EVENT UPDATE: We regret to inform you that, due to unforeseen circumstances, the event with Kaveh Akbar and Hanif Abdurraqib on Thursday, April 10, has been cancelled. All ticket holders will receive an email from Writers Center Stage with more information.
Hanif Abdurraqib will be in conversation with Kaveh Akbar in place of Tommy Orange, who is unable to attend.
Iranian American writer Kaveh Akbar is a recipient of multiple Pushcart Prizes and the author of two acclaimed poetry collections including Calling a Wolf a Wolf (2017) and Pilgrim Bell (2021). In 2016, he published the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic about his ongoing struggles with addiction, a theme that he continued in his stellar first novel, Martyr!, published in 2024.
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His work has appeared in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first poetry collection, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much (2016), was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize. His first collection of essays, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us (2017), was named a book of the year by multiple outlets. In 2021, A Little Devil In America was released and became a finalist for several prestigious awards and won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. His most recent book, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
This event is a part of the The William N. Skirball Writers Center Stage Series presented by the Cuyahoga County Public Library Foundation and Case Western Reserve University and will be held at the Maltz Performing Arts Center at Case Western Reserve University. Live stream (and limited in-person) tickets are available at writerscenterstage.org.