What is Talking Volumes without the Fitzgerald Theater, the stage and the audience? We’re about to find out as we go all-digital this season with four of the most dynamic, exceptional women writing about race and culture, nature and family and politics today.
Here’s how it will work: Pay what you can and support Talking Volumes by purchasing a ticket to see the video interview. Then join a post-interview discussion online with the Star Tribune.
Or wait to listen to the broadcast interview on my 9 a.m. show. Either way, I promise you a singular literary conversation.
OK, here’s our lineup: Poet and memoirist Claudia Rankine brings us “Just Us,” a remarkable series of essays, poems and narratives that are intimate and honest as they explore justice, race, politics, joy and everyday living. We’ll also talk about the photographs that punctuate this provocative collection.
Helen Macdonald, whose memoir “H is for Hawk” was a global best seller, is here with a new collection called “Vesper Flights.” The book is introspective, exhilarating and at times, mournful as Macdonald reflects on animals and birds, nature and beauty. I’m eager to talk to her about what it means that some of our last wild places on the edges of cities are disappearing.
Sarah Broom’s book “The Yellow House” about her family’s life in a small house in New Orleans is a national sensation and now out in paperback. It’s an extraordinary memoir and exploration of the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, the roots we put down and what happens when all of that vanishes.
Finally, Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste” is the culmination of a yearslong examination of inequity in America, beginning with the arrival of the first Africans in 1619 and continuing today in what she calls a caste system that is not dissimilar to India’s.
So, that’s our all-digital Talking Volumes lineup. Lots of details and ticket information at MPRevents.org.
— Kerri Miller | 
