At-A-Glance:
10/15: Writing Your Family Legacy Conference
10/19: Holy Cow Press Publication Launch
10/26: Benjamin Percy Publication Reading
10/28: Building Communities, Changing Discourse: Transracial Adoptees
10/30: Second Story Reading with Marina Budhos and Bryan Bliss

WRITING YOUR FAMILY LEGACY CONFERENCE
Saturday, October 15, 2016, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
$150/$125 Loft and MNHS members
Minnesota History Center, 345 Kellogg Blvd. W., Saint Paul
Co-presented by the Minnesota Historical Society and The Loft Literary Center.

Learn how to research, write, and preserve your family legacy. This one-day conference will feature sessions led by memoirists, nationally-renowned genealogists, editors, and researchers. Presenters will include Patricia Hampl, Diane Wilson, Shannon Gibney, Eric Dregni, and Cheri Register! Whether you are looking for motivation to start or experts to help you craft the work you’ve already begun, this is the conference for you.

HOLY COW PRESS PUBLICATION LAUNCH: FRED AMRAM
Wednesday, October 19, 7 p.m.
These compelling stories form a riveting memoir that begins with the author’s birth during the rise of Hitler in 1930s Germany. He and his surviving family soon escape to Holland and sail to America where they encounter many challenges as immigrants in a new world. This country truly becomes a land of opportunity where one can build a new life and become more than a “Holocaust survivor.”

Fred Amram is a retired University of Minnesota professor of communication and creativity. He spent his early years in Hanover, Germany, where he experienced the Holocaust from its inception in 1933. He witnessed Kristallnacht and the Gestapo invading his home. He watched the British bombers from his balcony when Jews were banned from air raid shelters. The loss of uncles, aunts, a grandmother, and many more relatives has motivated him to share his experiences in hopes of ending genocide everywhere.

BENJAMIN PERCY PUBLICATION READING
Wednesday, October 26, 7 p.m.
$10 Regular; $9 Loft member
The Loft presents award winning, New York Times best selling author Benjamin Percy for a publication reading of his new release Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction (Graywolf Press, 2016). Q and A, book sales, and signing will follow.

Benjamin Percy is the author of the forthcoming Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction. He is also the author of three novels, most recently The Dead Lands, as well as two books of short stories. His honors include an NEA Fellowship, the Whiting Writers’ Award, two Pushcart Prizes, and the Plimpton Prize.

BUILDING COMMUNITIES, CHANGING DISCOURSE: TRANSRACIAL ADOPTEES
Friday, October 28, 7 p.m.

The Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture and the Loft invite you to a reading curated by Shannon Gibney.

Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, activist, and the author of See No Color(Carolrhoda Lab, 2015), a young adult novel with themes of transracial adoption that won the 2016 Minnesota Book Award in Young Peoples’ Literature.

Readers:
Lisa Marie Brimmer is a Queer, Black, Transracial Adoptee artist, academic fellow and administrator living in Minneapolis, MN and attending University of St. Thomas for her Master’s in English.

Susan Harness is a member of the Salish Kootenai Tribes and recently received her MA in Creative Nonfiction from Colorado State University.

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs is the author of Paper Pavilion (White Pine Press 2007), Notes from a Missing Person (Essay Press 2015), and Interrogation Room (forthcoming). She is associate professor of English and program director of Race and Ethnic Studies at St. Olaf College.

Melissa Ludtke, an adoptive parent and veteran journalist, is the producer, co-creator and writer for Touching Home in China: in search of missing girlhoods, a transmedia storytelling project and curriculum for students from middle school through early years of college.

Jean Marie Place is an assistant professor of women’s health at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.

SooJin Pate is the author of From Orphan to Adoptee: U.S. Empire and Genealogies of Korean Adoption (University of Minnesota Press) and Motherloss: A Memoir(forthcoming).

Sun Yung Shin is the editor of A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, the author of poetry collections Unbearable Splendor (poetry/essay); Rough, and Savage; and Skirt Full of Black (all from Coffee House Press), a co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, and the author of the bilingual illustrated book for children Cooper’s Lesson.

Kate St. Vincent Vogl teaches both fiction and nonfiction at the Loft, and her book, Lost & Found: A Memoir of Mothers, was featured on national ABC news.

SECOND STORY READING WITH MARINA BUDHOS AND BRYAN BLISS
Sunday, October 30, 2 p.m.
The Loft Literary Center Presents Second Story with Brian Bliss and Marina Budhos. Second Story is the Loft’s reading series for young adult and middle-grade authors. Perfect for families and readers of all ages, Second Story pairs a first-time author with a more established voice in children’s literature.

Bryan Bliss is the author of No Parking at the End Times. He holds master’s degrees in theology and fiction and—shockingly—found a professional job that allows him to use both of those degrees. His political philosophy degree, however, is still underutilized. His nonfiction has been published in Image Journal, along with various other newspapers, magazines, and blogs. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two children, both of whom wish he wrote books about dragons. Or wizards.

Marina Budhos is an author of award-winning fiction and nonfiction for adults and young adults. Her newest novel Watched takes on surveillance, and is a companion book to Ask Me No Questions, which was an ALA Best Books and Notable, and cited by Bustle.com as one of “12 YA Novels That Will Make You See the World Differently.” In 2017, Budhos will publish The Eyes of the World: Robert Capa, Gerda Taro & The Invention of Modern Photojournalism, co-authored with her husband Marc Aronson.  Their previous book,Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom & Science, was a Los Angeles Times Book Award Finalist. www.marinabudhos.com

Incorporated in 1975, The Loft Literary Center is one of the nation’s leading independent literary centers. The Loft advances the artistic development of writers, fosters a thriving literary community, and inspires a passion for literature.