Online Events for Writers
The best online events for writers of fiction, poetry, and memoir.
Learn. Connect. Grow.
Post your events on social media using the hashtag #valleyofwritersevents to get onto our radar. All times are US Eastern Time.
- This event has passed.
Boston Book Festival: Ada’s Realm
October 19, 2021 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT
Free
About this event
Ada is not one, but many women: She revolves in orbits between Ghana and London before eventually landing in Berlin. But she is also all women—because these loops transport her from one century to the next. And so, she experiences the misery but also the joy of womanhood: she is a victim, she offers resistance, and she fights for her independence. With vivid language and infinite imagination—with empathy and humor—Sharon Dodua Otoo’s novel Ada’s Realm paints an astonishing picture of what it means to be a woman.
Since winning the Bachmann Prize in 2016, Sharon Dodua Otoo has become a fixture in German-language media, and the charismatic voice of a new generation: Black, self-confident, feminist. Her opening address for the 2020 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize was a sensation. Born in London in 1972, she now lives with both the English and German languages in Berlin. Her first novellas, the things I am thinking while smiling politely and Synchronicity, were written in English; since the publication of her Bachmann Prize-winning short story Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin, she writes primarily in German.
Jon Cho-Polizzi is an educator and freelance literary translator. He studied Literature, History, and Translation Studies in Santa Cruz and Heidelberg, before receiving his PhD in German and Medieval Studies at UC Berkeley with a dissertation titled A Different (German) Village: Writing Place through Migration. Jon was managing editor for Berkeley’s TRANSIT Journal, and is currently guest editing a second special issue of the journal with the English-language translation of the 2019 collection Eure Heimat is unser Albtraum (the first half of this collection was published in English translation in Spring 2020). In addition to his forthcoming translation of Sharon Dodua Otoo’s Adas Raum, Jon’s translations have appeared in the Jewish Museum Berlin, the Maxim Gorki Theater, taz, Jewish Currents, renk Magazin, Versopolis Poetry, and Der Spiegel, as well as in numerous anthologies. He lives and works between Northern California and Berlin.
Co-presented with the Boston Book Festival and the Center for German and European Studies, Brandeis University.
…
Please note:
The Valley of Writers team scours the web looking for the most inspiring, elevating, and accessible events that we can share as a service to our readers.
The big idea is that in a virtual arena, more people can participate. Geographical boundaries matter less.
The events we list are virtual and can be attended by writers from wherever they are in the world.
Unless otherwise stated, we are not affiliated with and do not benefit financially from the events we post. Listing is not an endorsement of the content, opinions, or products promoted by the event organizers we feature here.
Please verify all dates, times and other event details as these are subject to change and are beyond our control.
What qualifies an event as ‘lit’? Any event that we think would teach writers of fiction, memoir, and poetry useful skills, inspire them to produce great work, remind them of the power of this work we do and build stronger, mutually beneficial ties between writers and other creatives.
