Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
The Plague by Albert Camus
Desert Notebooks by Ben Ehrenreich
Lurking by Joanne McNeil
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London by Lauren Elkin
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
The Golden State by Lydia Kiesling
A Burning by Megha Majumdar
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
Intimations by Zadie Smith
You Will Never Be Forgotten by Mary South
Fallout by Lesley M.M. Blume
Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
The Death of Sitting Bear by M. Scott Momaday
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
Barn 8 by Deb Olin Unferth
Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer
Good evening, and welcome to Word Power: How Words Define and Confine Our Reality.
We just had the pleasure of experiencing James Brown, MD, on his Arborlune.
My name is James Schirmer and I'm currently chair of the English department at the University of Michigan-Flint.
It is my honor and privilege to not only welcome you to this event but to also recognize my incredible colleague Dr. Erica Britt as tonight's moderator.
Before turning everything over to her, I have a couple things to share.
First, this is a public event streaming through both Zoom and Facebook Live.
Those interested in Q&A participation should be viewing Word Power through Zoom, but we'll keep an eye out for any comments or questions on Facebook.
Second, you should feel free to click on the "Live Transcript" button in Zoom to follow along a bit easier.
Third, words matter. With apologies to the late, great Prince, words, like albums and black lives, still matter.
The words we choose to use, the reading and writing and speaking of them, the tapping and typing, the scribbling and swiping, constrain and frame, praise and blame, construct and destruct who we and others are.
Of course, that understanding is why we are here.
So, again, I am honored and privileged to be here, to listen in on what lies ahead and behind and now.
And I am glad you are here, that we are here, amid pandemic and police brutality, despite uncertainty and strife.
We just had the pleasure of experiencing James Brown, MD, on his Arborlune.
My name is James Schirmer and I'm currently chair of the English department at the University of Michigan-Flint.
It is my honor and privilege to not only welcome you to this event but to also recognize my incredible colleague Dr. Erica Britt as tonight's moderator.
Before turning everything over to her, I have a couple things to share.
First, this is a public event streaming through both Zoom and Facebook Live.
Those interested in Q&A participation should be viewing Word Power through Zoom, but we'll keep an eye out for any comments or questions on Facebook.
Second, you should feel free to click on the "Live Transcript" button in Zoom to follow along a bit easier.
Third, words matter. With apologies to the late, great Prince, words, like albums and black lives, still matter.
The words we choose to use, the reading and writing and speaking of them, the tapping and typing, the scribbling and swiping, constrain and frame, praise and blame, construct and destruct who we and others are.
Of course, that understanding is why we are here.
So, again, I am honored and privileged to be here, to listen in on what lies ahead and behind and now.
And I am glad you are here, that we are here, amid pandemic and police brutality, despite uncertainty and strife.
We are here and we are ready to hear. Dr. Britt, let's begin...
These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card
The Story of More by Hope Jahren
No Ashes in the Fire by Darnell L. Moore
A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
Notes from an Apocalypse by Mark O'Connell
The World-Ending Fire by Wendell Berry
Incidental Inventions by Elena Ferrante
Dictionary of the Undoing by John Freeman
That Wild Country by Mark Kenyon
Inland by Tea Obrecht
Weather by Jenny Offill
Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
Walking by Erling Kagge
Waking Up White by Debby Irving
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
Walking Art Practice by Ernesto Pujol
Little Weirds by Jenny Slate
The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler
Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq
American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
Make It Scream, Make It Burn by Leslie Jamison
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
A Walking Life by Antonia Malchik
White Flights by Jess Row
Trace by Lauret Savoy
The Grammarians by Cathleen Schine
Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson
Fleishman Is In Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Impossible Views of the World by Lucy Ives
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
The Need by Helen Phillips
The Third Horseman by William Rosen
The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Tsing
Good morning. My name is James Schirmer and I'm currently chair of the English department at the University of Michigan-Flint and, on behalf of my fellow event planners and partners, it is my honor and pleasure to welcome you to the Flint Festival of Writers.
It's great to see everyone this morning. I'd like to think that you're here for many of the same reasons that brought my colleagues/companions/comrades Sarah Carson, Bob Campbell, Katie Curnow, Connor Coyne, Jan Worth Nelson, and I together: the belief, the knowledge that Flint is a place rich with stories, that the writing done in and about Flint is uniquely important and deserving of attention and support. Everything about today's festival is intended to acknowledge the power and value in reading, in writing, in sharing words with others, sharing our perspective, sharing our stories, in sharing your story.
So, we can and do look forward to learning from LaTashia, Jonah, Ben, and Bob in this morning's panel, to working with Jonah and Liz and Kelsey this afternoon, to hearing from Flint's young writers, to networking and perusing at the book fair, and to listening to LaTashia in the early evening. And yes, there is an after-party open mic celebration at Totem tonight, but, given what I think unites us in coming here, my hope is for the entire day to be a celebration.
Here's to a beautiful, inspiring, restorative day in the city of Flint.