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Hannah Bonner in conv with Louisa Hall - Bree: An Autobiography
Past event
Featured Book
Bree: An Autobiography
This book will be available for purchase at the event.
About This Event
Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate Hannah Bonner will read from her new book Bree: An Autobiography, and will be joined in conversation with Louisa Hall. University of Iowa Associate Professor and fellow Writers' Workshop graduate Bennett Sims offers the following introduction for Bree: "In Klute, Bree Daniels became one of the most memorable voices in film noir. In Bree: An Autobiography, Hannah Bonner has become one of the most memorable voices in whatever genre this book has invented. A deft hybrid of film theory, fiction, memoir, and persona poetry, which stylishly combines Bree’s brio with Bonner’s own, the book delivers a virtuosic performance of ventriloquism and insight, projecting the reader deep inside the mind inside the screen. The result is more than a brilliant debut: it’s an instant classic of cinema fiction and creative criticism, to be shelved alongside works like Gabriel Blackwell’s Madeleine E. and Tisa Bryant’s Unexplained Presence" (https://stickingplacebooks.com/books/bree-an-autobiograpy).Also, Melissa Febos, national bestselling author of Girlhood and The Dry Season, praises Bree as: "An arresting and elegant fictional memoir whose execution is as brilliant as its concept. I've never read anything like it."Hannah Bonner is a writer, film programmer, and educator. She was a 2023-2024 National Book Critics Circle Emerging Critics Fellow and the 2024-2025 CLAS Visiting Writer in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Iowa. Currently, she serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Brink as well as the Film Editor for TriQuarterly, and her writing has been supported by the Breadloaf Environmental Writers' Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, among others. She received The Robert B. Heilman Award for her review of Heather Lewis's Notice in the 2024 issue of The Sewanee Review. She is the author of Another Woman (EastOver Press 2024) and Bree: An Autobiography (Sticking Place Books 2026). She lives in Philadelphia. Louisa Hall's novels include Reproduction, Trinity and Speak. Reproduction (Ecco, 2023), is the story of a woman attempting to write a novel about Mary Shelley, then turning, instead, to write a contemporary Frankenstein. Trinity was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Award and the winner of the Langum Prize for historical fiction; Speak was a Best Book of the Year in NPR, Slate, the Washington Post, and Men's Journal. Her poems have appeared in The New Republic and The Southwest Review, and other journals, and my essays have appeared in the New York Times, LARB, Slate, The MIT Technology Review, and Texas Monthly.
Featured Author
Bonner, Hannah
Hannah Bonner is a writer, film programmer, and educator. She was a 2023-2024 National Book Critics Circle Emerging Critics Fellow and the 2024-2025 CLAS Visiting Writer in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Iowa. Currently, she serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Brink as well as the Film Editor for TriQuarterly, and her writing has been supported by the Breadloaf Environmental Writers' Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, among others. She received The Robert B. Heilman Award for her review of Heather Lewis's Notice in the 2024 issue of The Sewanee Review. She is the author of Another Woman (EastOver Press 2024) and Bree: An Autobiography (Sticking Place Books 2026). She lives in Philadelphia.
In Conversation With
Louisa Hall
Louisa Hall's novels include Reproduction, Trinity and Speak. Reproduction (Ecco, 2023), is the story of a woman attempting to write a novel about Mary Shelley, then turning, instead, to write a contemporary Frankenstein. Trinity was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Award and the winner of the Langum Prize for historical fiction; Speak was a Best Book of the Year in NPR, Slate, the Washington Post, and Men's Journal. Her poems have appeared in The New Republic and The Southwest Review, and other journals, and my essays have appeared in the New York Times, LARB, Slate, The MIT Technology Review, and Texas Monthly.
About the Venue
Prairie Lights Books
Prairie Lights sprang to life in May 1978 as a small, intimate bookstore offering titles by the newer voices of Raymond Carver and Alice Munro and by established authors like Eudora Welty and George Orwell. As the staff and customers tended the books with care much like a garden, the store grew and blossomed. By 1982 Prairie Lights transplanted itself from South Linn St. to South Dubuque and has gradually spread to three and a half floors, the half being an 1100 square foot coffee house located in the same space that the local literary society met throughout the 1930's, hosting writers Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, E.E Cummings and others. Gertrude Stein and friend Alice B. Toklas were scheduled for a reading but were sleeted in at Waukesha airport-- or so the story goes. Perhaps the strength of reputation lies in the reading series of local, national and international writers who have read their works which were broadcast live on stations WSUI and WOI and which was the only regular literary series of its kind. All of this could not have been possible without a loyal customer base and a dedicated staff. We thank our customers for their continued support, and welcome our new customers.
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