my podcast, and I had such an amazing time chatting with him again about books and writing and storytelling and families in this virtual event hosted by the legendary feminist bookstore, Chicago-based Women & Children First. Watch the recording of our talk here!

• Litquake on Lockdown: Ilana Masad and Adam Dalva - Thursday, July 9, 9pm-10:15pm EDT / 6pm-7:15pm PDT

  Adam Dalva and I had an incredibly fun conversation hosted by the wonderful virtual edition of the West Coast-based (but expanded nationally and internationally) literary festival and events series Litquake, updated for COVID-19 times to Litquake on Lockdown.

• Journeys Home: Ilana Masad and Laura Bogart in Conversation (virtually) - Wednesday, July 1, 8pm EDT (5pm PDT)

  The wonderful Paragraph: Workspace for Writers, in partnership with Books Are Magic, hosted Laura Bogart, a feminist culture critic and debut author of Don’t You Know I Love You, and myself as we read from and discuss our debut novels which both deal with women returning home as adults for very different reasons.

• Virtual Author Talk with Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center's Queer Novel Mini-Series - Monday, June 15, 7pm EST (4pm PST)

  Thank you so much to Adrian Shankar and the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center, located in Allentown, PA, for hosting this event, which you can watch below:

• Les Bleus Literary Salon - Saturday, May 30, 6-7pm EST (3-4pm PST)

  Please join  Celia Bland, Noé Alvarez, Amy Poeppel, Matthew Binder, and me at a virtual version of Les Bleus Literary Salon, an NYC reading series, which will be hosted via Zoom. In order to register for the event lesbleusnyc [at] gmail [dot] com.

• Ilana Masad + Brandon Taylor at The Strand - Thursday, May 28, 7-8pm EST (4-5pm PST)

  Thank you so much to the Strand Bookstore for an absolutely magical event with my pal and hero Brandon Taylor, senior editor of Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, staff writer at Literary Hub and author of the devastatingly beautiful novel, Real Life. If you missed out on the event, you can watch it below:

• 🎉 Virtual Launch Party hosted by McNally Jackson!!! 🎉 - Tuesday, May 26, 7pm EST (4pm PST)

  We celebrated the release of All My Mother's Lovers virtually with McNally Jackson, the wonderful NYC independent bookstore. I was so honored to in conversation with the inimitable Kristen Arnett⁠—lesbian librarian, Twitter sensation, and NYT bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things⁠—who called AMML a "queer tour de force" and who is truly one of my contemporary literary heroes. A video of the event should be available soon!

• Wednesday, May 13, 12:30-1pm EST (9:30-10am PST) - JBC Authors at the Table

  The Jewish Book Council invited me to participate in their new initiative, Authors at the Table, in which authors have a lunchtime 30-minute conversation with the JBC via Zoom. Register at the link above for future events with upcoming authors like Liel Lei­bovitz, Gail Car­son Levine, Scott Shay, and Jan Elias­berg (and, potentially, others if the series continues?). And, if you’d like, enjoy the recorded talk below!

• April 15, 2020
  Hosted by the wonderful Ted Wheeler, author most recently of In Our Other Lives, I was pleased to read a portion of All My Mother’s Lovers on the Omaha Lit Fest Facebook page. But then! Surprise! We discovered there were issues with the quality (it sucked). So I re-recorded the reading, which you can watch below!