Doors at 6:00pm · Conversation at 6:30pm
Free to attend. Every guest goes home with a free book from the America in 50 Books list.

For the next evening of America in 50 Books, we're bringing together a playwright, a novelist, and an architect to explore how writers capture  American places, and how real places get built and rebuilt. The panel will take up questions like: What makes a place feel true on the page? Who gets to define a town? How has the American town changed, both in literature and in real life, and what is it becoming?

The conversation draws on the books from our list that are most rooted in place, including Our Town, The House on Mango Street, A Street in Bronzeville, The Last Picture Show, There There, House Made of Dawn, Beloved, The Grapes of Wrath, and Invisible Man.

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about the series

America in 50 Books is First Light's community reading project for America's 250th anniversary. We started with a seemingly simple question: what novels, memoirs, poetry, history, essays, art books, and cookbooks have shaped how we understand America? The answer became a list of 50 titles spanning genres and centuries. Some are classics you might have read in high school, and others might surprise you.

The series opened in September with Brian Jones, senior director of Reading and Engagement at The New York Public Library, in conversation with First Light book buyer Sam Ackerman about curation, reading cultures, and the stories America tells about itself. This fall, we're continuing the conversation with writers, historians, artists, and cultural thinkers, using the list as a jumping-off point. America in 50 Books is supported by a grant from Emerson Collective.

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about the panelists

Kirk Lynn is a playwright, novelist, and one of the artistic directors of Rude Mechs, the Austin theater collective known for its experimental, wildly inventive work. He is Area Head and Professor of Playwriting and Directing in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin. His work includes the novel Rules for Werewolves and the plays Fixing the Last Henry and The Method Gun, the latter created with Rude Mechs. He lives in Austin with his wife, poet Carrie Fountain, and their children.

Bret Anthony Johnston is the author of the internationally bestselling novel Remember Me Like This and the award-winning story collection Corpus Christi: Stories, a book so rooted in its Gulf Coast setting that the place is practically a character. Born and raised in Texas, he has received a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, a 5 Under 35 honor from the National Book Foundation, and The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Esquire, The Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories. He directs the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin.

Chris Gannon, is an Austin architect advancing missing middle housing in design and policy as Principal at Shams Gannon Architecture. He is active in AIA Austin and chairs the Housing Advocacy Committee, recognized nationally for its work supporting missing middle policy and its novel advocacy structure. Locally, Chris sits on the City of Austin Planning Commission and Building and Fire Code Board of Appeals. 

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