John Freeman and Friends

What this episode covers

City Lights LIVE and Litquake celebrate the final issue of John Freeman’s distinguished journal “Freeman’s: Conclusions,” published by Grove Atlantic, with John Freeman, joined by Jaime Cortez, Elaine Castillo, and Oscar Villaon. Over the course of ten years, “Freeman’s" has introduced the English-speaking world to countless writers of international import and acclaim, from Olga Tokarczuk to Valeria Luiselli, while also spotlighting brilliant writers working in English, from Tommy Orange to Tess Gunty. Now, in its last issue, this unique literary project ponders all the ways of reaching a fitting conclusion. For Sayaka Murata, keeping up with the comings and goings of fashion and its changing emotional landscapes can mean being left behind, and in her poem “Amenorrhea,” Julia Alvarez experiences the end of the line as menopause takes hold. Yet sometimes an end is merely a beginning, as Barry Lopez meditates while walking through the snowy Oregonian landscapes. While Chinelo Okparanta’s story “Fatu” confronts the end of a relationship under the specter of new life, other writers look towards aging as an opportunity for rebirth, such as Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, who takes on the role of being her own elder, comforting herself in the ways that her grandmother used to. Finally, in his comic story “Everyone at Dinner Has a Max von Sydow Story,” Dave Eggers suggests that sometimes stories don’t have neat or clean endings—that sometimes the middle is enough. John Freeman is the founder of the literary annual “Freeman’s” and the author and editor of ten books, including “Dictionary of the Undoing,” “The Park,” “Tales of Two Planets,” “The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story,” and, with Tracy K. Smith, “There’s a Revolution Outside,” “My Love”. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Orion, and been translated into over twenty languages. The former editor of Granta, he lives in New York City, where he teaches writing at NYU and is an executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. Jaime Cortez is a writer and visual artist based in Watsonville, California. His fiction, essays, and drawings have appeared in diverse publications that include “Kindergarde: Experimental Writing For Children,” “No Straight Lines,” a 40-year compendium of LGBT comics, “Street Art San Francisco,” and “Infinite Cities,” an experimental atlas of San Francisco. He wrote and illustrated the graphic novel “Sexile” for AIDS Project Los Angeles in 2003. “Gordo” is Jaime’s debut collection of short stories, and was published by Grove Atlantic to national acclaim in 2021. Jaime received his BA in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania, and his MFA from UC Berkeley. Elaine Castillo, named one of “30 of the planet’s most exciting young people” by the Financial Times, was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her debut novel “America Is Not the Heart” was named one of the best books of 2018 and has been nominated for the Elle Award, the Center for Fiction Prize, the Aspen Words Prize, the Northern California Independent Booksellers Book Award, and the California Book Award. Her essay collection “How To Read Now” was published to wide acclaim in July 2022, and was chosen as the September pick for Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club, among others. Her latest longform essay on grief, dog rescue and the politics of dog training is forthcoming this fall from Scribd. She is currently working on her second novel, to be published in late 2024/early 2025. Oscar Villalon is the editor of “ZYZZYVA." His work has been published in The Believer, Freeman’s, VQR, Stranger’s Guide, Alta, and many other publications. He lives with his wife and son in San Francisco. You can purchase copies of “Freeman’s: Conclusions” at https://citylights.com/freemans-conclusions/ This event is made possible with the support of the City Lights Foundation. To learn more visit: https://citylights.com/foundation/

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