Next City Event: The 215 Festival: Literature & the City

As part of The 215 Festival, Philadelphia’s annual literary celebration, Next American City is moderating a panel discussion with writers who depict and study cities in fiction. We will discuss our collective imagining of cities and how that has changed over time as urban realities transform.

The panel will be a lively conversation between the following panelists:

Emma Straub, a Brooklyn-based writer and author of Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures ; Temple University Journalism professor and writer Lori Tharps, who has written for Vibe, Entertainment Weekly, Ms. and The Philadelphia Inquirer, among other places; acclaimed novelist Diane McKinney-Whetstone, winner of numerous awards including the BCALA Literary Award for Fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, Inc. in 2005 and 2009; Nathaniel Popkin, editorial director of the blog Hidden City Philadelphia and author of Song of the City: An Intimate History of the American Landscape and The Possible City: Exercises in Dreaming Philadelphia.

The panel will also feature University of Pennsylvania Urban Studies professor Paul Farber, who recently co-edited a special issue of the journal Criticism on HBO’s series The Wire, and award-winning Philadelphia poet Linh Dinh, author of widely acclaimed volume of short stories, Blood and Soap, which is set in crowded, loud streets of Saigon and Philly, among other places.

The event will open with readings by Straub and McKinney-Whetstone. The event is free, but please RSVP.