SMC Presents Free Live Literary Talks & Readings this Fall

SMC Presents Free Live Literary Talks & Readings this Fall

Literary Series Resumes Online Oct. 3

SANTA MONICA, CA — Santa Monica College (SMC) will continue its Literary Talks & Readings series featuring a noteworthy spectrum of writers reading from and discussing their works. The ongoing series opens its 2023 fall season on Oct. 3.

All presentations in the series are free, and will be held online as live virtual events. A Zoom link to each talk will be posted with the listing on the SMC Events calendar at smc.edu/events shortly before the event begins. To attend the events, the Zoom software must be installed on the viewer’s computer. A free download is available at zoom.com.

The fall 2023 series lineup is:

• Tuesday, Oct. 3: Leye Adenle: “The Joys and Challenges of Crime Fiction” at 11:15 a.m. London resident Leye Adenle is a Nigeria-born, award-winning author of gripping and suspenseful crime thrillers that explore the darker side of human nature. His writing presents vivid descriptions of Nigerian society with a gritty realism, capturing the complexity of life in a country often misunderstood by outsiders. His debut novel, “Easy Motion Tourist,” won the prestigious Prix Marianne in France. His other notable novels include “When Trouble Sleeps” (2019) and “Unfinished Business” (2023). Adenle has written and recorded pieces for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service, and his work has appeared in publications such as the British current affairs weekly The Big Issue. He has also presented talks at universities and literary festivals around the world. A brief discussion and audience Q&A follow the talk. Sponsored by the SMC Global Citizenship Committee. Zoom link on Oct. 3 listing at smc.edu/events.
  

  

• Tuesday, Oct. 17: Aimee Nezhukumatathil: “The ‘Oceanic’ of Poetry: A Reading by Aimee Nezhukumatathil” at 11:15 a.m.Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of four books of poetry, including “Oceanic” (Copper Canyon, 2018) and “Lucky Fish” (Tupelo Press, 2011), winner of the Hoffer Grand Prize for Prose and Independent Books. She is also the author of “World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments” (Milkweed, 2020), a collection of nature essays named 2022 Book of the Year by Barnes and Noble, and co-author with Ross Gay of the chapbook “Lace & Pyrite” (Organic Weapon Arts, 2014). Nezhukumatathil is a professor of English at the University of Mississippi. Her work has been published in American Poetry Review, Poetry, Quarterly West, New England Review, Ploughshares, FIELD, Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Review, and Tin House, and widely anthologized. A brief discussion and audience Q&A follow the talk. Sponsored by the SMC Associates andSMC English Department. Zoom link on Oct. 17 listing at smc.edu/events.
  

  

• Tuesday, Nov. 14: Diane Ackerman: “Awakening the Senses, Romancing the Words, with Diane Ackerman” at 11:15 a.m. A celebrated interpreter of science and nature, Diane Ackerman is the award-winning author of two dozen works of nonfiction and poetry, including “The Zookeeper’s Wife” (2007); “A Natural History of the Senses” (1990), which inspired the popular PBS series; and “The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us” (Norton, 2014), a New York Times bestseller awarded a PEN New England Henry David Thoreau Prize for literary excellence in nature writing. Ackerman also authored the memoir “One Hundred Names for Love” (2012), the story of bringing her husband back from aphasia after he suffered a stroke. Her poetry and essays have also been published in leading literary journals, as well as The New York Times (where she is also an Op-Ed columnist), Smithsonian, The New Yorker, and National Geographic. A Guggenheim Fellow and winner of the Lavan Poetry Prize, Ackerman has been honored as a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library, and has the rare distinction of having a molecule named after her — the dianeackerone. A brief discussion and audience Q&A follow the talk. Sponsored by the SMC Associates and SMC English Department. Zoom link on Nov. 14 listing at smc.edu/events.
  

  

• Thursday, Nov. 30: Ling Ma: “Is the Fantastical an Axis of Reality? A Conversation with Ling Ma” at 11:15 a.m. Award-winning Chinese American novelist Ling Ma is an assistant professor of practice in the Arts at the University of Chicago. Her most recent book — “Bliss Montage: Stories” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022) — was named a National Indie Bestseller, a New Yorker Best Book of the Year, and a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice. Ma is the author of the critically acclaimed debut novel “Severance” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018), which has been translated into seven languages and received the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. She is a former journalist and editor, and her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Granta, Playboy, Vice, Chicago Reader, Ninth Letter, Buzzfeed, and more. Her fellowships include a Whiting Award, and an NEA creative writing fellowship. A brief discussion and audience Q&A follow the talk. Sponsored by the SMC Global Citizenship Committee. Zoom link on Nov. 30 listing at smc.edu/events.
  

  

For more than two decades, the SMC Literary Series has brought to campus such acclaimed writers as Khaled Hosseini (author of the bestselling “The Kite Runner”), Steph Cha (writer of the popular ‘Juniper Song’ novels), Audrey Niffenegger (author of the bestselling “Time Traveler’s Wife”), Edward J. Larson (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion”), and Viet Thanh Nguyen (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Sympathizer”).

Additional information is available by calling SMC’s Office of Public Programs at 310-434-4100.

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