Writing the big impossible thing
Pulitzer on the Road
March 5th, 630pm - Unfortunately Cristina Rivera Garza cannot be with us in Chicago. We're delighted to welcome 2005 General Nonfiction finalist Luis Alberto Urrea to join the conversation with Pulitzer Board member and 2007 Poetry winner Natasha Trethewey and 2019 Fiction finalist Rebecca Makkai for the Pulitzer on the Road event in Chicago. In this powerful and intimate discussion, the authors will discuss writing on life's "big impossible thing." Across their award-winning works of poetry, memoir and fiction, each of these authors have delved into stories of memories, trauma, and the ripple effects of grief. Join them for a conversation on craft and the creative process, the transformative power of literature, and how writing into a wound can lead to the light.
A book signing follows the event.
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03/05/25 - 03/05/25
6:30pm
BIOGRAPHY
Natasha Trethewey served two terms as the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States (2012-2014). She is the author of five collections of poetry, including Native Guard (2006)--for which she was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize--and, most recently, Monument: Poems New and Selected (2018); a book of non-fiction, Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2010); a memoir, Memorial Drive (2020) an instant New York Times Bestseller; and The House of Being (2024), a meditation on writing. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Beinecke Library at Yale, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Philosophical Society. In 2017 she received the Heinz Award for Arts and Humanities. Trethewey was awarded the 2020 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt Prize in Poetry for Lifetime Achievement from the Library of Congress and in 2022 she was the William B. Hart Poet in Residence at the American Academy in Rome. A Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets, she has also served on the boards of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Hollins University and, currently, the Pulitzer Prize. At Northwestern University she is Board of Trustees Professor of English.
Luis Alberto Urrea is a poet, novelist and essayist and a 2005 General Nonfiction finalist. His first book, Across the Wire, was named a New York Times Notable Book and won the Christopher Award in 1993. In 1994, he won the Colorado Book Award in poetry for The Fever of Being as well as the Western States Book Award in poetry. He was also included in The 1996 Best American Poetry collection. In 1999, Urrea won an American Book Award for his memoir, Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life. Urrea’s book of short stories, Six Kinds of Sky, was named the 2002 small-press Book of the Year in fiction by the editors of ForeWord magazine. In 2000, he was voted into the Latino Literature Hall of Fame following the publication of Vatos. The Devil's Highway won the 2004 Lannan Literary Award, the Border Regional Library Association's Southwest Book Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and for the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize. It was also optioned for a film by CDI Producciones. The book was adopted as the 2010 One Book for Sac State. His short story "Amapola", which can be found in Phoenix Noir edited by Patrick Millikin and Urrea's own The Water Museum, won the Edgar Award in 2010 for best mystery short story. In 2019, he was presented the Founders Award at the Tucson Festival of Books. The award recognizes exceptional literary achievement.
Rebecca Makkai is the author of the New York Times bestselling I Have Some Questions For You as well as four other works of fiction. Her last novel, The Great Believers, One of the New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century, was a finalist for both the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and the 2018 National Book Award, and was the winner of the ALA Carnegie Medal and the LA Times Book Prize among other honors. A 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, Rebecca teaches graduate fiction writing at Middlebury College, Northwestern University, and the Bennington Writing Seminars, and she is Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago.
