BAM presents three one-night-only conversations in Jan & Feb, 2015 Miranda July with Lena Dunham, Jan 28 An Evening with Matt Groening and Lynda Barry, Feb 12 Neil Gaiman and Daniel Handler, Feb 17 Brooklyn, NY/Sep 18, 2014—Bestsellers, trend-setters, celebrities, visual wizards, and story- tellers converge at BAM in three wide-ranging, one-night-only events in the winter of 2015. Filmmaker Miranda July discusses her debut novel with Lena Dunham; legendary cartoonists Matt Groening and Lynda Barry compare storyboard ideas; and authors Neil Gaiman and Daniel Handler present a no-holds-barred evening of camaraderie. Tickets go on sale September 29 (September 22 for Friends of BAM). For ticket information call BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100 or visit www.BAM.org. Miranda July in Conversation With host Lena Dunham BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave) Jan 28 at 8pm Tickets: $35, 45, 50 “Miranda July's ability to pervert norms while embracing what makes us normal is astounding. Writing in the first person with the frank, odd lilt of an utterly truthful character, she will make you laugh, cringe and recognize yourself in a woman you never planned to be. By the time July tackles motherhood, the book has become a bible. Never has a novel spoken so deeply to my sexuality, my spirituality, my secret self. I know I am not alone.” —Lena Dunham on July’s The First Bad Man Celebrating the release of Miranda July’s debut novel, The First Bad Man (Scribner, 2015), BAM presents an evening of conversation between the acclaimed filmmaker, artist, and bestselling author of the 2007 short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You (Scribner) and fellow author and creative multi-hyphenate Lena Dunham (Not That Kind of Girl). Miranda July is a filmmaker, writer, and performing artist. She wrote, directed, and starred in The Future. Her first feature-length film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, received a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. July’s short fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper’s, and Zoetrope; her collection of stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and has been published in twenty countries. Her novel The First Bad Man will be published by Scribner in January 2015 and has received advance praise from fellow authors Andrew Solomon, Chris Ware, and Dana Spiotta, among others. Raised in Berkeley, California, she lives in Los Angeles. Lena Dunham is the creator and star of the critically acclaimed HBO series Girls, for which she also serves as executive producer, writer, and director. She has been nominated for eight Emmy Awards and has won two Golden Globes, including Best Actress for her work on Girls. Dunham has also written and directed two feature length films—including 2010's Tiny Furniture, which received its NY premiere at BAMcinemaFest—and created two web series. Her personal essay collection, Not That Kind of Girl, was published by Random House in September 2014, and she is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker. She graduated from Oberlin College in 2008. For press information, please contact Adriana Leshko at [email protected] or 718.724.8021. An Evening with Matt Groening & Lynda Barry Love, Hate & Comics—The Friendship That Would Not Die BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave) Feb 12 at 8pm Tickets: $35, 50 Legendary cartoonists and former college classmates Mat Groening and Lynda Barry talk about 40 years of love, hate, and comics and the perpetual joy of driving each other crazy. Matt Groening is the creator and executive producer of The Simpsons, now the longest-running scripted show in TV history, winner of multiple Emmy Awards and voted the "Best Show of the 20th Century" by Time magazine. He is also the creator of the Emmy Award-winning sci-fi series Futurama. In addition to his multiple Emmy Awards, Groening is the recipient of a Peabody Award; multiple Annie Awards; the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year, the highest honor presented by the National Cartoonist Society; and countless others. His weekly comic strip Life in Hell was syndicated to more than 250 weekly newspapers throughout the country and are collected in dozens of books and calendars. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in February 2012 and designed five Simpsons US postage stamps. Groening's publishing company, Bongo Entertainment, has published more than 400 comic books, trade paperback, and trade books in the past two decades and is now releasing e-books and apps. Lynda Barry has worked as a painter, cartoonist, writer, illustrator, playwright, editor, commentator, and teacher and has found these roles very much alike. She is the inimitable creator behind the seminal comic strip that was syndicated across North America in alternative weeklies for two decades, Ernie Pook’s Comeek featuring the incomparable Marlys and Freddy, as well as the books One! Hundred! Demons!, The Greatest of Marlys, Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel, Naked Ladies Naked Ladies Naked Ladies, and The Good Times are Killing Me which was adapted as an off-Broadway play and won the Washington State Governor’s Award. Lynda Barry has received many awards for her work, including a 2013 Lifetime Visual Arts Award, MOWA, Two William Eisner awards, The American Library Association’s Alex Award, The Wisconsin Library Association’s RR Donnelly Award, and Washington State Governor’s Award. Barry is currently Associate Professor in Interdisciplinary Creativity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; she teaches writing and picture making and runs the Image Lab at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. Her research centers on what the biological function of ‘the arts’ may be, why children feel able to draw, write, dance, sing, and act, and adults do not, and why the longing to be able to do these things persists well after we have given up on the possibility of ever being able to do so. Because of this work, Barry recently received the Holtz Center for Science & Technology’s 2014-5 Outreach Fellowship. Her bestselling and acclaimed creative writing-how-to-graphic novel for Drawn & Quarterly, What It Is, won the Eisner Award for Best Reality Based Graphic Novel and R.R. Donnelly Award for highest literary achievement by a Wisconsin author. Barry’s prose novel, and the follow up and creative drawing companion to What It Is, is entitled Picture This: The Near-Sighted Monkey Book. Her latest book, Syllabus (Drawn & Quarterly), is due out October 2014 and is based on the course plan for Barry’s workshops. Collaged texts, ballpoint-pen doodles, and watercolor washes adorn Syllabus’s yellow lined pages, which offer advice on finding a creative voice and using memories to inspire the writing process. For press information contact Sarah Garvey at [email protected] or 718.724.8025. En Garde! Neil Gaiman and Daniel Handler BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave) Feb 17 at 8pm Tickets: $25, 30, 40, 50 Two best-selling authors and versatile storytellers—Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) and Neil Gaiman—join forces in a no-holds-barred evening of mayhem as they either swordfight to the death or ask each other questions about literature. These two longtime friends and occasional collaborators come together for this unique and totally unpredictable event. Neil Gaiman is a New York Times bestselling author of more than 20 books, including short fiction, novels, comic books, and graphic novels. He also writes for radio and films. Gaiman’s fantasy novel, American Gods, took the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, and Locus awards—as did his bestselling young adult story, Coraline. Another children’s novel, The Graveyard Book, is the only work to win both the Newbery (US) and Carnegie (UK) Medals—awarded by librarians for the most prestigious contribution to children’s literature. Gaiman’s groundbreaking Sandman comics, which have garnered a large number of accolades including nine Eisner Awards, were described by Stephen King as having turned graphic novels into “art.” An issue of Sandman was the first comic book to receive literary recognition, the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story. In February 2015 he will publish his new book of fiction TRIGGER WARNING: Short Fictions and Disturbances (Morrow). He lives in the US and teaches at Bard College in New York. Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) is the author of the novels The Basic Eight, Watch Your Mouth, Adverbs, and with Maira Kalman, Why We Broke Up, which won the Michael J. Printz Honor. As Lemony Snicket, he has written the best-selling series All The Wrong Questions as well as A Series of Unfortunate Events, which has sold more than 60 million copies. Snicket is also the creator of several picture books, including the Charlotte Zolotow Award-winning The Dark, illustrated by Jon Klassen. Handler works extensively in music, serving as the adjunct accordionist for The Magnetic Fields and collaborating with composer Nathaniel Stookey on a piece commissioned and recorded by the San Francisco Symphony, entitled The Composer Is Dead, In February 2015 he will be publishing his new adult novel, We Are Pirates (Bloomsbury). He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and lives in his native San Francisco with his wife, illustrator Lisa Brown, and their son. For press information, please contact David Hsieh at [email protected] or 718.636.4129 x9. Credits Programming in the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House is supported and endowed by The Howard Gilman Foundation. Your tax dollars make BAM programs possible through funding from the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts.