Museum of the African Diaspora and Litquake present‍

Susan Straight, a self-proclaimed book nerd, and Dwayne Sims, an African American basketball player, started dating in high school. After marriage, at driveway barbecues and fish fries with the large, close-knit Sims family, Straight (and eventually her three daughters) heard the stories of Dwayne’s female ancestors. Some women escaped violence in post-slavery Tennessee, some escaped murder in Jim Crow Mississippi, and some fled abusive men. Her new memoir In the Country of Women is a valuable social history and a personal narrative that reads like a love song to America and indomitable women.

In conversation with Julie Lythcott-Haims.

‍Susan Straight has published eight novels, including Highwire Moon, Between Heaven and Here, and A Million Nightingales.  She has been a Finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the National Magazine Award.  She is the recipient of the Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Story, the O. Henry Prize, The Lannan Prize for Fiction, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.  

Her stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Granta, McSweeney’s, Black Clock, Harper’s, and other journals.  Her work has been translated into Spanish, German, French, Arabic, Turkish, Japanese, Romanian, Swedish, and Russian. She is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside. She was born in Riverside, where she lives with her family.

‍Julie Lythcott-Haims is author of the New York Times bestselling book How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success, and the recent memoir Real American, which details her personal battle with the low self-esteem that American racism routinely inflicts on people of color. She holds a BA from Stanford, a JD from Harvard Law School, and an MFA in writing from California College of the Arts. She is a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, and resides in the Bay Area with her husband, their two teenagers, and her mother.

‍FREE, $5-10 suggested donation